Plan –
Give them clues and get them to come up with
the objections
-
Simple ideas activity
Missing shade of blue quote and picture
Task in yellow box
Info on condillac’s statue
Criticisms of Concept Empiricism
Focus: To consider criticisms of
Concept Empiricism.
Recap
Concept empiricism is…
Locke thinks…
Hume thinks…(about God, self, morality,
causation?)
Simple and complex ideas are…
The difference between ideas and impressions
is…
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3QZ2KoFOg
Context…
So far this term:
• Concept empiricism – our minds are like a tabula
rasa and all concepts and ideas are acquired through
experience (Locke and Hume’s view)
• 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:
Here we begin to see some of the difficulties empiricists have
1. Moon
to address when working out the details of their theory that
2. Triangle
concepts derive from impressions and which impressions are
3. Beauty
going
to count as simple.
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
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.”
Criticism 2: Do all simple ideas come from sense experience?
• 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 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.
Possible
• I have the concept
of anempiricist
atom, evenreply:
though it is too small
for me
evera to
have a sense
experience
one.be a
With
concept
like justice
thereofmay
• I have
the idea
of abstract
such one
as justice
or
complex
route
back toconcepts
experience;
terribly
freedom
could Ibut
havenonetheless
a direct sensesomehow
impressionitthat
hardbut
to trace,
caused
concepts?
wouldthese
find its
origins in observation of just acts,
How
arehearing
these concepts
and
about formed?
just judgements in law courts,
- While
suchthe
concepts
their
sourceproduced.
in experience,
the do
associated
inner
feelings
Canand
you
think
of amay
list have
of
concepts/ideas
you have that
way in
which
they
derived
experience
to be
not
seem
toare
have
beenfrom
formed
from aseems
corresponding
more complex than a simple matter of copying sense
impression?
impressions.
Criticism 3: Do all complex ideas/concepts relate to
sense experience?
• 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 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
Would Condillac’s
just experience a ‘blooming,
buzzing,
an
statue be
able toconfusion’:
form
undifferentiated stream of sensations.
concepts?
• 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.
Criticism 4: Do some concepts have to exist in the
mind before sense impressions can be properly
experienced?
Kant
argued that
needis some
kind ofone
•• Immanuel
For Kant, our
experience
of thewe
world
not a passive
conceptual
in place
before
we canInstead,
make our
where sensescheme
data simply
fall into
our minds.
sense
of experience.
experience
is active and shaped by our concepts.
• Kant termed this his Copernican Revolution.
• Our minds actively construct the world.
•
“Thoughts without content are empty;
Noam Chomsky
makes[impressions]
a similar claim
aboutconcepts
language
intuitions
without
acquisition – he are
claims
that
it would
be impossible
blind”
Critique
of Pure
Reason. 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.
Noam Chomsky
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Cgpfw4z8
cw
(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 some objections
to the view that all of our concepts
come from experience. (9 marks)
Homework (due next lesson)
• Read pp.114- 124 of the blue book.
• Make sure you have sufficient notes on what
we have covered today.