Damascene Philosophy

Schools of thought

Empiricism

17th and 18th centuries onward

The view that all our ideas and knowledge of the world come from experience.

The core idea

John Locke argued that the mind begins as a blank slate, with no innate ideas, and that everything we think is built from sensation and reflection. George Berkeley pushed this to the conclusion that there is no matter beyond our perceptions. David Hume followed it to sceptical conclusions about causation, the self and the problem of induction.

Empiricism is less a single theory than an attitude: claims about the world must answer to experience. In the nineteenth century John Stuart Mill built a logic of science on it, and in the twentieth it took a radical form in logical positivism. It remains the background philosophy of most scientific practice.

What they hold

  • There are no innate ideas; the mind is furnished by experience.
  • Knowledge of matters of fact depends on observation.
  • Ideas that cannot be traced to experience are suspect or meaningless.
  • Reason alone tells us only about relations between ideas.

The main criticisms

Rationalists reply that experience alone cannot account for knowledge of necessary truths, such as those of mathematics. Hume's own results show the risk: strict empiricism seems to leave us unable to justify induction, causation or belief in an external world.

Key figures

1632 – 1704

John Locke

The empiricist who argued that the mind starts as a blank slate and that personal identity is a matter of consciousness and memory.

1685 – 1753

George Berkeley

An Irish bishop who argued that there is no such thing as matter: to be is to be perceived.

1711 – 1776

David Hume

The Scottish sceptic who questioned causation, induction and the self, and argued that reason alone cannot tell us what we ought to do.

1806 – 1873

John Stuart Mill

The most influential utilitarian, who refined Bentham's theory with higher pleasures and defended individual liberty against the tyranny of the majority.

Where it comes up

Question

Why trust that the future will be like the past?

The sun has risen every day of recorded history. Hume asked a question no one has fully answered: what makes that a reason to expect it tomorrow?

Question

Is science the only path to truth?

Science has been astonishingly successful. Does that make it the only reliable source of knowledge, or only the best tool for some questions?

Question

Is the self an illusion?

Look inward for the one who is looking, and you find thoughts, feelings and sensations. You never seem to find the looker.

Question

Are you the same person you were at eight?

Almost every cell, belief and memory has changed. Something makes that child you. The question is what.

Question

How do you know anything at all?

You believe you are reading a screen. Can you rule out every way that belief might be false? If not, do you really know it?

Further reading