Empiricism

1. Empiricism The Authority of Experience

2. Empiricism • It is often thought that British empiricism and French sensationalism developed specifically as a reaction to the deductive, nativist position of Descartes. • I.e. Rationalism ‘came first’ • However it doesn’t really work out this way • Locke never mentions Descartes in Essay • Bacon came before Descartes, and targeted scholasticism if anything • There are sometimes elements of both in some thinkers

3. Some distinctions • Empiricism vs. Rationalism • Specific distinction is somewhat variable depending upon the time period in question • Started with Hippocratic ‘empirici’ vs. Pythagorean mystics • Empiricism • We have noted Aristotle as a mere observer of an empirical sort, however now (in the Renaissance) we have those wanting control and manipulate nature • This movement (starting with Bacon, well, perhaps Roger really but as far as Empiricism goes Francis) coincides with the scientific movement itself • However Bacon and other empiricists could even be seen as rejecting the largely magical (Hermetical) empiricism/’science’ of the Renaissance, and • His atheoretical approach is in contrast with current scientific methodology

4. Empiricism • The empiricists attempted to explain the functioning of the mind as Newton explained the universe - sought principles or laws that could account for human cognitive experience. • Importance of experience in the attainment of knowledge. • Epistemology that asserts that the evidence of senses constitutes the primary data of all knowledge • That knowledge cannot exist unless this evidence has first been gathered • All subsequent intellectual processes must use this evidence and only this evidence in framing valid propositions about the real world

5. Rationalism • Rationalism • Stems primarily from the philosophical perspectives of Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz • Certain truths exist, and when reason explores the universe a small set of truths can be deduced which form the basis of all other knowledge • Primary data are the laws of thought • All knowledge is the result of a rational analysis of sense and that this very evidence can’t be gathered without an a priori guiding principle • Something innate to make clear the confusion of sensory information • Note that both rationalism and empiricism share an assumption of mentalism (contra later behaviorism), thoughneither position itself would suggest that there is only mind (though some supposed proponents of the position might, e.g. Berkeley’s idealism)

6. Francis Bacon • 1561-1626 • Novum Organum • Demanded that science be based on induction • More strictly, science should include no theories, no hypotheses, no mathematics, and no deductive methods • Science should include only facts of observation • What is deemed worthy of a scientific (or any) undertaking should be estimated in terms of its worth to humanity • Renaissance humanism perspective and in a sense against Luther’s Reformation which denounced ‘works’

7. Francis Bacon • Generalizations could be made from many observations with their similarities and differences noted and could be used to describe classes of events or experiences • For Bacon, science should improve the world for the betterment of mankind • Skinner and behavior analysis adopted the Baconian inductive method and the view that the main goal of science is to improve the human condition • However Bacon also distinguishes two forms of experiments: experimenta lucifera (those that shed light) and experimenta fructifera (those that bear fruit) • One can liken this to our current exploratory and confirmatory distinction in methodology (though this is quite muddied these days) • The exploratory will inform the other, which will be of the type by which humans will specifically benefit

8. Francis Bacon • Although admired Aristotle and other Greeks, suggested that blind adherence to them impedes progress • Against astrology, alchemy, magic etc. some of which the blame could be laid on Aristotle’s notion of final causes • Clearly separates the physical and metaphysical (and puts mathematics w/ the latter in anti-rationalist fashion) • Also distinguishes psychology as its own discipline (perhaps for the first time) • “We come therefore now to that knowledge whereunto the ancient oracle directeth us, which is the knowledge of ourselves; which deserveth the more accurate handling, by how much it toucheth us more nearly. This knowledge, as it is the end and term of natural philosophy in the intention of man, so, notwithstanding, it is but a portion of natural philosophy in the continent of nature” • Clearly suggests psychology involves questions of an experimental nature, and even gets into talk of ideas that would fall under the headings of social psychology, operant conditioning, and innate vs. environmental determinants of personality

9. Francis Bacon • In terms of his psychology, Bacon is actually a very modern blend of nativistic/rationalist and empirical views • Some characteristics are innate (think Galenic temperaments) or determined by outside forces beyond our control (e.g. born rich or poor) • However these can be affected, and even changed by experience (e.g. reward and punishment) • Though inherited characteristics would limit the effects of experience

10. John Locke • 1632-1704 • An Essay Concerning Human Understanding • The ‘tabula rasa’ • For Locke all ideas come from sensory experience • No innate ideas, strict anti-rationalism • An idea is a mental image employed while thinking and comes from either sensation (direct sensory stimulation) or reflection (reflection on remnants of prior sensory stimulation) • Thinking = Perceiving • Thus, the source of all ideas is sensation, and these ideas can be acted upon by operations of the mind giving rise to new ideas • Associationism (cognitive i.e. not just Pavlovian) • Nominalist

11. John Locke • Simple ideas cannot be divided further into other ideas while complex ideas are composites of simple ideas and can be analyzed into their parts (simple ideas) • Complex ideas are formed through operation being applied to simple ideas through reflection (comparing, abstracting, discriminating, combining and enlarging, remembering, and reasoning) • Knowledge is the perception of associations • Also noted that knowledge is a construction, and that our concepts our ‘representations’ depend entirely on context • Early ‘situated action’ • Feelings of pleasure and pain accompany simple and complex ideas, other emotions are derived from these two basic feelings

12. John Locke • We four means by which we can know things: • Identity • What something is and is not • Relation • Some things are related, others not • Coexistence • Some properties are intimately associated with various objects, concepts • Real existence • The realism of which we have spoken of before, that some things do exist (factual knowledge) • Locke also suggest that knowledge is of three types: • Intuitive • Immediately knowable (Black is not white) • Demonstrative • Provable (e.g. mathematically) • Both intuition and demonstration produce certainty • Sensitive • The knowledge of particulars by means of senses

13. John Locke • Primary vs. Secondary qualities • Primary qualities • Correspond to actual physical attributes of objects: solidarity, extension, shape, motion, and quantity • Inherent in the object • Secondary qualities • Do not correspond to the objects in the real world: color, sound, temperature, and taste • Inherent in the perceiver • The connection between the secondary (liquidity) and primary qualities (H2O) in an object is something we cannot know • Introduction of the ‘hard’ problem of subjectivity in the study of consciousness

14. John Locke • Association was used to explain faulty beliefs (which he called “a degree of madness”) which are learned by chance, custom, or mistake (associated by contiguity) • Memories can also fade over time (trace decays a la 60s cognitive psychology) or we may simply lose the ability to retrieve • Many ideas are clustered in the mind because of some logical connection among them and some are naturally associated, these are safe types of associations because they are naturally related and represent true knowledge • Knowledge exists which we can be certain

15. John Locke • Morality • Consists of complex ideas which, being rooted in the physical world from which simple ideas arise, can be deemed true • Regarding government • Social contract between state and citizens • Rights available to all (life, liberty, property), • Essentially nativistic view to balance what might lead to a moral relativism from his empiricism • Played an early role in child development • Regarding education of children, parents should increase tolerance in their children and provide necessities for good health • Teachers should always make the learning experience pleasant and recognize and praise student accomplishments

16. George Berkeley • 1685-1753 • Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge • “To be is to be perceived” • Berkeley opposed materialism because it left no room for God, and his work can essentially be seen as a response to the mechanistic views implied by the likes of Locke, Hobbes, etc. (even Descartes)

17. George Berkeley • Berkeley’s theory of distance perception (New Theory of Vision) suggests that for distance to be judged, several sensations from different modalities must be associated • For example, viewing an object and the tactile sensation of walking toward it • In contrast to Cartesian geometric theory of optics, which suggested a calculation based on the angles of the triangle formed between eyes and object • Emphasis on the experience/sensation of the object rather than the perception of ‘distance’ which itself can’t even be seen • Depth as a result of (earlier) experience with the environment

18. George Berkeley • Like depth, objects of experience depend on the observer • One thing to note, that in Berkeley, we do not have ‘only mind’ per se • What we do have is the subjective experience placed at the forefront, that we cannot talk about the object without the perception of it • Therefore, only secondary qualities exist because they are, by definition, what is perceived • For example, objects in motion can only be understood as such relative to one another • In a sense predates Einstein’s relativity • In the way that objects exist to us (in our perceiving them, in our mind), so does everything to God

19. David Hume • 1711-1776 • Treatise on Human Nature • Hume’s goal was to combine the empirical philosophy of his predecessors with principles of Newtonian science to create a science of human nature • Establish the limits of human knowledge • He focused on the use of the inductive method of Bacon and the newly emerging science to make careful observations of human nature and then cautiously generalize

20. David Hume • Contents of the mind come from experience and can be stimulated by either external or internal events • He distinguished between impressions (strong, vivid perceptions) and ideas (weak perceptions, faint images in thinking and reasoning) • Impressions are further divided into sensations, and reflection (combination of sensations, i.e. once removed from initial sensation) • How the sensations (qualia) are produced, he is unsure (as we are today) • No innate ideas (at least that can be confirmed by experience) • Simple ideas cannot be broken down further (like Locke), complex ideas are made of other ideas • Once in the mind ideas can be rearranged in an infinite number of ways by the imagination

21. David Hume • For Hume there were three laws of association –resemblance, contiguity, and cause and effect • Not worrying with the problem of mental vs. physical*, but what causes us to perceive the situation as such, and assume, in the Berkeleyian sense, that objects of sense must be there? • We assume the existence of the material world due to constancy and coherence, and in doing so can come to some estimation regarding causality • Causation is not in reality, not a logical necessity, it is a psychological experience • For Hume, the mind is no more than the perceptions we are having at any given moment “’tis vain to ask, Whether there be a body or not? That is a point which we must take for granted in all our reasonings.”

22. David Hume • All humans possess the same passion (emotions) but differ in degree of specific emotions • The passions determine behavior, therefore, we respond differently to situations • In fact feelings are innate • Furthermore, these passions are independent of reason, produced by a history of associations • Belief is a feeling about our knowledge i.e. knowledge is conviction • Both animals and humans learn to act in particular ways through experience with reward and punishment • Like others of the time, morals are a fundamentally human notion and established based on experience • We are moral in so far as such action produces a satisfying state of affairs • Right and wrong are not ‘in’ things/events themselves

23. Thomas Reid • 1710-1796 • ‘Common Sense’ movement • Required the findings of philosophy to adhere to what we fundamentally know to be true • The world is real, senses are affected by that reality, perception is a result of that process (world) • A tough fit as far as the Empiricist/Rationalist camps go, believed this ‘common sense’ to be innate, and feels that reason and sense came ‘both out of the same shop’ • Not innate ideas, but that we come equipped to deal with our surroundings • ‘Natural faculties’ • Admonished the empiricists for failing to distinguish sensation from perception and so their ‘ideas’ were a vague notion • The common sense of Reid continued in various forms and could be said to have culminated in the pragmatism of Dewey, Peirce, and James

24. Utilitarianism • Utilitarianism’s key theme • Rightness and wrongness of actions are determined solely by their consequences • No right or wrong inherent in things or events (old idea) • For this time period we can say it started with Bentham (1748-1832), but roots can be traced to Epicureanism • Emphasis on pleasure seeking, pain avoidance • The connection to empiricism is more historical • Due to the political upheaval witnessed during these times, e.g. French and American revolutions; British civil war in the time of Locke, the empiricists often provided their own political/social philosophies, ones that weren’t necessarily in keeping with their empiricist philosophy/psychology • Ideas would pervade moralistic, political and educational philosophies, its ‘consequentialism’ spawn behaviorism, and its general approach incorporated by the pragmatic psychologists

25. James Mill • 1773-1836 • Chief ally and proponent of Bentham’s ideas, father of J.S. Mill • For James Mill, the mind was sensations and ideas held together by contiguity and complex ideas were made of simple ideas • When ideas are continuously experienced together, the association may become so strong that they appear as one idea • Strength of associations are determined by the vividness of the sensations or ideas and by the frequency of the associations

26. John Stuart Mill • 1806-1873 • J. S. Mill proposed a mental chemistry in which complex ideas are not made up of aggregates of simple ideas but that ideas can fuse to produce an idea that is completely different from the elements of which it is made • Proposed a science of human nature (psychology) which has a set of primary laws that apply to all humans and can predict general tendencies in human thought, feeling, and action • However, the science does not have knowledge of how the primary laws interact with secondary laws (individual characteristics and circumstances) to predict specific thoughts, feelings, and actions • Staunch proponent of women’s rights, due in large part to his relationship with Harriet Taylor