On your whiteboard: What is innatism? Give two examples to support it Give two examples against it How convincing do you find innatism? Why?

The view that all concepts (ideas) are derived from sense experience. Concept Empiricism The view that all concepts (ideas) are derived from sense experience. Key points? Ideas caused by sense experiences – separate from them Can have concept of things we’ve never experienced But only if we’ve experienced the elements that make it up Is it possible to think of a brand new idea?

Concept Empiricism – Mixing and Matching …although our thought seems to be so free, when we look more carefully we’ll find that it is really confined within very narrow limits, and that all this creative power of the mind amounts merely to the ability to combine, transpose, enlarge, or shrink the materials that the senses and experience provide us with.” - Hume

Tabula Rasa The mind is like a blank slate The sense organs allow us to gain experiences. These experiences are imprinted in the mind as ideas. Think: How intuitive is this explanation of the origin of concepts?

Ideas without experiences… One result of the Tabula Rasa view is that individuals without working sense organs will be unable to form ideas associated with that sense organ. Do you agree?

Quick Tasks… Is it possible to imagine a brand new colour you’ve never experienced before? Construct your own alien or made-up creature and then identify how your construction is derived from your experience. Can you think of any ideas that are not ultimately derived from experience?

Hume’s Argument Impressions & Ideas Locke: the concepts come from sensation (experience via the senses) or reflection (awareness of our own thoughts) Hume: The concept is a faint copy of the original sense impression, which is caused by the object or event (e.g. coldness, snow) “If it happens, from a defect of the organ, that a man is not susceptible of any species of sensation, we always find that he is as little susceptible of the correspondent ideas. A blind man can form no notion of colours; a deaf man of sounds. Restore either of them that sense in which he is deficient; by opening this new inlet for his sensations, you also open an inlet for the ideas; and he finds no difficulty in conceiving these objects.”

Simple and Complex Concepts For both Locke and Hume, simple concepts come from simple impressions, and complex concepts are built from combining these simple concepts.

Simple and Complex Concepts So, concept empiricism is the view that all of our concepts are derived from sense impressions, either directly (in the case of simple concepts) or by being made up of other concepts that are based on sense impressions (in the case of complex concepts).

Hume’s extreme concept empiricism: If you think you have a concept, but can’t trace it back to an impression, then it is not a concept at all! Although you may have a word for it, that word doesn’t actually mean anything. Examples? (Clue: Hume was an atheist)

3 most important things you’ve learned about concept empiricism?

Think-Pair-Share How convincing do you find concept empiricism? Write as many strengths and weaknesses as you can.

Explain concept empiricism using the words below: Tabula rasa sense impressions concepts new ideas Locke Hume’s copy principle simple ideas and complex ideas extreme concept empiricism

Hume’s arguments for Concept Empiricism Anyone who has never had a certain impression (eg. a blind person) can not form the corresponding idea. Therefore, impressions are necessary for ideas. For any concept we have, we can trace its origin back to an impression we had. Therefore, impressions are sufficient for ideas.

Key Questions to assess empiricism: Are impressions really necessary for ideas? What kind of thing would be a counter-example? Are impressions really sufficient for ideas?

Hume’s example – the missing shade of blue Can you imagine the missing shade? What does this tell us about concept empiricism?

Hume’s example – the missing shade of blue The problem here for the empiricist is that if you can form an idea of the missing shade of blue it means that it is possible to form an idea which has no corresponding impression, and this goes against their principle that nothing can exist in the mind that has not come through the senses. 

Hume’s actual response: A better empiricist response: “Most people, I think, will agree that he can. This seems to show that simple ideas are not always, in every instance, derived from corresponding impressions. Still, the example is so singular that it’s hardly worth noticing, and on its own it isn’t a good enough reason for us to alter our general maxim.” We can form an idea of that particular shade by combining the idea of BLUE with the ideas of DARKNESS or LIGHTNESS. So it’s not actually a simple concept!

Problem with this empiricist response? If the idea of this shade is a complex one, isn’t every blue idea a complex one? Every example of blue is of a particular shade (dark-blue, turquoisey-blue, sky-blue etc.) So could we ever have a simple idea of blue? If we couldn’t have a simple idea of blue, then we couldn’t combine it with anything to form a complex idea of a particular shade.

An alternative empiricist response: The empiricist can claim that we can’t in fact imagine the missing shade. Then they can stick with the copy principle. Hume didn’t want to do this though. He thought we could imagine it. Are any of the empiricist responses good enough? Can Hume claim that we could imagine the missing shade of blue and still maintain the copy principle?

On whiteboards: Think of some words that don’t have sense impressions connected to them… Tip: if you’re struggling, look for words in the sentence above!

Logical connectives Imagine a cat sitting on a mat. Your idea of the cat, the mat, and of sitting all derive from impressions. But what about the idea of on-ness? What sense impression is this a copy of?

Logical connectives Logical connectives are words such as: Possibly If Not Either Most Can the empiricist claim that these ideas are copies of sense impressions?

This is tove What does “tove” mean?

What does this tell us about sense impressions and ideas? Sense impressions are not sufficient for ideas! E.g. ‘Tove’: you have the sense impression, but this isn’t enough to give you the right concept. You need someone to explain which aspect of the sense impression the word is referring to. So, we need more than just the sense impression itself to give us the concept/idea.

Are sense impressions sufficient for forming concepts/ ideas? Lots of other concepts seem to require a certain context / explanation on top of sense impressions. E.g. “justice”. Maybe there are sense impressions that are relevant, but you need other information in order to form the concept. And this other information isn’t in the form of sense impressions. So, some concepts require something else in addition to sense impressions.

2 sentences on whiteboards: What do the two examples (the missing shade of blue, and logical connectives) tell us about sense impressions and ideas? We seem to be able to form certain ideas without relying on any particular sense impression. So, sense impressions are not necessary for ideas. They’re also not sufficient for ideas because we sometimes need more than a sense experience / impression in order to form an idea (connectives / tove).