Issues with Concept Empiricism

Does the concept of ‘simple ideas’ make sense Does the concept of ‘simple ideas’ make sense? Do all simple ideas come from sense experience? Do all complex ideas/concepts relate to sense experience? Do some concepts have to exist in the mind before sense impressions can be properly experienced?

Does the concept of ‘simple ideas’ make sense? Simple concepts can be analysed further. For example the simple concept of a mountain can be further analysed into the concept of rock, the concept of snow, the concept of grass, etc. Although these collections of ideas do not necessarily add up to the complete concept of ‘mountain’. The question is, when does the analysis stop? When do we find a simple impression? This demonstrates a difficulty for the empiricist in working out the details of their theory of impressions and ideas.

Do all simple ideas come from sense experience? Hume’s missing shade of blue: if it is possible to form an idea without a corresponding impression (the idea of the missing shade of blue without the impression of this shade of blue) this goes against the principle that nothing can exist in the mind that has not come through the senses , undermining the most basic tenet of empiricism.

A spectrum of blue with one shade missing We probably can form the idea of the missing shade So not all ideas are copied from impressions. Is this the only exception? Important, because Hume uses the ‘copy principle’ to unpack and criticise complicated concepts.

Hume’s Response Hume does not seem to adequately respond to the problem he poses, arguing that this is simply an exception to the general rule. However, if we can form this concept without having had an impression, why should we not be able to form others? One response is to say that missing shade of blue is a complex concept and can be formed from the idea of ‘blue in general’ and the concepts of ‘dark’ and ‘light’. However, then all ideas of colour would be complex concepts – how would we form the simple concept? The empiricist could also respond that we cannot actually form the concept of the missing shade of blue, but the implications of this would be that we would have to experience millions of different shades of colours to form the concepts of each colour.

Do all complex ideas/concepts relate to sense experience? We can have concepts of things we have never experienced; for example I can form the concept of Italy having never been there and I can form the concept of an atom without being able to see it. How do we acquire concepts of abstract concepts such as freedom or justice? We don’t seem to have sense impressions of these concepts. Empiricists might respond that with abstract concepts there will be a complex route back to experience, i.e. we can form the concept of justice from observing justice acts. Do relational concepts (e.g. ‘being near’, ‘being far’, ‘on’, below’, ‘behind’ etc.) derive from impressions? I can have a sense impression of a cat and a mat but I don’t seem to have a sense impression of ‘on-ness’ so, according to the empiricist, how would one form the concept of the cat on the mat?

Do some concepts have to exist in the mind before sense impressions can be properly experienced? Our brains must have some concepts or structures already in place for our sense experiences to make sense. For example, Condillac’s statue would experience a flow of sense data without being able to categorise this sense data. The statue would experience what William James has called ‘a blooming, buzzing confusion.’ Immanuel Kant argued that there must be conceptual schemes in place for us to categorise and understand our sense experiences.

Concept Innatism?