Empiricism: Key Concepts and Thinkers
Rationalism
Descartes
Intuition
The process by which one or more propositions are perceived as clear. These are the axioms.
Deduction
The process of reasoning from one or more premises considered certain to reach a new proposition that logically follows from them.
Evidence
Descartes’ methodological rule: Assume with certainty that something is true.
Methodical Doubt
Discarding every idea for which there is the slightest reason to doubt.
Clarity and Distinction
An idea is clear when it is “present and manifest to an attentive mind” and distinct when it cannot be confused with any other. This is the principle of certainty: anything received clearly and distinctly may be accepted as true.
Solipsism
The inability to ensure that any reality exists except oneself.
Ideas and Classes
Any content or act of consciousness. There are three types: adventitia (from external reality, senses), factitious (from imagination), and innate (found in our mind before any experience or perception).
Substance
That which exists in such a way that it does not need anything else to exist. There is only one substance: God, the infinite substance (res infinita).
Mechanistic Extended Substance
Descartes offers a mechanistic understanding of the physical world. The universe can be explained by only two principles: matter and motion.
Primary Qualities
Those that can be expressed mathematically, measured, or quantified. They are objective. E.g., volume, length, width.
Secondary Qualities
Subjective reactions to perceived stimuli. E.g., color, taste, smell.
Spinoza
Substance
What is in itself and is conceived through itself; that whose concept does not need the concept of something else to be formed.
Attribute
What the intellect perceives of a substance as constituting its essence.
Leibniz
Truths of Reason (Innate)
- Discovered as true independently of experience (a priori).
- Necessary: they cannot form any contradiction.
- Principle: there can be both a thing and otherwise.
- Analytical: the idea of the predicate is already in the subject.
Truths of Fact (Acquired)
- From experience.
- Contingent: they may be one way or another or not occur at all.
- Principle of sufficient reason: everything that happens has a reason for its existence.
- Synthetic: the predicate extends the notion of the subject.
Monad
An elemental, indivisible, and unextended unit. It is like an atom of energy or a simple metaphysical point, without parts.
Pre-established Harmony
Leibniz’s doctrine stating that created monads or spiritual substances do not act directly on other monads, but in parallel, according to a mutual regulation pre-established by God.
Cosmic Optimism
Leibniz believed we are in the best of all possible worlds God could have created. Evil is considered a necessary condition for the system to work.
Bacon
Idols and Classes
Idols are preconceptions that hinder true knowledge, misconceptions, and beliefs that prevent an objective understanding of nature and are the source of our mistakes.
- Idols of the Tribe (idola tribus): collective prejudices stemming from the limitations of human nature.
- Idols of the Cave (idola specus): biases from individual character and education.
- Idols of the Marketplace (idola fori): originating in language, the ambiguity and imprecision of words.
- Idols of the Theater (idola theatri): from the uncritical acceptance of opinions and ideas considered indisputable authority.
Empiricism
Locke
Simple Ideas
Those that cannot be broken down into others, necessarily imposed on the mind, to which it remains passive. Ideas of sensation, reflection, and mixed.
Complex Ideas
Those produced by the human mind from simple ideas, where understanding is active. Modes, relations, and general ideas.
Sensation
External experience: the impression produced on our senses by external objects. Through it, we grasp the qualities of bodies. It is the main source of ideas.
Reflection
Internal experience: the knowledge the human mind has of its own acts.
Berkeley
Psychological Idealism
There are no things outside the mind; the only reality is the mind that perceives them. These impressions are from God, who imposes perceptions. We can only be certain of the existence of our mind and its ideas.
Hume
Impressions
Current and immediate perceptions captured by the senses.
Ideas
Representations or copies of impressions left in the mind. Both are kinds of perceptions (all acts and mental contents).
Relations Between Ideas
There is no need for experience. Their verification is a priori; they are necessary and analytic, providing no information because the predicate is already implicit in the subject. They are based on the principle of contradiction: the opposite is impossible. Formal sciences belong to this type of knowledge.
Matters of Fact
Knowledge characteristic of experimental science. Propositions describing facts, their validity depends on a posteriori (empirical) verification. They originate in impressions. The opposite of a matter of fact involves no contradiction. Any knowledge of facts is based on the principle of causality.
Content of the Mind in Hume and Locke
Locke
Definition and Types of Ideas
Locke understands “idea” as “everything we know or perceive.”
Simple Ideas
Those that cannot be broken down into others, necessarily imposed on the mind, to which it remains passive.
- Ideas of Sense: From external experience: impressions produced on our senses by external objects. Through them, we capture the qualities of bodies, which may be:
- Primary: objective qualities like size and shape.
- Secondary: subjective qualities like smell, taste, and color.
- Ideas of Reflection: From internal experience: the knowledge the human mind has of its own actions (thinking, doubting, perceiving, etc.).
- Mixed Ideas: Originate from combined data of sensation and reflection.
Complex Ideas
Produced by the human mind from simple ideas, where understanding is active.
- Modes: formed by combining simple ideas and refer to no inherent properties.
- Relations: formed by comparing one thing with another.
- General or Universal Ideas: formed by abstraction. The idea of substance is one of them.
Hume
Impressions and Ideas
Hume proposes a different classification from Locke. He calls all acts and mental contents “perceptions” and distinguishes two kinds: impressions and ideas. An impression is the current and immediate perception captured by the senses, while ideas are representations or copies of impressions left in the mind. Impressions have more vivacity and intensity than ideas. Impressions can be of sensation (from the external senses) and reflection (from the interior of our consciousness).
Both impressions and ideas can be simple or complex. Simple perceptions do not accept any distinction or separation. Complex perceptions are formed by grouping simple perceptions and can be divided into parts.
Simple ideas must be associated according to laws of association: resemblance, contiguity in time and place, and cause and effect.