Question

State the main principles of empiricism, then show how Hume applies them more consistently than Locke and how this radical empiricism leads to skepticism.

Answer 1

Main principles of empiricism

Empiricism is the theory that the origin of all knowledge is sense experience. It emphasizes the role of experience and evidence, especially sensory perception, in the formation of ideas, and argues that the only knowledge humans can have is a posteriori (i.e. based on experience).

Empiricism is the theory that the origin of all knowledge is sense experience. It emphasizes the role of experience and evidence, especially sensory perception, in the formation of ideas, and argues that the onlyknowledge humans can have is a posteriori (i.e. based on experience). Most empiricists also discount the notion of innate ideas or innatism (the idea that the mind is born with ideas or knowledge and is not a "blank slate" at birth).

In order to build a more complex body of knowledge from these direct observations, induction or inductive reasoning (making generalizationsbased on individual instances) must be used. This kind of knowledge is therefore also known as indirect empirical knowledge.

Empiricism is contrasted with Rationalism, the theory that the mind may apprehend some truths directly, without requiring the medium of the senses.

The term "empiricism" has a dual etymology, stemming both from the Greek word for "experience" and from the more specific classical Greek and Roman usage of "empiric", referring to a physician whose skill derives from practical experience as opposed to instruction in theory (this was it's first usage).

The term "empirical" (rather than "empiricism") also refers to the method of observation and experiment used in the natural and social sciences. It is a fundamental requirement of the scientific method that all hypotheses and theories must be tested against observations of the natural world, rather than resting solely on a priori reasoning, intuition or revelation. Hence, science is considered to be methodologically empirical in nature.

Hume vs locke

According to the received view, Hume is a much more rigorous and con-

sistent empiricist than Locke. “Much of Locke’s writing on special topics

is undeveloped and it was left to his successors and, in particular, to David

Hume, to work out the full implications of the lines of thought which

Locke had suggested” (O’Connor 1952, p. 219). According to Dicker,

Hume takes as a starting point a thesis that Locke merely “enunciated,”

and from it “ultimately derive[s] momentous consequences” (1998, p. 5).

Locke, Russell thinks, is “always willing to sacrifice logic rather than

become paradoxical. He enunciates general principles which . . . are capa-

ble of leading to strange consequences; but whenever the strange conse-

quences seem about to appear, Locke blandly refrains from drawing them”

(1961, p. 586). Hume, in contrast, “developed to its logical conclusion the

empirical philosophy of Locke and Berkeley” (ibid., p. 634). “Hume took

over all the main elements of Locke’s meaning empiricism. . . . Locke

[tends] to soft-pedal on the theory. Hume tries to do better than this, and

never shrinks from following the argument wherever it honestly seems to

him to lead” (Bennett 1971, p. 223).

To the extent that it pertains to Locke and Hume’s concept-empiricism,

the received view is mistaken, I shall argue. Hume may be more uncom-

promising (although he falters too), but he is not more rigorous than

Locke. Quite the contrary. It is not because he is “timid” (Russell 1961,

p. 586) that Locke does not draw Hume’s “strange consequences” from his

empiricism. It is, rather, because of his much sounder method.

2.

The received view is based on the use to which Hume puts his “first prin-

ciple . . . in the science of human nature” (1978, p. 7): “That all our simple

ideas in their first appearance are deriv’d from simple impressions, which

are correspondent to them, and which they exactly represent” (ibid., p. 4;

emphasis removed). And, indeed, Hume sets great store by his principle,

commonly known as the Copy Principle. “No discovery cou’d have been

made more happily for deciding

controversies concerning ideas, than

that . . . impressions always take the precedency of them” (ibid., p. 33;

my emphasis). The status of a putative idea cannot always be directly

decided because ideas “are naturally faint and obscure,” whereas “all

impressions . . . are strong and vivid: the limits between them are more

exactly determined; nor is it easy to fall into any error or mistake with

regard to them” (Hume 1975, p. 22). “By bringing ideas into so clear a

light” (ibid., p. 22), the Copy Principle enables us to identify some putative

ideas as bogus, and (more commonly) show the real meanings of terms

about which we are confused.

Hume is true to his word. As Garrett claims (1997, p. 41), “the principle

plays a crucial role in his arguments concerning such central topics as

space, time, causation, personal identity, and morality.” It “is Hume’s

chief analytical tool”

Radical empiricism leads to skepticism

Hume's theory leads to radical skepticism because he acknowledges that using Empiricism makes certain areas of inquiry unintelligible. E.g. the problem of induction.