Epistemology

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Epistemology

• Empiricism

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EmpiricismMotivations

• Have you ever wondered about how
• rattlesnake meat tastes?
• How about squid, turtle, or ostrich?
• Seaweed cakes or a chrysanthemum salad?
• Do these examples prove that sense experience is
  the source of all of our knowledge about the
  world?

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Empiricism The Basic Idea

• Knowledge does not need to be absolutely certain
• Experience is the foundation
• Reason can make clear the relations between ideas

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Three Anchor PointsThe Only Source of Genuine
Knowledge is Sense Experience

• Mind is a blank tablet, a Tabla Rasa
• Sense Perception vs. Reflection
• Without experience there would be knowledge of
• Specific features of he world
• colors, odors, sounds, tastes, etc.
• Knowledge is merely probable rather than
  absolutely certain.

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Three Anchor PointsReason is an Unreliable Route
to Knowledge...

• Rationalists take fanciful flights of speculation
  
• Every idea must be tested by tracing it back to
  an original experience
• Reason organizes data of experience

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Three Anchor Points about Empiricism Innate
ideas do not exist

• Not everyone can see self-evident truths.
• Rationalists disagree on what ideas are in fact
  innate
• Universal truths are either
• (a) expressions off the relations of ideas
• (b) generalizations from experience.

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Famous Empiricists

• John Locke
• Anglican Bishop George Berkeley
• David Hume

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John LockeSimilarities with Descartes

• Successes of the New Sciences
• Appeal to Science
• The Egocentric Predicament the Picture Theory
  of Knowledge
• Foundationalism

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Locke on the Possibility of Knowledge

• Yes, there is knowledge. We have it.
• Experience gives us knowledge of the world
• Knowledge, however, is located in our minds, not
  in the world.

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Locke on the Role of Reason Innate Ideas

• All reasoning about the world ultimately
  depends upon experience
• Reason DOES NOT alone provide us knowledge of the
  world
• There are no innate ideas

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Locke on JTB Belief

• The building blocks of beliefs are ideas.
• The most basic building blocks we have are simple
  ideas.
• Two varieties
• Ideas of perception (sensation)
• Ideas of reflection

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Locke on JTB Belief How do complex ideas occur?

• Complex ideas get built up from simpler ones
• The complex idea is simply a combination of the
  simpler sensations

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Locke on JTB Belief how do we form abstract
ideas?

• How does the mind move from our sensations to
  idea of apples, fruits, and living things?
• For Locke we abstract to general ideas.

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Locke on JTB Truth

• Beliefs about the world ultimately rest on simple
  sensations.
• Sensations are Lockes foundation
• If what we believe corresponds to simple sensory
  experiences, the belief is a true.

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Locke on JTB Justification

• Since knowledge depends on experience, our
  empirical beliefs are justified only by appealing
  to experience.
• If we can break complex ideas back down to the
  simple beliefs from which they arose, the complex
  and abstract beliefs are also justified.

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Locke on the Extent of Knowledge

• If all knowledge starts with experience and is
  justified by appeal to experience, does it also
  end with experience?
• Can we know anything about the existence and
  nature of the world itself?

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Locke on the Extent of KnowledgeParameters

• Empiricism
• The Egocentric Predicament
• Locke Wavers
• What Locke should say is that there simply is no
  direct knowledge of reality.
• But he tries to show how knowledge can be
  extended beyond our perceptions to the world
  itself.

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Knowledge of the world

• We do have sensory experiences.
• The best explanation for these experiences is
  that the world exists as their cause.
• Therefore, the world exists.

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Locke on the Nature of the World

• If the world exists, do our perceptions represent
  the world as it really is?
• Our perceptions partly capture the true nature of
  the world.

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Two Kinds of PropertiesPrimary Secondary
Qualities

• Primary Qualities
• Secondary Qualities
• Lockes conclusion is on shaky grounds.

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Transition to Berkeley

• While Locke advocates empiricist principles, he
  violates them.
• This fact did not escape the gaze of Bishop
  George Berkeley, a harsh critic of Locke.

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• Empiricist
• Philosopher
• Bishop
• George
• Berkeley

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Bishop George BerkeleyBiography

• Berkeleys name is pronounced bark-lee.
• Lived from March 12, 1685 to January 14, 1753
• An influential Irish theologian philosopher
• Born in Dysert Castle, near Thomastown, Ireland.
  Attended Trinity College, Dublin completing a
  masters degree in 1707. Berkeley remained at
  Trinity College after completion of his degree.
• In 1728 sailed for the Americas with the goal of
  establishing a college and utopian community in
  Bermuda. He was not successful and returned to
  London.
• The city of Berkeley, California is named after
  Berkeley.

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Berkeley on the Possibility of Knowledge and the
Role of Reason

• We have knowledge.
• It is through experience, and not reason that we
  have any knowledge.
• But what sort of reality does experience reveal?

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Berkeleys Theory of Experience

• Agreed with Locke that all knowledge starts with
  experience
• Criticized Locke for not being consistent enough
  in the application of empiricist principles.

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Berkeley on Lockes Primary and Secondary
Qualities

• How can we know what reality is like if
  experience is the only reality we can know?
• Since there is no world external to experience,
  the distinction between primary and secondary
  qualities cant be made.

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Why did Locke made the Primary-Secondary
Distinction?

• According to Berkeley, Locke was simply giving
  into ideas of the world introduced by physics.

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Material objects are unknowable and unthinkable

• We cant know anything about independently
  existing material objects.
• We simply do not experience them.
• It does not make sense to speak about a material
  world existing apart from our perceptions.

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Subjective Idealism Esse Est Percipi

• Subjective idealism.
• Ultimate reality is mental or spiritual in
  nature.
• Everything that exists falls into one of two
  categories
• Minds
• the ideas that they perceive.
• Esse est percipi To be is to be perceived

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Berkeley avoids Skepticism

• The Skeptical Challenge
• Berkleys Solution

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Berkeley onthe Cause of our Ideas

• Objection if the world does not cause our
  ideas, what does?
• God directly gives us the world of our
  experiences
• Also, God continually maintains the world in
  existence

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Berkeley onThe Idea of God

• Without God, we cant explain the source of
  ideas.
• Invoking God as the explanation for experience
  may violate empiricist principles however.
• Being true to empiricist principles leaves no way
  of explaining where experience comes from.