O empiricism, as well as the rationalists, investigated philosophical problems regarding the knowledge: what would be the origin of human knowledge? How is this knowledge acquired? What would be your limits? In this sense, the certainty of our beliefs and opinions and some aspects of reality that we think are objective, for example, colors, are questioned.
John Locke stated that we are like a blank sheet at birth, which is filled in as we experience the reality around us. David Hume, on the other hand, will call into question the notion of causality, claiming that it is subjective and derived from custom and other beliefs we hold.
Know more: Scholasticism: medieval philosophical production influenced by the Catholic faith
Historical context
The word empiricism is used to classify the proposals arising in the period of modern philosophy (mid-fifteenth to eighteenth century) who defended the construction of knowledge based on experience. The etymological origin of the name of this current of thought is the Greek word
emperia, which has a very similar meaning to “experience” in our language.Among the ancient Greeks, there was a form of treatment called empirical medicine, which consisted of reasoning about the observation of similar cases. These doctors avoided, in this sense, theorizing about the causes of diseases.
Proposals that adopted experience as a criterion or guide for the truth, in the modern period, were close to this perspective, so the importance of evidenceand confirmation. The main thinkers lived in England (John Locke, David Hume and George Berkeley), with some French defenders, such as Étienne Bonnot de Condillac.
Main ideas of empiricism
The experience that empiricists deal with is not simply a situation experienced by a person, since the establishment of knowledge requires that experiences can be confirmed, and this would minimally involve that such experience might occur more than one time. Because it is a knowledge acquired through the senses, the concern with certainty and the characterization of evidence are recurrent themes. On the other hand, since a changing reality is being investigated, the validity of these proposals is called into question..
The importance of the material world for empiricists brings their reflections closer to the theories of experimental science thinkers, which made many advances in the same period. Francis Bacon, considered the founder of the modern scientific method, makes it clear that experience is the foundational element of knowledge. Scientific knowledge, in any case, would only be achieved after removing the sources of equivocation and deception, named by him as idols, and applying inductive reasoning.
Main philosophers of empiricism
John Locke
John Locke's epistemological theory is an inquiry into the mind and its ability to know. In Essay on human understanding, named everything that can be thought of as an idea and argued that his origin would be the sensations, like the ideas of hot and yellow, and the mental operations, like doubt.
These ideas are acquired by a direct relationship between understanding and experience, being classified as simple, and can also be associated to generate complex ideas, such as the bonfire. The basis of all knowledge would be simple ideas, and as they all are captured by some sensation (internal or not), then Locke criticizes those who defend innate ideas—a position attributed to rationalists.
![John Locke was one of the great thinkers of liberal doctrine. [1]](/f/7ec44b576a7f02b5bd92ce670f2ca9d0.jpg)
To clarify the proposal, the following question can be asked: is it possible to imagine a taste that had never been tasted? John Locke argued that if some ideas were really innate, children would know logical principles already from birth and other notions would be common to all people, but this is not found anywhere.
David Hume
David Hume, in Investigation into human understanding (1748), aimed to study the mind. According to his theory, the contents of the mind, called perceptions, are acquired only in contact with reality. What he names impressions are the way in which contents enter the mind and are not restricted to what results directly from our experiences, but include emotions and desires.
What our minds retain from these experiences are ideas. It is a representation of the vividness experienced at a given moment, so that any idea that exists in the mind also has an equivalent impression. The philosopher challenges us to try to find some idea for which it is impossible to find equivalence in experience.
“Everyone will readily admit that there is a considerable difference between the perceptions of the mind when a man feels the pain of heat. excessive or the pleasure of a moderate tepidity, and when it later brings this sensation to your memory, or anticipates it by your imagination. These faculties can imitate or copy the perceptions of the senses, but they can never reach the full force and liveliness of the original experience.” |1|
Read too: René Descartes: the first philosopher on the rationalist side
empiricism and rationalism
THE dispute between empiricists and defenders of rationalism is about the origin of knowledge. While rationalists seek knowledge that can be universally valid, empiricists emphasize the investigation of reality that presents itself to human beings. The first group of philosophers implemented various conceptual analyzes and arguments based on deductions, while the latter generally relied on inductive reasoning.
The emphasis on experience does not indicate an abandonment of reason.. What has been under suspicion is its use as the only means of gaining knowledge. All the proposals of the philosophers of that period, whether rationalist or not, have already been criticized, modified or abandoned; they certainly presented notions and theories that were influential not only for the continuation of reflection. philosophical but also for the sciences that were developed in that period and for the scientific theories that came later. A philosopher who has notably endeavored to solve the problems pointed out by modern philosophers is Immanuel Kant.
Image credit
[1]Godfrey Kneller/commons
Grades
|1| HUME, David. Investigations into human understanding and moral principles. Translated by José Oscar de Almeida Marques. São Paulo: Editora UNESP, 2004.
By Dr. Marco Oliveira
Philosophy teacher
