Empiricism and Locke's Theory of Knowledge

Empiricism

• Reaction against continental rationalism.
• Belief that reliable knowledge comes from experience.
• John Locke: Knowledge is founded and derived from experience.
  • Experience supplies materials for thinking.
  • Senses convey perceptions of objects, leading to ideas of sensible qualities (sensation).
• Reflection: Perception of the operations of our own mind, furnishing another set of ideas.
  • Ideas include perception, thinking, doubting, believing, reasoning, knowing and willing.
  • Mind notices its own operations, leading to ideas of these operations.
• Two originals from where all our ideas take their beginnings:
  • External material things as objects of sensation.
  • Operations of our own minds within, as objects of reflection.
• John Locke (1632 – 1704) is regarded as the father of British empiricism.
• Interested in epistemology (the theory of knowledge)

Tabula Rasa

• Locke undermines a fundamental premise in rationalism.
• Mind is like a white paper, a blank slate, an empty, unfurnished room at birth.
• Sense experience creates ideas in our mind.
  • Ideas are the contents of the mind.
  • Ideas are produced through sense experience.
• Experience performs two operations:
  • Sensation
  • Reflection

Experience

• Sensation: External stimulation triggers senses to form sensations and simple ideas.
• Reflection: Mind observes its operations and acts upon ideas to form complex ideas.
• Simple Ideas:
  • Do not have parts.
  • Product of physical things operating on us.
  • Each perception depends on sense organ functioning.
• Complex Ideas:
  • Can be broken down into simpler ones.
  • Ideas of substances, modes, relations.

Reality Outside Experience?

• Locke's theory may lead to scepticism.
• Perception of an object depends on sense experience.
• Simple ideas point to a real world outside perception, having an external cause.

Primary and Secondary Qualities

• Primary qualities: In objects themselves (extension, motion, size, number).
  • Exist independently of perception.
• Secondary qualities: Produced in us through sensation (colour, temperature, texture, odour, sound, taste).
  • Depend on the normal functioning of senses.

Three Kinds of Complex Ideas

• Substances: Complex ideas of objects (father, mother).
• Modes: Feature found in an object (triangle, gratitude); cannot exist independently.
• Relations: Enable comparison (heavier) and association (Socrates’s wife).
• Ideas can be:
  • Particular: My father.
  • General: Fatherhood.
• Abstract ideas are created by the mind from simple ideas by a process of omission (e.g., white).

The Three Types of Knowledge

• Knowledge: Perception of the agreement between ideas.
• Intuitive Knowledge: Direct recognition of agreement of ideas without mediation.
  • Clearest and most perfect knowledge; self-evident truths.
• Demonstrative Knowledge: Agreement of ideas demonstrated through logical steps.
  • Requires effort to recognize certainty.
• Sensitive Knowledge: Assurance of external objects causing simple ideas.
  • Perception gives knowledge of an external object triggering senses.