Understanding Empiricism: Locke, Hume, and Critique of Metaphysics
Empiricism: Key Concepts and Hume’s Research on Knowledge
Empiricism Character: Reliance on experience as the criterion of truth. Locke posits that the mind is initially a blank slate, acquiring information through sensory experience. Knowledge is thus bounded by the source of sensitive impressions, with science based on experience (physical). Empiricists and rationalists share the view that the subject constructs reality.
Hume’s Research on Knowledge
Hume argues that studying human knowledge is fundamental to all sciences, as mental capacity is a product of experience.
Original Ideas
Perceptions are mental contents derived from experience, representing any mental representation. This builds upon Locke’s rejection of innate ideas. The source of knowledge is divided into perceptions based on intensity level:
- Impressions: The most intense sensations of immediate experience (e.g., pictures, ideas, desires).
- Ideas: Fainter images, copies, or records retained in the mind, products of imagination and memory.
The origin of perceptions can be:
- Sensation: Derived from the senses (smell, taste).
- Reflection: Mental states such as boredom.
Perceptions can also be:
- Simple: Not divisible into smaller components.
- Complex: A combination of simpler perceptions (e.g., the scent of a rose, encompassing color and perfume).
Association of Ideas
Simple ideas originate from simple impressions. Complex ideas can arise from complex impressions or fanciful combinations (e.g., a unicorn). Imagination freely combines ideas, linked by natural, non-arbitrary laws that Hume terms the association of ideas:
- Resemblance: Combining ideas based on similarity.
- Contiguity: Ideas linked by proximity in space and time.
- Cause and Effect: Associating two facts based on prior experience (e.g., wound -> pain).
Relations of Ideas and Matters of Fact
Mental impressions establish relationships. These relationships are categorized as:
- Relations of Ideas: Connections between ideas and concepts (e.g., the law of similarity). These do not require experience and cannot be denied.
- Matters of Fact: Relationships between statements that must be tested through observation and experience. Denial is possible. Hume critiques science and experience, questioning the establishment of truth.
Criticism of Metaphysics
Hume critiques the three Cartesian substances:
Criticism of the Idea of Extensive Substance
Hume argues that when we think of substance objectively, we perceive a group of impressions. The notion of a material substance is an illusion, an invention of the mind, as we cannot truly know real objects or their existence.
Criticism of the Idea of Infinite Substance (God)
Hume attacks the concept of God, questioning the origin of the idea of infinite substance. Theological or metaphysical knowledge of God is impossible, as demonstrating God’s existence requires referencing a reality beyond the world.
Criticism of the Idea of Thinking Substance
Hume challenges the Cartesian notion of the self (I think, therefore I am). He argues that we only have intuition of ideas and impressions, which are constantly changing, contradicting the idea of a stable, identical self.