Empiricism

1
Empiricism

• All knowledge of things in the world is a
  posteriori (that is, based ultimately on
  experience).
• Purely mental (i.e., a priori) operations of
  reason do not provide knowledge about the world.

2
John Locke (1632-1704)Representational Realism

• The mind at birth is a blank
  slate (tabula rasa) no ideas are
  innate
• Knowledge is based on experience of simple ideas
  (e.g., yellow) or complex ideas (lemon),
  relations (father), abstractions (humanity)
• We know about the world because our ideas of
  primary qualities (e.g., solidity, shape)
  represent things as they really are. Ideas of
  secondary qualities (e.g., colors) represent
  things only as they appear to us. Qualities are
  supported by (unknown) substances

3
George Berkeley (1685-1753)

• Primary qualities depend on the mind just as much
  as secondary qualities
• There is no way to show how primary qualities
  represent real external qualities or substances
• What we perceive is the real world, but the only
  things we perceive are our ideas. So the real
  world consists only of ideas and the minds that
  perceive them (including God). That is, the
  worlds existence consists in its being perceived
  (esse est percipi) in regular patterns

4
David Hume Skepticism

• All knowledge of the world is a
  posterioribased on and limited to sense
  impressions or copies of those impressions or
  creations of imagination (ideas)
• We have no impressions of self or causality
  (other than temporal priority continguity, but
  no necessary connection)only habit
• Notions of cause-effect and self are based on
  custom and natural inclination, not knowledge

1711-1776