Empiricism: David Hume’s Theory of Knowledge
Empiricism:
Empiricism: Opposed to rationalism, but agrees that ideas are the object of knowledge. Experience is the source, criterion, validity, and limit of knowledge. The model is physical, using the inductive method to gain knowledge from experience.
David Hume:
David Hume: A more radical empiricist. His treatise on human nature researches human sentiment, and works on religion. Objective: The Science of Human Nature: Based on the idea that all other sciences are related to the powers of humans. Only true knowledge of human nature can be the foundation of all other sciences. This is based on experience and sentiment. Research is done on humans as rational beings (research on psychological processes) or humans as beings of action (study of passions and morals through human behavior observation).
Knowledge: Impressions and Ideas:
Perceptions are divided into impressions (direct experience: sensations, emotions) and ideas (weakened images of impressions when we think). There are no innate ideas. Phenomenalism states that we only know impressions and ideas, not the object itself. Impressions and ideas are differentiated by their degree or intensity. The relationship is that impressions precede ideas; impressions are the cause of ideas. The contents of the mind are derived from experience. The valid criterion of knowledge is that ideas are validated if they can be traced back to a corresponding impression. This applies to metaphysical ideas (substances: I, myself, God; causality: cause and effect; essence; existence). Only mathematics and logic do not follow this criterion.
Connection of Ideas:
Memory and imagination: These are the powers through which impressions and ideas reappear in the mind. They separate and combine simple ideas using the law of cause and effect.
Criticism of the Idea of Substance (God, Myself, I):
The idea of substance is not derived from any impression (it is unfounded). The idea of God is a set of simple ideas united by the imagination, to which we assign a name. The idea of I is a set of perceptions associated by the imagination, useful fictions of the imagination.
Criticism of Causality:
Knowledge of relationships of ideas: The whole is greater than the part (mathematics 2 + 2 = 4). This is reached by reasoning without experience, and its truth is impossible to oppose. Knowledge of fact: This depends on experience (the sun is yellow, not by reasoning but by observation). These are variables. We do not have any impressions of future events (the sun will rise tomorrow) (causal). Cause-effect: There is no relationship of ideas. We cannot know it through reasoning. Experience teaches us about causes and effects, but it does not show that a cause produces a certain effect. It only shows that a particular fact happens after another (night follows day). This is called cause and effect.
Habit or custom: There is no basis to expect that the same causes will produce the same effects in the future. The tendency to take what was experienced in the past as a basis for predicting the future is habit. The presence of one implies another. Facts are based on what is usual (habit guides humans). Habit is not a rational principle; it does not produce knowledge but belief (feeling). The belief in the reality outside our perceptions is that the mind only knows its own perceptions (impressions and ideas) (phenomenalism). Corporeal objects are different from our impressions and ideas (no knowledge). Phenomenalism: We only know what appears (to the mind). Skepticism: There is no rational justification for the outside world, and we know our impressions are due to it. This does not mean that it does not exist. The existence of the world inside and outside is a belief, but not knowledge.