Empiricism, Sensationalism, and Positivism

Empiricism

• An empiricist believes knowledge comes from experience.
• Empiricism stresses experience in attaining knowledge.
• Experience: inner experiences (dreams, emotions) and logical thought (math).
• D. N. Robinson (1986): Empiricism asserts sense evidence is primary data for knowledge. Knowledge can't exist unless evidence is gathered; intellectual processes use this evidence to frame valid propositions about the real world.
• Empiricism asserts meaningful knowledge is acquired through sensory experience (sight, hearing, touch) rather than innate ideas or pure reason alone.
• Contrasts with rationalism, which argues some knowledge (mathematical truths) is innate or derived from reason independently of experience.
• Empiricists (John Locke, George Berkeley, David Hume) deny humans are born with pre-existing knowledge (rationalists like Descartes).
• Locke’s tabula rasa (blank slate) illustrates this: the mind starts empty, filled through experience.
• Empiricism relies on induction: generalizing from specific observations to form broader principles.
• Example: observing multiple white swans leads to generalization "All swans are white" (falsified by black swans, showing empiricism’s reliance on probabilistic knowledge).

British Empiricism

• Key Figures:
  • Thomas Hobbes
  • John Locke
  • George Berkeley
  • David Hume
  • David Hartley
  • James Mill
  • John Stuart Mill
  • Alexander Bain

Thomas Hobbes

• Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679)
• Born into a modest but troubled family in 16th-century England; died at 91.
• Born prematurely in 1588 because his mother feared the Spanish Armada’s invasion. He later wrote: "Fear and I were born twins."
• His father abandoned the family after a violent altercation, leaving Hobbes insecure.
• Deeply influenced by Galileo, whom he met in 1636.
• Admired the mechanistic worldview: everything, including human thought, operates like a machine.
• Hobbes was a materialist: everything is composed of matter in motion, including thought and emotion.
• Rejected Cartesian dualism (separate mind and body), claiming mental processes are physical phenomena.
• Sensations, thoughts, and emotions result from mechanical interactions in the brain and nervous system.
• Believed all knowledge originates in sensory experience (like Locke, Berkeley, Hume).
• Argued there are no innate ideas—the mind begins as a blank slate (tabula rasa).
• Complex thoughts arise from the association of sensory impressions (associationism).
• Humans are self-interested, motivated by:
  • Appetite (desire for pleasure/self-preservation).
  • Aversion (avoidance of pain/death).
• This view influenced later behaviorist theories (reinforcement and punishment).
• Life in a pre-social state: "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short" (Leviathan); humans seek power/security.
• Thought is linked sensations (associationist psychology).
• Example: seeing smoke triggers memory of fire (experienced together).
• Influenced David Hume’s laws of association and behaviorist learning theories.
• Reasoning is "mental computation"—adding and subtracting ideas like arithmetic.
• Language is a symbol system to organize thoughts (precursor to cognitive psychology).

John Locke

• John Locke (1632–1704)
• Born August 29, 1632, in Wrington, Somerset, England.
• Father: John Locke Sr. (Puritan lawyer and landowner, fought in English Civil War).
• Mother: Agnes Keene (from a modest gentry family).
• Upbringing was strictly Puritan: discipline, hard work, moral rectitude.
• Studied Aristotelian philosophy initially but grew disillusioned. Later studied medicine and befriended scientist Robert Boyle and physician Thomas Sydenham, who influenced his empirical methods.
• Rejected innate ideas (contrasting Descartes and Plato).
• Argued all knowledge comes from:
  • Sensation (external experience via senses).
  • Reflection (internal mental operations, like thinking and remembering).
• Influence: Inspired behaviorism (Watson, Skinner) and developmental psychology (Piaget).
• Identity is based on consciousness, not the soul or body.
• Example: A person is the same over time because they remember past experiences.
• Legacy in Modern Psychology:
  • Behaviorism: Locke’s empiricism influenced John B. Watson and B.F. Skinner.
  • Cognitive Science: His "association of ideas" foreshadowed neural network theories.
  • Developmental Psychology: His views on education shaped constructivist theories (Piaget, Vygotsky).
• Blend of empiricism, political liberalism, and educational theory.
• Belief in human malleability contrasts with Hobbes’ pessimism.
• Served as an advisor to Lord Ashley (Earl of Shaftesbury).
• Died October 28, 1704, in Essex, England.

George Berkeley

• George Berkeley
• Born: March 12, 1685, in Kilkenny, Ireland.
• Family: Anglo-Irish gentry; father was a landowner and customs official.
• Attended Kilkenny College (attended by Jonathan Swift).
• Enrolled at Trinity College Dublin (1700–1707): philosophy, mathematics, theology.
• Died: January 14, 1753, in Oxford, England.
• Advanced empiricism and idealism, arguing all knowledge derives from perception and reality consists solely of minds and experiences ("esse est percipi"—"to be is to be perceived").
• Work on visual perception (depth perception as learned) laid foundations for cognitive psychology.
• Theory of mental association influenced behaviorist and constructivist theories.
• Rejected material substance, emphasizing the mind-dependent nature of reality.
• Berkeley challenged traditional views of cognition, paving the way for modern studies on subjective experience, perception, and the constructive nature of human understanding.
• Since Berkeley denied material substance, he argued that God constantly perceives everything, ensuring reality’s stability.
• Locke & Hobbes believed in an external world that the mind perceives.
• Berkeley argued: There is no "material" world independent of perception.
• Objects only exist when perceived by a mind (human or divine).
• Example: A tree in a forest only exists if someone sees, touches, or thinks about it.
• Introduced Theory of Vision (Early Work in Perception).
• Depth perception is learned, not innate (contrary to Descartes).
• We judge distance through visual cues (shading, perspective) and tactile experience.
• Berkeley expanded on Locke’s associationism:
  • The mind connects ideas through experience and habit (seeing fire leads to expecting heat).
  • Language works by associating words with ideas.

David Hume

• David Hume (1711–1776)
• Born into a modest but intellectually connected Scottish family.
• Birth: May 7, 1711, in Edinburgh, Scotland.
• Father: Joseph Home (Hume later changed the spelling) – A lawyer from a minor aristocratic family, who died when Hume was just two years old.
• Mother: Katherine Falconer – Came from a prominent legal family; raised Hume and his siblings as devout Presbyterians.
• Siblings: Two older brothers and a sister; his family expected him to study law.
• Studied Latin, Greek, philosophy, and possibly law but left without a degree.
• Became disillusioned with traditional education, preferring self-study (read Newton, Locke, and Berkeley).
• Suffered a mental health crisis (possibly depression or anxiety) from overstudying.
• Recovered by abandoning theology and turning to philosophy.
• Nicknamed "The Great Infidel" for his religious skepticism.
• Death (1776): Died calmly of intestinal cancer, joking about his own mortality.
• Argued all knowledge stems from experience ("impressions" = sensory input; "ideas" = faint copies of impressions).
• Rejected innate ideas, claiming even complex thoughts (e.g., "God," "self") are built from sensory data.
• Proposed three laws of mental association:
  • Resemblance/Persamaan (e.g., a portrait makes us think of a person).
  • Contiguity/Keterkaitan (e.g., thunder reminds us of lightning).
  • Cause/Effect (e.g., a wound recalls pain).
• Influence: Directly inspired behaviorism (Pavlov’s conditioning) and connectionist models in cognitive science.
• His ideas underpin:
  • Cognitive psychology (how the mind constructs reality).
  • Behavioral therapy (habit formation).
  • AI/machine learning (pattern recognition = Hume’s "custom").
• David Hume died on August 25, 1776, at the age of 65, in Edinburgh, Scotland. His death was caused by abdominal cancer (likely colon or stomach cancer), which he faced with remarkable calmness and humor.

David Hartley

• David Hartley (1705–1757)
• Born August 30, 1705, in Armley, Yorkshire, England.
• Son of a clergyman (also named David Hartley), who died when he was young. His mother, Evereld Wadsworth, raised him in a devout Anglican household.
• Studied at Cambridge University (Jesus College) initially for theology but switched to medicine due to his interest in science.
• Influenced by Isaac Newton’s physics and John Locke’s empiricism, blending both into his psychological theories.
• Practiced as a physician (though his true passion was philosophy/psychology).
• Married Alice Rowley in 1730; they had one son, David Hartley the Younger, who became a politician and diplomat.
• Friendship: Associated with Enlightenment thinkers like Joseph Priestley (who edited his work posthumously).
• Blend of medicine, theology, and philosophy allowed him to pioneer a biological basis for the mind—centuries before modern neuroscience. His quiet life masked his radical idea: the brain is a machine learning from experience.
• Died August 28, 1757 (age 52) in Bath, England, from complications of gout and kidney stones.
• His major work, Observations on Man (1749), was initially overlooked but later shaped psychology, utilitarianism, and neuroscience.
• Hartley proposed that all mental activity arises from sensory experiences linked by association.
• He expanded on Locke’s empiricism:
  • Simple sensations combine into complex ideas through repetition and proximity (hearing a song evokes memories of a place).
• This process is governed by physiological vibrations in the brain and nerves—an early attempt to link psychology to biology.
• Hartley speculated that sensory input creates tiny vibrations ("vibratiuncles") in the brain, forming memory traces through his neural vibrations theory.
• He argued that habits shape character (rewarding virtue reinforces moral behavior) in Observations on Man (1749).
• Anticipated Freud’s "pleasure principle" by claiming humans seek pleasure and avoid pain through learned associations.
• Hartley’s theories influenced:
  • Utilitarianism (Bentham’s "greatest happiness" principle).
  • Behavioral psychology (Pavlov’s conditioning).
  • Cognitive science (how the brain forms patterns).

James Mill

• James Mill (1773–1836)
• Born April 6, 1773, in Northwater Bridge, Scotland, to a poor shoemaker, James Milne (later changed to "Mill"), and Isabel Fenton.
• Entered the University of Edinburgh at age 17 through a scholarship for divinity students.
• Studied theology but became frustrated with religion, turning to philosophy and economics.
• Married Harriet Burrow in 1805; they had nine children, including John Stuart Mill, whom he rigorously educated to be a prodigy (famously chronicled in J.S. Mill’s Autobiography).
• Worked as a journalist, historian, and civil servant for the British East India Company.
• Close associate of Jeremy Bentham, becoming a leading voice in utilitarianism.
• Expanded David Hartley’s theories, arguing that all mental processes (even morality) stem from linked sensations and ideas.
• Influenced his son’s (J.S. Mill) work on logic and empiricism.
• Co-developed Bentham’s principle of "greatest happiness for the greatest number", applying it to education and governance.
• Believed in strict, systematic education (evident in his son’s upbringing) to shape rational, utilitarian minds.
• Wrote Elements of Political Economy (1821), arguing that economic behavior follows psychological laws of association.
• Died June 23, 1836, in London.
• His ideas laid groundwork for:
  • Behaviorism (via associationism).
  • Modern economics (through his focus on rational actors).
  • Liberal political theory (via his son’s later works).

John Stuart Mill

• John Stuart Mill (1806–1873)
• Born May 20, 1806, in London, England, to James Mill (philosopher) and Harriet Barrow.
• A child prodigy, rigorously tutored by his father in Greek (age 3), Latin (8), logic (12), and economics (teen years).
• Suffered a mental breakdown at 20 from emotional repression, later finding solace in poetry (Wordsworth) and reformulating his philosophy.
• Married Harriet Taylor (1851), a feminist thinker who deeply influenced his views on women’s rights. Later collaborated with her daughter, Helen Taylor, on social reforms.
• Worked for the British East India Company (like his father) and later as a Member of Parliament (1865–68).
• Argued happiness should prioritize quality over mere quantity ("Better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied").
• Introduced "higher pleasures" (intellect, morality) vs. "lower" (base instincts).
• In On Liberty (1859), defended free speech and minority rights with the "harm principle": "The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community… is to prevent harm to others."
• Expanded his father’s (and Hartley’s) ideas but emphasized human agency over mechanical determinism.
• Died: May 8, 1873, in Avignon, France (buried beside Harriet).
• Influence:
  • Free Speech: His defenses of liberty underpin modern human rights law.
  • Feminism: Inspired suffragettes and equality movements.
  • Economics: Bridged Adam Smith and Keynesian welfare economics.

Alexander Bain

• Alexander Bain
• Born June 11, 1818, in Aberdeen, Scotland, to a poor weaver’s family.
• Largely self-taught due to poverty but attended Marischal College (University of Aberdeen), studying philosophy and science.
• Influenced by utilitarian philosophers like John Stuart Mill, whom he later befriended.
• Worked as a journalist, academic, and inventor (held patents for early versions of the electric clock and fax machine).
• Became the first Professor of Logic and English at the University of Aberdeen (1860).
• Death: September 18, 1903, in Aberdeen.
• Bain bridged philosophy and experimental science, establishing psychology as a distinct discipline (before Wilhelm Wundt’s lab in 1879).
• Wrote the first comprehensive psychology textbooks:
  • The Senses and the Intellect (1855)
  • The Emotions and the Will (1859)
• He argued that mental processes are rooted in the nervous system, foreshadowing neuroscience.
• Proposed "psychophysical parallelism"—mental and bodily events occur together but don’t causally interact (a precursor to later theories).
• Advocated education reforms, stressing active learning and sensory engagement (Montessori-style ideas).
• Founded the journal Mind (1876), the first major psychology/philosophy journal.
• Directly influenced:
  • William James (pragmatism).
  • Ivan Pavlov (conditioning).
  • John Dewey (progressive education).

French Sensationalism

• Key Figures:
  • Pierre Gassendi
  • Julien de La Mettrie
  • Étienne Bonnot de Condillac

Sensationalism

• Sensationalism is the epistemological theory that all knowledge originates from sensory experience.
• It is a radical form of empiricism, arguing that even complex ideas (like morality, mathematics, or abstract concepts) are ultimately derived from sensations.
• Claims that sensory input (sight, sound, touch, etc.) is the only source of ideas.
• Rejects innate ideas (contrasting with rationalism à la Descartes).
• Even abstract thinking (e.g., justice, time) is just a recombination of sensory impressions.
• Example: The idea of "freedom" might stem from sensations of bodily movement + absence of restraint.

Pierre Gassendi

• Pierre Gassendi
• Born: January 22, 1592, in Champtercier, Provence, France.
• Education: Studied theology and philosophy at Aix-en-Provence, ordained as a Catholic priest (1614).
• Professor of philosophy at Collège Royal (now Collège de France).
• Clashed with Scholastic Aristotelians and debated Descartes on epistemology.
• Death: October 24, 1655, in Paris.
• Reintroduced ancient Greek atomism (Democritus, Epicurus) into early modern science.
• Argued the universe is composed of void + indivisible atoms—a theory later refined by Boyle and Newton.
• Rejected Aristotle’s hylomorphism, claiming matter’s properties arise from atomic structure.
• He opposed Descartes’ innate ideas, insisting all knowledge comes from sensory experience (influencing Locke’s empiricism).
• Critiqued dogmatism in Exercises Against the Aristotelians (1624), advocating for observational science.
• Proposed that sensory organs transmit atomic "images" (simulacra) to the brain, forming perceptions—an early mechanical model of cognition.

Julien de La Mettrie

• No information provided.

Étienne Bonnot de Condillac

• No information provided.

Positivism

• Key Figures:
  • Auguste Comte
  • Ernst Mach

Positivism

• Positivism is a philosophical system that emphasizes empirical evidence, scientific methods, and the rejection of metaphysics.
• It asserts that only knowledge derived from observable, measurable facts is valid, and it seeks to apply scientific principles to all areas of human understanding, including philosophy, sociology, and psychology.

Auguste Comte

• Auguste Comte
• Full Name: Isidore Marie Auguste François Xavier Comte
• Born: January 19, 1798, in Montpellier, France.
• Studied at École Polytechnique (Paris), excelling in math and science but expelled for rebellious views.
• Became secretary to Henri de Saint-Simon (early socialist thinker), who influenced his ideas on social reform.
• Suffered mental breakdowns and poverty but persisted in developing his philosophical system.
• Married Caroline Massin (1825), but their relationship was turbulent.
• Death: September 5, 1857, in Paris, from stomach cancer.
• Coined the term "positivism" in his work Course in Positive Philosophy (1830–1842).
• Proposed the "Law of Three Stages", arguing human thought evolves through:
  • Theological Stage (explanation via gods/spirits).
  • Metaphysical Stage (abstract causes like "nature" or "essences").
  • Positive/Scientific Stage (knowledge based on observation and laws).
• Advocated for sociology as a science, calling it "social physics."

Ernst Mach

• No information provided.