Empiricism, in philosophy, the view that all concepts originate in experience, that all concepts are about or applicable to things that can be experienced, or that all rationally acceptable beliefs or propositions are justifiable or knowable only through experience.
This broad definition accords with the derivation of the term empiricism from the ancient Greek word empeiria, “experience.”
Concepts are said to be “a posteriori” (Latin: “from the latter”) if they can be applied only on the basis of experience, and they are called “a priori” (“from the former”) if they can be applied independently of experience.
Beliefs or propositions are said to be a posteriori if they are knowable only on the basis of experience and a priori if they are knowable independently of experience (see a posteriori knowledge).
Thus, according to the second and third definitions of empiricism above, empiricism is the view that all concepts, or all rationally acceptable beliefs or propositions, are a posteriori rather than a prior.
The first two definitions of empiricism typically involve an implicit theory of meaning, according to which words are meaningful only insofar as they convey concepts.
Some empiricists have held that all concepts are either mental “copies” of items that are directly experienced or complex combinations of concepts that are themselves copies of items that are directly experienced.
This view is closely linked to the notion that the conditions of application of a concept must always be specified in experiential terms.
The third definition of empiricism is a theory of knowledge, or theory of justification. It views beliefs, or at least some vital classes of belief-e.g., the belief that this object is red-as depending ultimately and necessarily on experience for their justification.
An equivalent way of stating this thesis is to say that all human knowledge is derived from experience. Empiricism regarding concepts and empiricism regarding knowledge do not strictly imply each other.
Many empiricists have admitted that there are a priori propositions but have denied that there are a priori concepts.
It is rare, however, to find a philosopher who accepts a priori concepts but denies a priori propositions.
Stressing experience, empiricism often opposes the claims of authority, intuition, imaginative conjecture, and abstract, theoretical, or systematic reasoning as sources of reliable belief.
Its most fundamental antithesis is with the latter i.e., with rationalism, also called intellectualism or apriorism.
A rationalist theory of concepts asserts that some concepts are a priori and that these concepts are innate, or part of the original structure or constitution of the mind.
A rationalist theory of knowledge, on the other hand, holds that some rationally acceptable propositions perhaps including “every thing must have a sufficient reason for its existence” (the principle of sufficient reason)—are prior.
A priori propositions, according to rationalists, can arise from intellectual intuition, from the direct apprehension of self-evident truths, or from purely deductive reasoning.
David Hume, (born May 7 [April 26, Old Style), 1711, Edinburgh, Scotland—died August 25, 1776, Edinburgh), Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist known especially for his philosophical empiricism and skepticism.
Hume conceived of philosophy as the inductive, experimental science of human nature. Taking the scientific method of the English physicist Sir Isaac Newton as his model and building on the epistemology of the English philosopher John Locke, Hume tried to describe how the mind works in acquiring what is called knowledge.
He concluded that no theory of reality is possible; there can be no knowledge of anything beyond experience.
Despite the enduring impact of his theory of knowledge, Hume seems to have considered himself chiefly as a moralist.
Hume was the younger son of Joseph Hume, the modestly circumstanced laird, or lord, of Ninewells, a small estate adjoining the village of Chirnside, about nine miles distant from Berwick-upon-Tweed on the Scottish side of the border.
David’s mother, Catherine, a daughter of Sir David Falconer, president of the Scottish court of session, was in Edinburgh when he was born.
In his third year his father died. He entered Edinburgh University when he was about 12 years old and left it at 14 or 15, as was then usual.
Pressed a little later to study law (in the family tradition on both sides), he found it distasteful and instead read voraciously in the wider sphere of letters.
Because of the intensity and excitement of his intellectual discovery, he had a nervous breakdown in 1729, from which it took him a few years to recover.
In 1734, after trying his hand in a merchant’s office in Bristol, he came to the turning point of his life and retired to France for three years.
Most of this time he spent at La Flèche on the Loire, in the old Anjou, studying and writing A Treatise of Human Nature.
The Treatise was Hume’s attempt to formulate a full-fledged philosophical system.
It is divided into three books: Book I, “Of the Understanding,” discusses, in order, the origin of ideas; the ideas of space and time; knowledge and probability, including the nature of causality; and the skeptical implications of those theories.
Book II, “of the Passions,” describes elaborate psychological machinery to explain the affective, or emotional, order in humans and assigns a subordinate role to reason in this mechanism.
Book III, on morals, characterizes moral goodness in terms of “feelings” of approval or disapproval that people have when they consider human behaviour in the light of agreeable or disagreeable consequences, either to themselves or to others.
Although the Treatise is Hume’s most thorough exposition of his thought, at the end of his life he vehemently repudiated it as juvenile, avowing that only his later writings presented his considered views.
The Treatise is not well constructed, in parts oversubtle, confusing because of ambiguity in important terms (especially “reason”), and marred by willful extravagance of statement and rather theatrical personal avowals.
For those reasons his mature condemnation of it was perhaps not entirely misplaced. Book I, nevertheless, has been more read among academic philosophers than any other of his writings. Returning to England in 1737, he set about publishing the Treatise.
Books I and II were published in two volumes in 1739; Book III appeared the following year.
The poor reception of this, his first and very ambitious work, depressed him; he later said, in his Autobiography, that “it fell dead-born from the press, without reaching such distinction, as even to excite a murmur among the zealots.”
But his next venture, Essays, Moral and Political(1741-42), won some success. Perhaps encouraged by this, he became a candidate for the chair of moral philosophy at Edinburgh in 1744.
Objectors alleged heresy and even atheism, pointing to the Treatise as evidence (Hume’s Autobiography not with standing, the work had not gone unnoticed).
Unsuccessful, Hume left the city, where he had been living since 1740, and began a period of wandering: a sorry year near St. Albans as tutor to the mad marquess of Annandale (1745-46); a few months as secretary to Gen. James St. Clair (a member of a prominent Scottish family), with whom he saw military action during an abortive expedition to Brittany (1746); a little tarrying in London and at Ninewells; and then some further months with General St. Clair on an embassy to the courts of Vienna and Turin (1748-49).
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