HCJ 2 – Locke and Hume

The next type of philosophers to consider in the topic of Epistemology are the Empiricists. Empiricism is the school of thinking where you obtain knowledge through our senses and experience – a posteriori. This is seen as a typically British approach to philosophy, especially after challenging European rationalist philosophers previously dealt with – Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz.

An example to show the difference between the two is if you were born in a box and stayed there all your life, could you know anything about the world? For rationalists, the answer would be yes, because knowledge is innate. For empiricists, the answer would be no, because we have experienced nothing.

The main two empiricists that we are going to consider in this post is Locke and Hume.

LOCKE

John Locke believed that our understanding came from our experience, which is worked on by our power of reason to produce real knowledge – we assess what we learn.

We are born a blank slate, so we cannot simply rationalise knowledge, as we do not know anything of the world. God has given us the ability to discover knowledge – God-given facilities.

HUME

David Hume disagrees with Locke. He believes that there are no God-given facilities, and that our knowledge process just happens naturally.

Hume is often labelled ‘the great infidel’. Because he is a skeptic, some attack him and call him an ‘irrationalist’. Hume is pro science and anti superstition.

However, Hume is influenced by Locke on epistemology. Locke spoke about ideas – the way we get ideas is by acting on sensory data with reason, as stated above in Locke’s section. Hume refines this and speaks about perceptions, meaning content of the mind.

Perceptions can be impressions (hearing, seeing, feeling, etc.) or ideas (thinking of something instead of experiencing it). This is how we know things.

Beliefs can be split into relations of ideas and matters of fact:

• Relations of ideas = a priori bonds between facts (5+5=10)
• Matters of fact = experience, a posteriori. The process of cause and effect – induction. This, according to Hume, is not rational.

LOGIC

There are two types of logic:

Deductive = if all the premises of the argument is true, then the conclusion must be true. It further defines what we already know. E.g. all men are mortal > Socrates is a man > Socrates is mortal.

Inductive = aims to establish a conclusion to be true with some degree of probability. Applying the particular to the general. E.g. cancer, climate change.

INDUCTION:

The scientific method is about finding of natural laws are inductive leaps. We carry out experiments and make observations, then make a general law out of this. This is induction. Science cannot be established by observation as we cannot observe future events.

Hume had argued that was a problem about induction – it is unreliable. However we cannot help this because this is how we psychologically are. This is known as ‘Hume’s problem’. Our assumption of the future is flimsy, but it is the basis of all our thought. This is custom for us.

Hume doesn’t want us to abandon our trust in relations between cause and effect, but he demonstrating how little we depend on reason.

MIRACLES

A miracle is transgression of s law of nature, and one is usually presumed to have been caused by God. Never listen to a person who claims miracles – extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Proportion belief to available evidence.