Further criticisms of Concept Empiricism Focus: To consider further criticisms of Concept Empiricism, alongside the criticism from Innatism.

Context… So far this term: Concept empiricism – our minds are like a tabula rasa and all concepts and ideas are acquired through experience. Criticisms of concept empiricism from Innatism – there exist ideas in the mind which are not acquired from experience. E.g.: Descartes’ Trademark argument; Physical substance (Descartes’ wax); Numbers (Plato & Descartes), and Beauty and Justice (Plato).) TODAY: Criticism of concept empiricism: (i)Does the concept of ‘simple ideas’ make sense? (ii)Do all simple ideas come from sense experience? (iii)Do all complex ideas/concepts relate to sense experience? (iv)Do some concepts have to exist in the mind before sense impressions can be properly experienced? NEXT WEEK: Empiricist responses to Innatism.

Criticism 1: Does the concept of ‘simple ideas’ make sense? Locke and Hume give examples such as red, cold and sadness as examples of simple impressions and define them as concepts that can not be broken down or analysed into anything simpler. Discuss in pairs and write down which of the following concepts are simple: 1.Moon 2.Triangle 3.Beauty 4.The sound of a G chord on a guitar 5.Fairness 6.Poetry 7.The number two 8.The taste of an apple 9.Mother 10.The colour orange Here we begin to see some of the difficulties empiricists have to address when working out the details of their theory that concepts derive from impressions and which impressions are going to count as simple.

Criticism 2: Do all simple ideas come from sense experience? One of Hume’s arguments for Concept Empiricism is that a blind person, who has never had the sense impression of blue, could never form the concept of blue. BUT… Hume discusses a case where someone has seen a range of blues from which one is missing and asks whether they would be able to form the concept of the missing shade. “Can he fill the blank [shade] from his own imagination, calling up in his mind the idea of that particular shade, even though it has never been conveyed to him by his senses? 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.”

Has Hume undermined the most basic tenet of empiricism; that all ideas and concepts just derive from experience? Has he undermined his own ‘Copy Principle’ – that ideas must be copied from impressions? Possible responses: (i)We can form the concept of this shade because it is actually a complex one, formed from the simple concept of blue-in-general and the concepts of dark or light. But… o then all of our concepts of shades of blue would then become complex ideas. This makes it difficult to see how we form the simple concept since it is no longer straightforwardly derived from any particular sense impression. o Also, how do we move from the particular experiences of different blues, to the concept of blue in general? It can’t be by copying, since a copy of a sense impression of blue will have to be of a particular shade. (ii) Another option for the empiricist is to insist that we cannot form the concept of the missing shade. Criticism 2: Do all simple ideas come from sense experience?

Criticism 3: Do all complex ideas/concepts relate to sense experience? I can have the concept of tea even if I have not tasted it. I can form the concept of Spain even though I have never been there. I have the concept of an atom, even though it is too small for me ever to have a sense experience of one. I have the idea of abstract concepts such as justice or freedom but could I have a direct sense impression that caused these concepts? How are these concepts formed? - While such concepts may have their source in experience, the way in which they are derived from experience seems to be more complex than a simple matter of copying sense impressions. Can you think of a list of concepts/ideas you have that do not seem to have been formed from a corresponding impression? Possible empiricist reply: With a concept like justice there may be a complex route back to experience; one terribly hard to trace, but nonetheless somehow it would find its origins in observation of just acts, and hearing about just judgements in law courts, and the associated inner feelings produced.

Also… what about relational concepts such as ‘being near’ or ‘far’, ‘next to’, etc? These concepts do not appear to be copied from any sense impression. Criticism 3: Do all complex ideas/concepts relate to sense experience?

Criticism 4: Do some concepts have to exist in the mind before sense impressions can be properly experienced? Our minds/brains must have some concepts or structures in order for our sense impressions to make ‘sense’ in the first place. Condillac’s statue… Some would argue that the statue would just receive a flow of uninterpreted sensations: noises, shapes, colours and tastes. Without interpretation William James argues that we would just experience a ‘blooming, buzzing, confusion’: an undifferentiated stream of sensations. The mind must have innate structures for us to make sense of the raw sense data it receives. It is only by placing what is given within certain categories that beliefs can be held and knowledge claims made about one’s experience. Would Condillac’s statue be able to form concepts?

Immanuel Kant argued that we need some kind of conceptual scheme in place before we can make sense of experience. Criticism 4: Do some concepts have to exist in the mind before sense impressions can be properly experienced? “Thoughts without content are empty; intuitions [impressions] without concepts are blind” Critique of Pure Reason. For Kant, our experience of the world is not a passive one where sense data simply fall into our minds. Instead, our experience is active and shaped by our concepts. Kant termed this his Copernican Revolution. Our minds actively construct the world. Noam Chomsky makes a similar claim about language acquisition – he claims that it would be impossible for any human to learn language simply on the basis of what they hear as they grow up if their minds did not already possess certain innate organising principles.

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

Outline and explain an objection to the view that all of our concepts come from experience. (9 marks)

Homework (due next lesson) Read pp of the blue book. Make sure you have notes on what we have covered today.