1. Empiricism

2. Empiricism Aristotle Thinks knowledge is knowledge of the world
The senses are the route to knowledge
nihil in intellectu nisi prius fuerit in sensu

3. Empiricism Aristotle Is an inspiration to Empiricism
His Empiricism is less extreme than Plato’s Rationalism

4. Empiricism
Heroes of Empiricism
Locke
Berkeley
Hume

5. Empiricism
Empiricism can take a skeptical approach to the concepts we discussed before:
A priori / a posteriori knowledge
Analytic / synthetic statements
Necessary / contingent truths
Innate / acquired ideas
Let’s look at some of the extreme doubts that have been raised

6. Knowledge A Priori Definition:
Something is known a priori when it is a true belief whose justification does not depend on evidence from sense experience.
Something is known a posteriori when its justification does depend upon sense experience

7. Knowledge A Priori Most fundamental a priori knowledge is of logic
If logic can be understood as a posteriori then the others may also be vulnerable
Most empiricists accept logic as a priori
but also say it is trivial or vacuous
it isn’t real knowledge it is just rules for thinking

8. Knowledge A Priori Mill disagrees
Logical laws like the Law of Non-Contradiction
A statement and its negation can’t both be true
are generalisations from our experiences
We generalise by induction
Just like the swan example
We may be wrong!
Inconceivable!!

9. Knowledge A Priori An objection to Mill
Laws of logic are known a priori because they just describe relations amongst the meanings of the terms used in them
Someone says ‘this is a dog and it is not a dog’
That person doesn’t know what ‘not’ and ‘and’ mean

10. Knowledge A Priori Against that objection:
We don’t think the LNC (‘not A and not-A’)
is just about our thoughts
It’s about how the world is
We have the LNC as a thought because of the way our minds work
Having the LNC is good because that’s how the world is
If our minds worked so that we didn’t think LNC, it would still be how the world worked

11. Knowledge A Priori Against that objection:
If a priority is just about meaning then it’s the same as analyticity
There are doubts about analyticity

12. Analytic Statements Definition:
A statement is analytic when its truth may be known simply by knowing the meaning of the constituent terms
A statement is synthetic otherwise

13. Analytic Statements Quine disputes the distinction
1951 ‘Two Dogmas of Empiricism’
Definition of analytic depends on knowing how two terms can have the same meaning
Not uncontroversial
Definition also depends on implicit concept of ‘meaning’ being coherent
Also problematic

14. Analytic Statements What is a ‘meaning’?
It isn’t some kind of thing in the world
Not the referent of a term
‘Evening star’ and ‘morning star’ both refer to Venus, but they don’t have the same meaning
Not the set of all objects to which the term applies
Renates (things with livers) and cordates (things with hearts) happen to be the same things, but ‘renate’ doesn’t mean what ‘cordate’ means

15. Analytic Statements How do two terms ‘have the same meaning?’
Is it by having the same definition?
‘A bachelor’ = ‘an unmarried man’
To find that the two are synonyms you have to know what you mean by meaning
What’s the definition of bachelor = what set of words would have the same meaning as that word
So define synonymy in terms of definitions and definitions in terms of synonymy

16. Analytic Statements How do two terms ‘have the same meaning?’
Quine says that all such attempts to define meaning or synonymy have the same problem of circularity

17. Analytic Statements Maybe there’s just no such thing as ‘meaning’
Quine also proposes the Radical Indeterminacy of Translation
Consider an anthropologist trying to learn a new language
‘Gavagai!’
Does it mean ‘rabbit’, ‘dinner’, ‘undissociated rabbit parts’?
No evidence can possibly distinguish the senses
Therefore there is no distinction to be made

18. Innate Ideas Definition:
An idea is innate if it does not derive from our experience of the world
An idea is acquired otherwise

19. Innate Ideas Empiricists are very skeptical of innate ideas
Locke had two arguments
Innate ideas would be possessed by all humans
Yet there are idiots and savages who could not assent to ‘everything that is, is’
Innate ideas would be possessed at all ages
Yet children can’t even have these ideas
Thus the mind is a blank sheet or tabula rasa

20. Innate Ideas Leibnitz replied After Kant, most accept innate concepts
The mind is like veined marble
It is so structured that certain ideas will arise in it with the appropriate experiences
After Kant, most accept innate concepts
Space, time, causality, etc.
But innate beliefs are another matter

21. Innate Ideas Are there innate beliefs? Folk physics Folk psychology
Infants discover the permanence of objects
Folk psychology
Infants discover that other people have minds like theirs

22. Innate Ideas Are innate beliefs knowledge?
Can the innateness indicate a justification?
Are they innate because they are true?
Perhaps a non-deceiving God put them there
Do God’s purposes require us not to be deceived?
Perhaps true beliefs are evolutionarily advantageous
Sometimes false beliefs are more advantageous
Strangers want to attack you. (Let’s assume that’s false.)
It’s good to be altruistic

23. Innate Ideas Are innate concepts correct?
Their innateness doesn’t tell us that they correctly represent the world
Are they innate because they are correct?
Perhaps a non-deceiving God put them there
Do God’s purposes require us not to be deceived?
Perhaps correct concepts are evolutionarily useful
They only need to organize things