In the next three chapters, Part II, we describe a number of approaches specific to AI problem-solving and consider how they reflect the rationalist, empiricist, and pragmatic philosophical positions. In this chapter, we consider artificial intelligence tools and techniques that can be critiqued from a rationalist perspective. A rationalist worldview can be described as a philosophical position where, in the acquisition and justification of knowledge, there is a bias toward utilization of unaided reason over sense experience (Blackburn 2008). Rene Descartes, as mentioned in Chap. 2, was arguably the most influential rationalist philosopher after Plato, and one of the first thinkers to propose a near axiomatic foundation for his worldview.
