EMPIRICISTS’ VIEWs On

Knowledge

Fr. Anil dungdung, hgn.

roll. No. 21202
 1. Introduction

British
 Empiricism is a practical philosophical movement, which grew in Britain during
the age of reason and age of enlightenment of 17th and 18th century.

Major
 figures are: John Locke, George Berkley and David Hume.

Origin
 of knowledge through sense experience.

emphasized
 role of experience and evidence and sensory perception in the formation of
ideas.

Doesn’t
 count the notion of innate ideas but relies on induction or inductive reasoning in
order to build more complex body from direct experience.

Modern
 science and the scientific methods is considered to be methodologically empirical
in nature.
 2. CONCEPT OF “TABULA RASA”

 The concept “Tabula Rasa”, (clean state) had been developed as early as 11 th
century by Persian philosopher Avicenna,

 He argued that knowledge is attained through empirical familiarity with

objects of the world.
 Francis Bacon can be considered British empiricist because of his
popularization of an inductive methodology for scientific enquiry which is
scientific method.
 3. JOHN LOCKE (1632-1704)
 In late 17th century, in “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding”.

 introduced British empiricism with its emphasis on “experience”.

 Mind is “tabula rasa”, on which experiences leave their marks.

 His aim is to examine and determine the extent of human knowledge by

examining ideas, which is immediate object of knowledge.

 Every human being has several ideas, such as whiteness, hardness, sweetness,
thinking motion etc.

 It is through experience knowledge of things come.

 3.1 Sense perception and Reflection
 Sense perception: Through sensation we have the ideas of objects
such as yellow, white, heat, cold, soft, bitter sweet and those we
call sensible qualities.

 Because they are perceivable through our senses.

 All our ideas depend on senses and derived by them to our

understanding which is sensation.
 Reflection: operation of our minds

 When soul comes to reflect on and consider, their perception, like

thinking, doubting, knowing, willing and all different actions of
our own mind. It could be called internal sense, but Locke says
“Reflection”.

 external material things as the object of sensation and operations

of our own mind within, as object of reflection are the only
originals from where all our ideas take place their beginnings.
 3.2 IDEAS

 Simple ideas: Anything that is “immediate object of perception”

(i.e., object as it is perceived by mind)

 or that mind perceives in itself through reflection.

 Compound ideas: simple ideas may be repeated to produce

compound ideas as apples are produced by bringing together
simple ideas of certain color, texture and figure etc.
 3.3 Qualities of object

 Qualities of an objects are its powers to cause ideas in mind.

 One consequence of this usage is that in Locke’s

epistemology, words designating sensible properties of an
objects are systematically ambiguous.

 E.g., word red can mean either idea of red in mind or the
quality in an object that causes the idea.

 Locke distinguished between primary and secondary qualities.

 3.3.1 PRIMARY QUALITIES

 Primary qualities are essential for a thing to be what it is.

 IOW, primary quality of an object resembles the ideas they cause in

the mind. It includes, size, shape, waight and solidity etc.

 Example: an apple is an apple because of its atomic structure. If it

were to be structured differently it would not be an apple.
 3.3.2 SECONDARY QUALITIES

 Qualities which are nothing in the object themselves, but powers

to produce various sensations in us by their primary qualities i.e.,
by bulk, figure, texture and motion, as sounds, colors, odours and
tastes.

 E.g., Whiteness of snowball

 Primary qualities are the real and original qualities because they
are in things themselves, secondary qualities depend on their
modifications.
 4. George Berkley (1685-1753)
 Objects exist only as perception and not as matter separate from
perception.

 He summed up in his dictum “esse est percipi” ‘to be is to be perceived”

 theory of immaterialism, which was later referred by others as subjective

idealism.

 The theory: reality consists exclusively of mind and their ideas. Individuals
can only directly know sensations and ideas., and not the objects
themselves.

 Aim: to present that the mental object and the real sensible things are one
and the same.
 4.1 World of ideas

 Our world is a world of ideas which are perceived

 and of spirits or minds which perceive the ideas.

 4.1 “Percipi” (ideas)

 Object of human knowledge are either ideas actually imprinted on our senses; or
perceived by attending to passions and operations of mind; or ideas formed by
memory or imagination.
 We have the ideas of light and colors, hard and soft, heat and cold, more and less in
degrees and variations.
 Some accompany each other marked by one name and so one thing. Example; color,
taste, smell, figure and consistence having been observed to go together are
accounted as distinct thing, signified by name. e.g., Apple and passions of love,
hatred, etc.
 4.2 “Percipire” (SPIRIT)
 Beside these ideas or objects to knowledge there is likewise
something which knows or perceives them.

 This perceiving active being is what he calls mind, spirit, soul or

myself.

 It is entirely distinct from ideas; it is wherein they exist. Neither our

thoughts nor passions, nor ideas formed by imagination exist
without the mind.
 4.3 THEOLOGICAL LOOPHOLES
 He argued that there exists an infinite spirit and a multitude of finite spirits
(humans) and we are in communication with God via our experience.

 E.g., if one saw a table, then table existed. If no one saw then it could only
continue to exist in infinite mind that perceives all, that is God.

 He further argued that it was God who causes us to experience physical

objects by directly willing us to experience matter.

 He differed from Locke and Hume in believing that what we were

experiencing were only ideas sent from God and not things themselves.
 5. David Hume (1711-1776)

 adequate philosophy-based ordinary sense experience impressions.

 skeptical than any of the philosophers.

 There is important qualitative difference between “experience” at the

time of their original occurrence (man feels pain of excessive heat)

 And when he recalls his memory this sensation or anticipates it by

imagination.

 Based on this he divides perception into two types.

 5.1 Division of perceptions
 Ideas: The less forcible and less lively are commonly dominated thoughts
or ideas. E.g. recolling, imagining etc.

 The other is “impression”: it means all our lively perceptions, when we

hear, see, or feel, love or hate or desire etc.

 Hume limits human knowledge to appearances and them alone.

 No possibility of acquiring knowledge of essence or ultimate principles of

being. Any further enquiry is rejected.
 5.2 Association of ideas
 There is principle of connection between different thoughts and ideas of
mind, in memory or imagination,

 Resemblance: A picture leads our thought to original picture. Tajmahal

 Congruity in time and space: Apartment in the building naturally

introduces an enquiry concerning others.

 Cause and effect: if we think of wound, we can scarcely forbear reflecting

on pain that follows.
 5.3 Human knowledge
 Human knowledge can be divided into two categories:

 relation of ideas: mathematical and logical proposition

(geometry, algebra and arithmetic, intuitively or demonstratively
certain, e.g., 5x3=15 or three times five is equal to half of thirty).

 matter of fact: proposition involving some contingent

observation of the world, such as, the sun rises in the east. And
ideas are derived from impressions or sensations.
 5.4 PROBLEM OF INDUCTION and Hume's skepticism

 humans tend to believe that things behave n a particular manner, and that particular in
behavior of objects will persist into future and throughout the unobserved present.

 He says, it is natural instinct, rather than reason, that explains our ability to make inductive
inferences. It is seen as his major contribution to epistemology.
 Hume’s scepticism

 With regard to the notion of causality, He said, it is not always clear how something is
actually caused by another thing. E.g., night and day.

 It is mental act of association that is the basis of our concept of causation.

 6. CONCLUDING REMARKS

 Empiricists throughout their discussions, rely on sense perception as basis of

knowledge.

 They speak about certainty of sense perception, on which knowledge is founded.

Modern science and the scientific methods are considered to be
methodologically empirical in nature.

 We also find empiricists epistemology contributing in all the aspects of human

life, such as in religion, political and social life, which are dependent on the
knowledge of human. Even after centuries, it continues to impact the human
society.
gratitude

DEAR FATHERS AND

BROTHERS FOR YOUR
PATIENT LISTENING

“GOD BLESS US ALL”