Empiricism

Answer : It was a doctrine propounded by Bishop George Berkeley, an Idealist. This doctrine literally means “to be is to be perceived”. His famous work “Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge” contains this doctrine. It is in this work that he advocated that objects exists only as perception and not as matter separated from perception. He held that worldly objects are only collections of ideas, which are mind-dependent. Berkeley was an immaterialist. He held that ....

Answer : Hume’s theory is the starting point for most modern treatments of causation, and it is tied to the metaphysical abyss opened by Descartes view of the physical world as devoid of action. Hume argues that causation involves a regular association between cause and effect with the cause contiguous with its immediate effects and preceding them. The spatial-temporal contiguity requirement creates difficulties for Hume, because he believes that mental things stand in causal relations even though ....

Answer : Bundle theory maintains that properties are bundled together in a collection without describing how they are tied together. For example, bundle theory regards an apple as red, four inches (100 mm) wide, and juicy but lacking an underlying substance. The apple is said to be a bundle of properties including redness, being four inches (100 mm) wide, and juiciness.

Critics question how bundle theory accounts for the properties, the togetherness relation between those properties without an ....

Answer : Commentators have suggested at least three distinct ways of understanding what Locke meant when he spoke of substance. Some have argued that Locke’s conception of substance is merely relational; substance is that which supports qualities, and nothing more can be said. On this interpretation, Locke’s substance in general consists of ‘bare particulars’ which do not themselves have properties, hence no positive content is (nor could it be) included in our idea of it. Peter Alexander ....

Answer : John Locke was an empiricist thinker. Being an empiricist also, Locke accepted the notion of substance and on the basis of primary and secondary qualities accepted the unconscious material substance. This arises as the biggest problem in front of the later empiricists. Berkley refuted the unconscious substance and Hume went one step ahead of him and refuted the substance itself.

Locke accepted substance as the basis of qualities. In the material substance, Locke discusses two kind ....

Answer : Berkley’s philosophy is spiritualistic philosophy. In this also reality is considered to be made out of mind and its ideas. In Berkley’s philosophy, spiritualism and empiricism is established by the statement “Esse est percipi.”

Through the statement “Esse est percipi” Berkley established relationship between experience and existence. If anything is said about the existence of a thing then we also have to accept that we can perceive it. This table exists because I can perceive it ....

Answer : Among modern western philosophers, Hume holds a distinct and a unique position. He established certain traditions in the field of philosophy, that he was regarded as a skeptic philosopher. But after analyzing his philosophy it can be said that he was not a complete skeptic but a mild skeptic. His contribution to the philosophy is appreciable.

Skepticism: Nothing can be known with certainty, this type of view is regarded as skepticism. Hume’s philosophy is also ....

Answer : The essence of this statement of John Locke is “That the source of all our knowledge is experience”. By accepting experience as the only source of knowledge, John Locke negated the principle of innate ideas.

According to John Locke, all our knowledge arises out of our experience. Since the time of our birth, our mind is like tabula rasa. On this empty state, every letter is written by experience. According to Locke, knowledge of a man ....

Answer : Empiricists hold that knowledge is limited to our experiences. Therefore, on the problem of substance, their opinions are different from that of rationlists. From Locke to Hume, the existense of substance was being denied gradually.

From the view of Locke, substance is the reality that exists ‘behind’ or ‘under’ qualities (quality is ‘the power in an object to produce any idea in our mind’) and is a ‘something we know not what’. Locke regards that the ....

Answer : The self proclaimed defender of the common sense, Berkeley held that what we perceive really is as we perceive it to be. But what we perceive are just sensible objects, collections of sensible qualities, which are themselves nothing other than ideas in the minds of their perceivers. Take heat, for example; does it exist independently of our perception of it. When exposed to great heat I feel a pain that everyone acknowledges it to be ....

Answer : According to Hume there are two types of knowledge, named formal knowledge and factual knowledge. The knowledge of mathematics and logic comes within the purview of formal knowledge and the knowledge of factual world is factual knowledge. Formal knowledge is real and essential where as factual knowledge is always probable which may change as per the opinion. Thus he never denies the possibility of knowledge. Rather he differentiates between the natures of these two types ....

Answer : This famous statement was given by Berkley, a famous empiricist. Berkeley theorized that individuals cannot know if an object is; they can only know if an object is perceived by a mind. He stated that individuals cannot think or talk about an object’s being, but rather think or talk about an object’s being perceived by someone. That is, individuals cannot know any “real” object or matter “behind” the object as they perceive it, which “causes” ....

Answer : John Locke, in his Essay defines “substance” as that in which “qualities” inhere. A “quality” is a property of an object that acts on our minds to cause an idea. Locke believes that there is something real out there in the external world that causes the ideas in our minds. These are the “primary qualities” of objects. Locke calls them “primary” because he believes they are objectively out there in the world. The primary qualities ....

Answer : Locke follows Descartes lead in searching for some minimal starting point on which to build a sound theory of knowledge. He eventually gives assent to three kinds of knowledge: intuitive, demonstrative, and sensitive. All are based upon “ideas”. Locke defines knowledge as the perception of the agreement or disagreement between “ideas”. He presents four ways of apprehending this agreement or disagreement. They aren’t ways of apprehending agreement or disagreement per se, but are ways of ....

Answer : Philosophical skepticism is a critical attitude which systematically questions the notion that absolute knowledge and certainty are possible, either in general or in particular fields. Philosophical skepticism is opposed to philosophical dogmatism, which maintains that a certain set of positive statements are authoritative, absolutely certain and true. Philosophical skepticism should be distinguished from ordinary skepticism, where doubts are raised against certain beliefs or types of beliefs because the evidence for the particular belief or type ....

Answer : The analytic system of induction is that by which one can predict occurrences in the universe around us. It is the method through which a great deal of our knowledge is found, yet is the topic of controversy in philosophical circles, due to work done by David Hume. The ‘received view’ is that Hume was sceptical about induction - that he believed that conclusion through induction was unreasonable. Recently, however, a different thesis has been ....

Answer : Berkeley is of opinion that all ordinary physical objects are collections of ideas, and since they are ideas, they exist only if and when they are perceived. As Berkeley says, to be (exist) is to be perceived. Let’s look at two relevant arguments. It is indeed an opinion strangely prevailing amongst men, that houses, mountains, rivers, and in a word sensible objects have an existence natural or real, distinct from their being perceived by the ....

Answer : Hume’s view of phenomenalism is the further extension the views of Locke and Berkley. Even though an ultimate explanation of both the subject and object of knowledge is impossible, He provides a description of how man senses and understands. He emphasizes the utility of knowledge as opposed to its correctness and suggests that experience begins with feeling rather than thought. He uses the term “perception” in its traditional sense—that is, whatever can be present to ....

Answer : Hume denies the existence of soul or self and so his explanation of identity is different from other empiricist. Hume’ also investigated a person’s character, the relationship between human and animal nature, and the nature of agency. Hume pointed out that we tend to think that we are the same person we were five years ago. Though we’ve changed in many respects, the same person appears present as was present then. We might start thinking ....

Answer : ‘What am I’ is the question which is generally asked and answered differently, since the history of thought. It is related to one’s identity, so everyone gives different answer according to their personal history, physical features and circumstances. For Hume self is neither a body, nor a mind, nor a combination of both, nor an unknown substance as some thinkers generally say and defend. It is only a series of experiences, a series of feelings, ....

Answer : Critique of the notion that the mind is distinct from the body and the mental states are separable from physical states was given by Ryle. According to Ryle, the classical theory of mind, as represented by Cartesian rationalism, asserts that there is a basic distinction between mind and matter. However, the classical theory makes a basic “category-mistake,” because it attempts to analyze the relation between “mind” and “body” as if they were terms of the ....

Answer : Fundamentally Scepticism originated as a response to the eternal debate between Realism and Idealism. The Skeptic intervened with the observation we cannot determine whether Reality is real or an illusion, therefore the debate between Realism and Idealism can never be settled. We will never know the truth. A more radical form of Skepticism is a natural extension of this observation which then assumes since we cannot know this fundamental truth about Reality, and everything is ....

Answer : The central focus of Dewey’s philosophical interests revolves around his conception of knowledge and theory of truth. It is indicative, however, of Dewey’s critical stance towards post effort in this area that he expressly rejected the term “epistemology”, preferring the theory of enquiry or experimental logic as more representative of his own approach.

In Dewey’s view, traditional epistemologies, whether rationalist or empiricist, had drawn too stark a distinction between thought the domain of knowledge, and the ....

Answer : In his book Appearance and reality the Bradley’s considered view is that neither external nor internal relations, not yet their terms, use real, and that is the proper conclusion of his arguments. It is clear from his argument as well as from his own explanation. That for him ‘real’ is a technical term: to be real is to be an individual substance, so that to deny the reality of relations is to deny that they ....

Answer : The problem of induction has received a great deal of critical attention. Though Hume offered his own solution, many have since questioned whether he was successful. Hume argues that induction is founded on the persistence of realities (sometimes called the Uniformity of that use) and that we cannot know nature is uniform through reason, because reason only comes in two sorts and both of them are inadequate.

The two sorts are; Probable reasoning (effectively, deductive reasoning) ....

Answer : This term was introduced by English philosopher Gilbert Ryle for cases where we talk of something in terms appropriate only to something of a radically different kind. For example, the prime minister is in London, and the foreign secretary is in Paris, and the Home Secretary is in British, but where is the government. The government is not another person alongside its members. Ryle used the nation primarily to claim that mind and body can ....

Answer : Empiricism is related to pragmatism in that it draws our attention to the world of experience. It maintains that human knowledge arises from the senses or through experience. William James took a step further to become the founder of what is known as Radical Empiricism. Unlike rationalists, who believed that reality is already made, James thought of reality as still in the making. This pragmatic view relies heavily on Empiricism and experience. James believed that ....