James C Blackmon Classical Empiricism Contents The Spirit of Empiricism Classical Empiricists Key Concepts Tabula Rasa Ideas and Qualities Primary and Secondary Qualities Immaterialism and Idealism ID: 260434
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Slide1
Classical Empiricism
James C. BlackmonSlide2
Classical Empiricism
Contents
The Spirit of Empiricism
Classical Empiricists
Key Concepts
Tabula
Rasa
Ideas and Qualities
Primary and Secondary Qualities
Immaterialism and Idealism
Matter and Real Existence
Matters of Fact and Relations of
IdeasSlide3
The Spirit of EmpiricismSlide4
The Spirit of Empiricism
Empiricism: The only source of real knowledge about the world is experience.Slide5
The Spirit of Empiricism
Empiricism: The only source of real knowledge about the world is experience.
The spirit of empiricism is famously captured by the metaphor of the blank slate, or
tabula rasa
. Slide6
The Spirit of Empiricism
Empiricism: The only source of real knowledge about the world is experience.
The
spirit of empiricism is famously captured by the metaphor of the blank slate, or
tabula rasa
.Slide7
The Spirit of Empiricism
Tabula Rasa (Latin: Blank Slate)
The
human mind is a blank slate on which the world
writes
through experience. Experience yields sensations/ideas, normally complex, but which break down into simples.Slide8
The Spirit of Empiricism
“Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper, void of all characters, without any ideas: — How comes it to be furnished? Whence comes it by that vast store which the busy and boundless fancy of man has painted on it with an almost endless variety? Whence has it all the materials of reason and knowledge? To this I answer, in one word, from EXPERIENCE. In that all our knowledge is founded; and from that it ultimately derives itself.”—John
LockeSlide9
The Spirit of Empiricism
Empiricism: The only source of real knowledge about the world is experience.
Experience provides us with sensory data through the senses.
The elements of experience were then called
ideas
.Slide10
The Spirit of Empiricism
Empiricism: The only source of real knowledge about the world is experience.
T
he image of a bright red ball
T
he taste of pineapple
The sound of wind chimes
T
he feel of sandpaperSlide11
The Spirit of Empiricism
Empiricism: The only source of real knowledge about the world is experience.
Ideas are typically taken to be
Private
Immediate
IndubitableSlide12
The Spirit of Empiricism
Ideas are Private
Whatever ideas you have now, I cannot literally share them.
You can tell me about them.
I can make guesses.
But you are the only one experiencing your ideas.Slide13
The Spirit of Empiricism
Ideas are Immediate
While information is often
mediated
by something between the source and the recipient, ideas are considered to be the final product.Slide14
The Spirit of Empiricism
Ideas are Indubitable
Indubitable
means
cannot
be
doubted
.
You can doubt many things, but can you doubt whether you are having an experience?
Even experiences which result from hoaxes, magic tricks, hallucinations, and dreams are nonetheless experiences you have.Slide15
The Spirit of Empiricism
According to empiricism, the only source of true knowledge about the world is experience.
The elements of experience are ideas (as they use the term).
So, according to empiricism, all our ideas come from experience.Slide16
The Spirit of Empiricism
But if all our ideas come from experience, then how can we have ideas of things we have never experienced?
In other words, what about figments of the imagination?Slide17
The Spirit of Empiricism
Empiricists answer that we simply rearrange ideas we have gotten from experience.Slide18
The Spirit of Empiricism
Empiricists answer that we simply rearrange ideas we have gotten from experience.
Horse + Horn = UnicornSlide19
The Spirit of Empiricism
Empiricists answer that we simply rearrange ideas we have gotten from experience.
Horse + Horn = Unicorn
Ideas are either simple or complex, and we can rearrange them in our minds.Slide20
The Spirit of Empiricism
Examples of the Spirit of Empiricism in Medicine
John
Snow (1813-1858
)
Ignaz
Semmelweiss
(1818-1865)Slide21
The Spirit of Empiricism
How do diseases spread?
Miasma Theory: Breathing the foul gases (bad air, night air) exuded from decaying organic matter in swamps is how one gets cholera (and
chlamidia
, the Black Death, etc.).Slide22
The Spirit of Empiricism
How do diseases spread?
Germ Theory: Things which are
too small to see
spread to us by contact or ingestion and cause disease.Slide23
The Spirit of Empiricism
John Snow (
1813-1858
)
Snow hypothesized that cholera was spread by germs (or “morbid material”) in drinking water.
Mapping an outbreak of cholera in London 1854, Snow surmised that it centered on a public water pump.
He convinced the local council to remove the pump handle, thereby disabling it.
As predicted, the outbreak ended.Slide24
The Spirit of Empiricism
Ignaz
Semmelweiss (1818-1865)
Semmelweiss
hypothesized that “cadaverous material” was transmitted by contact and caused childbed fever which was killing women who had just given birth.
He proposed that if obstetricians washed hands with chlorinated lime solutions, this would reduce the deaths.
As he predicted, it worked.
However, his hypothesis met with great resistance.Slide25
The Spirit of Empiricism
Now you know a bit about what the spirit of empiricism is. Let’s learn more about empiricism by seeing what it is not.
After all, some of you may be wondering, “Who doesn’t think that knowledge of the world must come from experience?”Slide26
The Spirit of Empiricism
Empiricism contrasts with RationalismSlide27
The Spirit of Empiricism
Empiricism contrasts with Rationalism
Rationalists believe we can have some knowledge of the world
independent
of any particular experience. Slide28
The Spirit of Empiricism
Empiricism contrasts with Rationalism
Rationalists believe we can have some knowledge of the world
independent
of any particular experience.
These ideas
, they argue, couldn’t possibly come through the senses, yet through attentive reasoning about/with them, we can discover truths about the world.Slide29
The Spirit of Empiricism
Empiricism contrasts with Rationalism
Typically, rationalists hold that we do not enter the world as a blank slate.
We enter with a few ideas that are
innate
(inborn).Slide30
The Spirit of Empiricism
Empiricism: No innate ideas!
Rationalism: A few innate ideas.Slide31
The Spirit of Empiricism
Let’s see some rationalist arguments so we can see what empiricism rejects.
A simple rationalist argument for dualism, the idea that there are two kinds of things in reality: physical things and mental things.
A simple rationalist argument for the existence of God.
Neither argument makes any explicit appeal to the content of experience gained through the senses.Slide32
The Spirit of Empiricism
Rationalist Argument for Dualism
I can doubt the existence of my body.
I cannot doubt the existence of my mind.
Thus, body and mind are not identical.
This argument makes a claim about the world without appeal to any particular experience.Slide33
The Spirit of Empiricism
Rationalist Argument for Dualism
I can doubt the existence of my body.
I cannot doubt the existence of my mind.
Thus, body and mind are not identical.
Because the argument is not based in experience, and yet describes the world, no empiricist will accept it!Slide34
The Spirit of Empiricism
Rationalist Argument for God
God is by definition the greatest being possible.
A being who fails to actually exist is not as great as a being who exists necessarily.
Thus, God exists necessarily.
This also
makes a claim about the world without appeal to any particular experience
.Slide35
The Spirit of Empiricism
Rationalist Argument for God
God is by definition the greatest being possible.
A being who fails to actually exist is not as great as a being who exists necessarily.
Thus, God exists necessarily.
Because the argument is not based in experience, and yet describes the world, no empiricist will accept it!Slide36
The Spirit of Empiricism
Empiricism contrasts with Rationalism
Rationalists hold that we have knowledge (or concepts or ideas) that empiricism cannot explain.
The empiricist must either explain how we get this knowledge through the senses or deny that we have it.Slide37
Classical EmpiricistsSlide38
Classical Empiricists
John Locke (
1632-1704
)George Berkeley (1685-1753)
David Hume (1711-1776)
While the classical empiricists shared in the spirit of empiricism, they had quite different ideas about the world and our knowledge of it.Slide39
Classical Empiricists
John Locke (
1632-1704
)George Berkeley (1685-1753)
David Hume (1711-1776)
While the classical empiricists shared in the spirit of empiricism, they had quite different ideas about the world and our knowledge of it.
In fact, as we will see, each of these men had distinct ontological and epistemological commitments. Slide40
John Locke
Brief Biography
1632-1704, English
Bachelor of Medicine 1674
His political philosophy strongly influenced Thomas Jefferson and the writing of the Declaration of Independence.Slide41
John Locke
John Locke 1693
But if a long train of abuses, prevarications, and artifices, all tending the same way, make the design visible to the people, and they cannot but feel what they lie under, and see whither they are going, it is not to be wondered that they should then rouse themselves, and endeavor to put the rule into such hands which may secure to them the end for which government was at first erected...
Declaration of Independence 1776
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security
.Slide42
John Locke
Here is the idea of a cat.Slide43
John Locke
According to Locke
There are mind-independent entities (cats, trees, tables) which stand in causal and representational relations to the ideas in our mind.Slide44
John Locke
According to Locke
x is
mind-independent
if and only if
x can exist without being perceived or conceived in some mind
.Slide45
John Locke
According to Locke
The cats tend to cause cat ideas.
Cat ideas represent (however well or poorly) cats.Slide46
John Locke
According to Locke
We have
immediate
access to our cat ideas.
We have only
mediated
access to cats.
The
immediate
cat idea
mediates
our experience of the cat.Slide47
John Locke
According to Locke
Bodies (rocks, trees, cats, tables) have two kinds of qualities: primary and secondary.Slide48
John Locke
According to Locke
Primary qualities are qualities which are utterly inseparable from the bodies which have them.
Solidity, Extension, Figure, MobilitySlide49
John Locke
According to Locke
Secondary qualities are powers to produce various sensations in us by way of primary qualities.
Colors, Sounds, Tastes, etc.
This works by “impulse”, a “motion” continued by the nerves to the brain, the seat of sensation.Slide50
John Locke
According to Locke
Ideas of primary qualities are resemblances.
You can get the straightness idea from a needle, and this is an idea of a primary quality in the needle: straightness.Slide51
John Locke
According to Locke
Ideas of primary qualities are resemblances.
Ideas of secondary qualities are not resemblances.Slide52
John Locke
According to Locke
Ideas of primary qualities are resemblances.
Ideas of secondary qualities are not resemblances.
You can get the idea of pain from a needle, but this does not mean there is pain in the needle. Nor is there a silver color or a coldness.Slide53
John Locke
According to Locke
Ideas of primary qualities are resemblances.
Ideas of secondary qualities are not resemblances. Slide54
George Berkeley
Brief Biography
1685-1753, Irish
Wrote on human vision and perspective
Advocated
Immaterialism
, which most people now call
Idealism
Later influenced Ernst Mach and Albert EinsteinSlide55
George Berkeley
Recall the idea of a cat.
This is about all Locke and Berkeley agree on.Slide56
George Berkeley
According to Berkeley
There is no veil of ideas hiding some mind-independent reality.
There are just ideas and the things that have them—minds.
Mind-independent things are not testable, useful, or even conceivable.Slide57
George Berkeley
According to Berkeley
Mind-independent
bodies
are
not testable
.
For we can imagine getting the same “train of sensations” that we are getting now, but without the help of external bodies.
Their existence makes no empirical difference!Slide58
George Berkeley
According to Berkeley
Mind-independent bodies are
not useful
.
For if the true cat is not perceivable, then we must explain how this unperceivable thing resembles our perceptions. Unperceivable causes of idea are more trouble than they’re worth!Slide59
George Berkeley
According to Berkeley
Mind-independent objects are
inconceivable
.
For if you try to conceive of an object existing independent of any mind, then you are trying to conceive of an object existing unconceived.
And this is a “manifest repugnancy”.Slide60
George Berkeley
The Master Argument Challenge
Try conceive an x existing outside of all minds.
If you conceive an x, x is in some mind (yours).
So it doesn’t exist outside of all minds.
Thus you cannot conceive an x existing outside of all minds.Slide61
George Berkeley
The Master Argument Challenge
“As
I was thinking of a tree in a solitary place, where no one was present to see it,
methought
that was to conceive a tree as existing unperceived or
unthought
of; not considering that I myself conceived it all the while. But now I plainly see that all I can do is to frame ideas in my own
mind.”
—The character,
Hylas
, in
Three
Dialogues Between
Hylas
and
Philonous
(1713)Slide62
George Berkeley
Thus the mind-independent objects of the
Lockean
view can be rejected.
Untestable
Useless
InconceivableSlide63
George Berkeley
Thus the mind-independent objects of the
Lockean
view can be rejected.
Untestable
Useless
InconceivableSlide64
George Berkeley
Thus the mind-independent objects of the
Lockean
view can be rejected.
Immaterialism: There are no material (mind-independent) objects.Slide65
George Berkeley
Thus the mind-independent objects of the
Lockean
view can be rejected.
Immaterialism: There are no material (mind-independent) objects.
Idealism: Only minds and their contents (ideas) exist.Slide66
George Berkeley
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Berkeley think there are no physical objects like rocks, trees, cats, and tables?
Does Berkeley think that life is but a dream or that reality is “all in our heads” and that it can thus conform to our wishes?
Can Berkeley be refuted by making appeals to the experiences we have when interacting with physical objects, say, when a kicking rock and feeling, seeing, and hearing the solidity of the rock?
No. No. And No.Slide67
George Berkeley
Answers to Frequently Asked Questions
The physical objects like rocks, trees, cats, and tables
just
are
the things you directly experience.
Some of our ideas (in our imagination) conform to our wishes
;
others (experienced trees, cats, tables) do not
.
Recall that for Berkeley, it is the
idea
which looks, feels, and sounds like a solid object. So it is the idea we know to exist when we have such experiences. This in no way entails the existence of some additional unseen, unfelt, unheard rock.Slide68
George Berkeley
John Locke
George BerkeleySlide69
David Hume
Brief Biography
1711-1776, Scottish
The History of England
Influential in ethics, psychology, philosophy of science, philosophy of religion
Advocate of natural philosophy and experimental method
SkepticSlide70
David Hume
There are two kinds of things we can reason about: Relations of Ideas and Matters of Fact.Slide71
David Hume
Relations of Ideas
Discoverable by the mere operation of thought
Intuitively or demonstratively certain; the contrary is impossible.
Geometry, Algebra, Arithmetic
Do NOT depend on existence.
Matters of Fact
Not discoverable by the mere operation of thought
The contrary of a matter of fact is also possible.
News, science, and information about the world.
Do depend on the way the world is.Slide72
David Hume
Relations of Ideas
Discoverable by the mere operation of thought
The square of the hypotenuse equal to the sums of the squares of the two sides.
3 x 5 = 30/2
Denying such a proposition yields a contradiction.
Matters of Fact
Not discoverable by the mere operation of thought
The Normans invaded England in 1066.
An atom of gold has 79 protons.
Denying such a proposition does not yield a contradiction.Slide73
David Hume
Relations of Ideas
Propositions regarding relations of ideas are discovered or justified
a priori
; that is, they are discovered or justified independent of any particular experience.
Matters of Fact
Propositions regarding matters of fact are discovered or justified
a posteriori
; that is, their discovery or justification depends on some particular matter of fact.Slide74
David Hume
Consider: The sun will rise tomorrow.
No matter how certain you are of this, it’s easy to imagine that the sun will not rise tomorrow.
No matter how many times the sun has risen, there is no contradiction in supposing that it will not rise tomorrow.Slide75
David Hume
So Hume’s question is: What evidence do we have of any matter of fact?
How can we get “beyond the present testimony of our senses, or the records of our memory”?Slide76
David Hume
As a pure philosopher, Hume cheerfully admits he doesn’t see how we could ever do this.
We are not justified in adopting the belief in “real existence” which Locke holds.
But we are also not justified in rejecting such things with certainty, as Berkeley does.
As a critic, Hume is agnostic.Slide77
David Hume
The consequence, however, is striking: We cannot justify our firmly held beliefs about the unobserved.
We cannot justify a (non-
Berkelean
) belief in mind-independent cats.
Moreover, we cannot justify our belief that the sun will rise tomorrow. Slide78
David Hume
The Problem of Induction (The Mother of All Problems)
As expressed by Godfrey-Smith
What reason do we have for expecting patterns observed in our past experience to hold also in the future?
What justification do we have for using past observations as a basis for generalization about things we have not yet observed?
What reason to we have for thinking that the future will resemble the past?Slide79
David Hume
The Problem of Induction
Hume’s Positive Argument (Simple Version)
Inductive reasoning is not justified demonstratively.
Inductive reasoning is not justified non-demonstratively.
Thus, inductive reasoning is not justified.Slide80
David Hume
The Problem of Induction
Hume’s Positive Argument (Simple Version)
Inductive reasoning is not justified demonstratively.
Inductive reasoning is not justified non-demonstratively.
Thus, inductive reasoning is not justified.
Why should we accept premises 1 and 2?Slide81
David Hume
The Problem of Induction
Inductive reasoning is not justified demonstratively.
Hume writes that “it implies no contradiction, that the course of nature may change…”
Burning snow, for example, is intelligible.Slide82
David Hume
The Problem of Induction
Inductive reasoning is not justified non-demonstratively.
Hume points out that it would be circular to try to justify inductive reasoning non-demonstratively, “taking that for granted, which is the very point in question.” … “For all inferences from experience suppose, as their foundation, that the future will resemble the past, and that similar powers will be conjoined with similar sensible qualities.”Slide83
David Hume
The Problem of Induction
Hume’s Positive Argument (Simple Version)
Inductive reasoning is not justified demonstratively.
Inductive reasoning is not justified non-demonstratively.
Thus,
inductive
reasoning is not justified.
Premise 1 is allegedly true because if induction were justified demonstratively, then we would find that the denial of induction would entail a contradiction.Slide84
David Hume
The Problem of Induction
Hume’s Positive Argument (Simple Version)
Inductive reasoning is not justified demonstratively.
Inductive reasoning is not justified non-demonstratively.
Thus,
inductive
reasoning is not justified.
Premise 2 is allegedly true because you allegedly cannot justify an inference rule or method with itself.Slide85
David Hume
The Problem of
Induction: Inductive reasoning is not justified! We have no rational reason to expect the sun to rise tomorrow, no matter how many times it’s risen in the past. We cannot justifiably say our observations, no matter how careful, get us in touch with the causal relations in the world, or whatever physical laws there may be, or with whatever powers things may have due to their nature.
This huge.
It threatens the very basis of our daily and scientific reasoning.
For without an ability to justifiably predict or explain our world, it would seem we’re left with just historical reports on what has happened so far.Slide86
Hume’s Legacy
In
response to Hume’s Problem, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) writes that Hume awakened his “dogmatic slumber”.
Kant felt that causation,
physical
law, an external world
needed to be secured. Slide87
Hume’s Legacy
Kant
argued that
they could be secured, if we reason carefully about the conditions of experience
.
As he saw it, Hume’s division of objects of thought into relations of ideas and matters of fact was a false dilemma.
There was another category.Slide88
Hume’s Legacy
First, we need to understand the difference between analytic and synthetic claims.
Analytic claims can be known to be true simply by analyzing the concepts involved: All bachelors are unmarried.Slide89
Hume’s Legacy
Synthetic claims, on the other hand, cannot be known to be true in this way: Some bachelors are vegetarians.
This distinction, he held, is different that the distinction between the
a
priori
and the
a posteriori
.Slide90
Analytic
Synthetic
a
priori
No
bachelors are married.
?
a
posteriori
?
Some bachelors are vegetarians.
Earth has one moon.Slide91
Analytic
Synthetic
a
priori
No
bachelors are married.
3+2=5
The
squares of the legs of a right triangle sum to the square of the hypotenuse.
a
posteriori
X
Some bachelors are vegetarians.
Earth has one moon.Slide92
Kant’s Transcendental Arguments
But how can we have
a
priori
synthetic knowledge?
It doesn’t come from experience because it’s
a priori
.
It doesn’t come from conceptual analysis because it’s synthetic.Slide93
Kant’s Transcendental Arguments
But how can we have
a
priori
synthetic knowledge?
Kant argues that we establish
a priori
synthetic knowledge by using a
transcendental argument
.Slide94
Kant’s Transcendental Arguments
Transcendental Argument
Start with something obvious, uncontested, given, E.
Figure out what precondition P must hold in order for E to be even possible.
Conclude that P is the case.Slide95
Kant’s Transcendental Arguments
Transcendental Argument
For example:
We all agree we have inner experience of objects.
But this experience wouldn’t even be possible without space.
Thus space is a precondition of the experience of objects.Slide96
Kant’s Transcendental Arguments
Transcendental Argument
One doesn’t infer the existence of space from a sense impression of space.
Nor does one discover it by conceptual analysis.Slide97
Kant’s Transcendental Arguments
A
tradition grew up around this idea, some of it critical of Kant’s work, but all of it drawing from
it…Slide98
END