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.