Rationalism, Empiricism, Acceleration

Descartes' specific Mathematical innovation is the application of Algebra to phenomena.  Newton develops that technique further, by inventing Calculus, to apply to his most fundamental discovery--the correlation of Force and Acceleration.  But, despite this combination of Rational and Empirical methods, neither Newton nor anybody else has represented Acceleration by anything more than an approximation, i. e. 'approaching zero differential'.  In other words, even though Acceleration is accepted as concretely existing, neither Rationalists nor Empiricists have supplied an immediate Epistemological foundation of such an existent.  Nor does Bergson's later Intuition of Motion explain Acceleration, i. e. as opposed to any other rate.  So, despite the predominance of Epistemology in Modern Philosophy, and the centrality to the era of debates between them, neither proves adequate to the phenomenon that is perhaps the foundation of Modern Physics.