Empiricism, Sensationalism,

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Empiricism, Sensationalism, Positivism
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• British Empiricism
• Empiricism philosophy that stresses the
  importance of experience in the attainment of
  knowledge (text)
• Generally, inner experience not included in the
  definition reference is to sensory experience.
• Some points re empiricism (text)
• Sensory experience constitutes the primary data
  no suggestion that experience alone constitutes
  knowledge
• Knowledge cant exist until sensory evidence has
  first been gathered I.e., attainment of
  knowledge begins with sensory experience
• All subsequent intellectual processes must focus
  only on sensory experience.

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• Although British Empiricists disavowed innate
  ideas, in favor of ideas from experience, they
  did not reject the notion of instinct or
  innateness in general
• we have inborn propensities which regulate our
  bodily functions, produce emotions, and even
  direct our thinking.
• What Empiricists deny is that we are born with
  detailed, picture-like, concepts of God,
  causality, mathematics, etc
• Like Bacon, British Empiricists also moved away
  from deductive proofs and used inductive method
  of arguing
• (In spite of their advocacy of inductive
  argumentation, though, British Empiricists still
  made wide use of deductive arguments)

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• Major philosophers associated with British
  Empiricism
• Thomas Hobbes
• John Locke
• George Berkeley
• David Hume.
• James Mill and his 19th century son J.S. Mill
• Restricting the British Empiricist movement to
  these few is misleading.
• Until rise of English idealism (ca 1850), all
  British philosophy after Locke bears the marks of
  his empiricism.
• More than any other philosopher, Locke was cited
  as an authority by philosophers, philosophical
  theologians, and political thinkers. (In fact,
  lengthy article on "metaphysics" in the first
  edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica (1773) is
  essentially a summary of Locke).

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Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)

• Founder of British empiricism
• Descartes had offered mechanistic explanation of
  animal behavior
• Hobbes next logical step is to view man as
  machine, also
• Hobbes became 1st thoroughgoing opponent of
  rationalism
• First modern determinist (reviving materialism of
  Democritus)
• Every thought, feeling, purpose was simply
  internal motion (in brain)
• All experience is some special form of motion
  e.g., no distinction between the will to do
  something and the doing of it.
• Sensation is a continuation of motion that
  impinged on sense organs, which transmit motion
  through the nerves to the brain
• Memory imagination movements slowly decaying
• Thus, physical basis for memory
• Mind reduces to material processes
• Monism strongly opposed to Cartesian dualism
• Some things remembered better than others
• Memory based on contiguity and similarity
• Pleasure due to speeding up of flow of blood
  pain due to impediment of blood
• Changing rate of these physiological processes
  leads to emotional feelings and to general bodily
  reactions that augment or inhibit a tendency to
  action.
• All actions initiated by endeavours small,
  incipient actions or beginnings of actions
• Not just readiness/desire to act not a mental
  event

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• Some background
• Primarily a political theorist
• Leviathan all powerful state (e.g., English
  monarchy) which men must accept if they are to
  avoid destroying one another. Need for such a
  state arises because of the nature of man.
• Seeks pleasure and avoids pain
• Society prevents excessive pleasure-seeking which
  infringes on rights of others
• Mainspring of human conduct self-interest (most
  important motive fear)

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• This was immensely important system of ideas
• Human acts result from an objectively knowable
  human nature
• Man is made in such a way that analysis may make
  prediction and control possible

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John Locke (1632-1704)

• Usually regarded as originator of British
  Associationism, although Hobbes preceded him
• Wrote Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)
• All knowledge comes through experience, either
  through the senses or through reflection on
  sensory data.
• No innate knowledge Tabula Rasa
• Probably most important aspect of Essay
• Attack on Descartes belief in innate ideas.
• The Tabula Rasa
• Mind at birth is blank slate.
• Idea not original Aristotle. Locke rescued the
  idea from obscurity
• If born without ideas, how is it that adult minds
  are filled with so many thoughts, concepts,
  images?
• EXPERIENCE all depends on individual
  experiences. (Note Now this begins to sound
  modern)
• Only natural that we think we have innate ideas.
  Few can remember a time when they didnt have an
  idea of, e.g., God.
• Locke says were taught the idea when young, so
  it isnt surprising that we cant recall a time
  when we didnt have the idea
• Similarly, no innate ideas of truth, honesty,
  goodness, beauty, etc. They arent things out
  there they are acquired by experience.

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• Kinds of experience
• Sensation primary. All ideas built from
  initial sensations
• Reflection operations of the mind (e.g.,
  thinking, doubting, perceiving, reasoning, etc)
• Mind can combine simple ideas into a compound
  (e.g., red, blue, gray. Leads to color)
• Mind can bring 2 ideas together and compare them
  (e.g., lighter than heavier than..)
• Mind can abstract properties
• Lockes views have been oversimplified
• He does not take everything away from mind of
  newborn. What he did say os
• No inborn ideas all are gained through
  experience
• Mind has innate capacity to act on incoming
  associations and organize them, abstract them,
  etc.
• Notion of ideas as elements -- forerunner of
  mental chemistry notion

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• Simple and complex ideas
• Simple arise from direct experience
• Complex built up from simple
• How do simple ideas combine? Why are some ideas
  picked out to become associated and others are
  not?
• Natural connections (e.g., thunder and
  lightning) exist in nature
• Rational connections made by the act of
  reflection. E.g., similar things tend to be
  associated
• Contiguity e.g., (from Locke)adult has
  aversion to honey feels nauseous when looks at
  it. Explanation as child, had overdose of honey
  and vomited. Idea 1 (honey) and idea 2
  (vomiting) have become associated. No general
  connection in nature. This is, of course, a
  description of aversive conditioning
• Locke probably missed point that Natural
  connections may be special case of contiguity
  principle