Empiricism Notes

Empiricism I: Sense Experience and Illusions

• Empiricism is presented as a more intuitive and plausible response to skepticism.

Terminology

• A Priori Knowledge: Knowledge that can be obtained without consulting experience.

  • Example: "All bachelors are unmarried."

• A Posteriori Knowledge: Knowledge that requires consulting experience.

  • Example: "Tosh has 47,796 hairs on his head."

• Analytic Truths: Truths that are true by virtue of meaning.

• Synthetic Truths: Truths that are made true by the way the world is arranged.

• Analytic truths usually align with a priori knowledge, and synthetic truths with a posteriori knowledge.

• Example:

  • "All bachelors are unmarried" is both a priori and analytic.
  • "Tosh has 47,796 hairs on his head" is both a posteriori and synthetic.

• Rationalists argue that we can establish interesting truths about the world (synthetic truths) purely through reason (a priori knowledge).

• Empiricists believe that synthetic truths can only be obtained a posteriori.

  	Analytic	Synthetic
  A Priori	?	Empiricists say no; Rationalists say yes
  A Posteriori

• Empiricism, in its strictest form, posits that all human knowledge originates from experience.

• John Locke's concept of tabula rasa ('blank slate') suggests that humans are born without innate knowledge, and experience fills this slate.

• New ideas are formed by recombining and extrapolating from sense experiences.

  • Example: The idea of a green elephant is a combination of the ideas of greenness and elephants.
  • Example: Musical composition involves rearranging tones and chords acquired through sense experience.

Skeptical Arguments Against Empiricism

• Argument from Illusion: Our senses can be deceptive.

  • Example: A stick appears bent when partially immersed in water due to refraction.
  • Example: Snow may feel warm to a hypothermic person.

• Argument from Dreams: Experiences in dreams feel real but are not actually happening.

• Argument from Hallucinations: Similar to dreams, hallucinations create unreal sensory experiences.

Empiricist Responses to Skepticism

• Sense experience is generally reliable in healthy individuals under normal conditions.

• Discrepancies can be resolved using other senses and understanding the situation.

  • Example: Realizing the "bent" stick is due to water refraction.

Counter-Argument to Empiricist Responses

• How do we ensure that we are healthy and in normal conditions?

• People experiencing hallucinations often do not realize they are hallucinating.