British Empiricism

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British Empiricism

• Empiricism is the view in epistemology that our
  knowledge is ultimately justified by appeal to
  our sense experience.
• John Locke, George Berkeley, and David Hume are
  considered to be the most important British
  Empricists of the Modern period.

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• They each held that there are at least some sense
  impressions of which we can say with certainty
  that they reveal the real nature of things.
• Bertrand Russell is a 20th C. British empiricist
  while sense impressions give us evidence of what
  there is, reality must be inferred from many
  different sources of data.

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Russell, Appearance and Reality

• Examines how reality is an inference from the
  appearances.
• Table example
• our sense experiences of the table change with
  changes in perspective, magnification, etc.
• is there a real table at all?

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Corpuscular Philosophy

• Modern (I.e. 17th C.) scientific theory of
  perception developed by Robert Boyle.
• Claims that all physical phenomena can be
  explained as the motions of different shapes,
  sizes, and extent of matter.
• Employs primary/secondary quality distinction.

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Primary and Secondary Qualities

• Primary qualities are in bodies one cannot
  separate them from a body no matter what one does
  to it. E.g., solidity, extension, figure,
  number, and motion.
• Secondary qualities are nothing in the objects
  themselves, but powers to produce various
  sensations in us by their primary qualities
  (262) E.g., colors, sounds, tastes

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Naïve Theory of Perception

• Perceptions are exact copies of the material
  things we see.
• Objections how do you explain mistakes, optical
  illusions, perspective, gestalt switches? How can
  one thing appear in two different ways?

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Lockes Representation Theory of Perception

• There exist things outside us that our ideas
  represent some ideas represent like a mirror,
  some do not.
• Ideas of primary qualities are resemblances of
  the bodies, and their patterns really do exist in
  them.
• Ideas of secondary qualities are not
  resemblances, but merely indicate the presence of
  some primary qualities.