Empiricism: An Introduction
Birds have feathers, butterflies have wings. These defining features, and many more, are the observations we use to identify all the objects we encounter every day. Our sensory experience of the sight, feel, smell and sound of something enable us to categorise, discuss and communicate about the subject with one another. These sense impressions seem to be the only way we can perceive and learn about the world around us. However, quite surprisingly, not everyone agrees. Empiricism can be rather straightforward, but at the same time, the term is open to radical possibilities. As a Philosophical endeavour, it strays down the notorious path of denying what seems to be universal common sense; doubting everything.
Empiricist Philosophers believe all of our knowledge derives from our sense experience. Hence, human knowledge comes from one place only - our observations. Our sense experience is primitive, innate, we need this method of perception to function within this world. But how far does this go, exactly? What about dreams? Say, you’re relaxing in a field, listening to the sound of the breeze through the trees and the chirping of birds, when suddenly a giant squid comes walking across the landscape. Suddenly, you awaken, realising you have been dreaming, and the field, birds and trees continue as normal. You become absolutely certain that the squid was not real. There is no changing your belief. But what if you are mistaken also about the birds and the trees also, just as you were about the squid? What if they are not real?
For Philosophers, there is a strong line between belief and knowledge.
Knowledge - A belief which has been justified and converted into knowledge
Belief - An acceptance that something is true, without proof
Belief + Proof = Knowledge
Knowledge is a lot harder to obtain than a belief. It’s extremely limited which makes it harder to justify. However, saying you know that the field, birds and trees exist because it seems obvious and natural is enough for your belief to become knowledge (as opposed to the squid), but comes with the great possibility that you may be wrong. What you’re seeing is the perception of your own individual interpretation, like viewing the world through a personal filter. This a problem for Empiricists, as they believe our sense experience is all humans have to experience the world.
Our sense experience misleads us. At night, everything appears to be a dark, indigo-grey colour. White walls appear yellow in strong daylight. We can dream about giant squids walking across fields. Our mind creates these odd experiences; so whose to say reality isn’t just an odd experience too? The squid and the trees may be just as real as each other. Hence, due to the mind’s occasional ‘mistakes’, philosophers believe that our mind mediates our sense experience. This means it comes to an agreement, or a sort of reconciliation or peace, so we can establish some form of normality, creating a structure or ‘model’ to function by.
When we look at the trees around us, it seems we are perceiving them directly as they are in that moment. But what if we are not? What if the trees are a fantastic illusion created by our minds, and we are unaware of this because this illusion seems so real, normal and natural? Our perceptions may be an internal picture unique to us. When you look at the trees, the trees provide you with a ‘tree sensation’ within your mind, and not the trees themselves. If this were true, we may be merely looking at copies of the trees, and based on the assumption of the definition of the term ‘copy’, these copies are probably similar to the originals.
However, the might not be. There’s no method we can use to bypass this tree sensation and look more closely at the original tree. In fact, we can’t even successfully conclude that the original concept of a tree even exists! Now the realisation that perhaps there is nothing else hits - what if there is only us and nothing else? We could be trapped in our own internal world of perception.
This leads us down a typical route of philosophy- uncertainty. We begin to question everything, and the more bizarre our thoughts escalate, the more doubtful we become. Where do our sense experiences even come from? Can we trust these experiences? And most importantly for an empiricist, how can we ever obtain knowledge if it all derives from our untrustworthy, unknowable sense experience?
In Ancient Greece, Empiricism wasn’t an established term, and the whole question of reality was discussed a lot differently, for example Plato’s forms. The Pre-Socratics stated that what we see tells us very little about what is real. True knowledge, they said, wasn’t obtained by observation, but by thinking. Plato (427-347 B.C.E) was one of the first methodical thinkers who believed that empirical knowledge is inferior because it is different for everyone and constantly changing. For example, we may believe a house spider is big as we live in England, but we haven’t never encountered a giant huntsman in Thailand. Therefore, this ‘knowledge’ is relative to ourselves only. Can this even be classified as knowledge? Plato felt not, for it is a matter of personal belief and opinion.
Plato believed knowledge was similar to mathematics instead. Everyone sees the same tree, in the same state, and the same number of them. They are objective, persisting physical change with a permanence and certainty, which empirical knowledge lacks. Real knowledge, according to Plato, would be timeless and analytical, like mathematics. Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E) disagreed with his teacher, however, believing knowledge to be a mixture of observation and mathematics. He was concerned with studying the natural world, looking for the cause and effects of the functioning of all natural things. Although much of his metaphysical theories can be disproved today, Aristotle is renowned as a famous and successful influential philosopher.
In Western Europe during the 12th century, Greek philosophy resurfaced and was assumed to be of an intellectual superiority. Many scholars believed all knowledge to be ‘complete’ and were too timid to move away from the works of Aristotle. St Thomas Aquinas, a 13th century cleric, combined Aristotelian philosophy with Christian theology, teaching this odd mixture in schools under the term ‘Scholasticism’, causing a standstill in both science and philosophy. In the 16th century however, this began to change when the Reformation began to crumble the Church’s hold on intellectual life. By now, Aristotle’s views on nature and the Universe, although always respected, were rejected by new scientific discoveries.
René Descartes (1596-1650) was the founder of modern philosophy. He was a Rationalist philosopher, the opposition for Empiricism. Rationalists believe that instead of observation, true knowledge is derived from logic and mathematics. He did influence Empiricists however, as a strong opponent is a healthy challenge to strengthen one’s own beliefs.
Rationalist - All knowledge is obtained by reason
Empiricist - All knowledge is obtained by sense experience
Descartes pictured the mind as a ‘private room’, where we perceive all of our private ideas and theories. Knowledge, he stated, comes gradually from the inside out. Like Plato, he believed knowledge comes from thinking and not through observation. Reason, therefore, is the most reliable source of knowledge.
Take Geometry for an example. All angles of a triangle have to add up to 180 degrees with the understanding that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points. This knowledge is infallible and permanent, based wholly on deduction. However, empiricists respond that this knowledge is trivial, although necessary, as they merely clarify inevitable axioms for a greater following claim.
Now take the statement that “all cats have whiskers”. Imagine a cat, if this cat is to be a cat, the cat must have whiskers, just like the triangle must add up to 180 degrees to be a triangle. However, we have seen some cats without whiskers through abuse or other injuries, confusing the cat’s sensory input. Unlike the triangle, the cat is a physical, living organism. If we saw a cat without whiskers, we wouldn’t use our reason that “all cats have whiskers” to deduct this cat is not a cat. Rather, we would use our other sensory observations of the properties of a cat, such as shape and size, and then use our logic to conclude that this is a cat who has lost their whiskers. Therefore, the statement “all cats have whiskers” is purely based on words, not actual cats. From this point, I personally believe that Empiricism and Rationalism can go hand-in-hand, which we may explore later in the works of Immanuel Kant. However, Empiricists would view this as proof that logic alone will tell us nothing.
Empiricists state that logic nor geometry can tell us anything about the real world at all. They feel that the complex rationality of logic and mathematics are comparable to that of chess - an empty system which is closed and based on their own sets of rules. Whereas Rationalists believe using only our mind’s best reason (without being mislead by sensory experiences), is the key to discovering real knowledge, Empiricists feel entirely different. They think real knowledge can only originate from sense perception, and nothing else is reliable. Although we can touch, taste, smell, hear and see an object, we still cannot be sure what this object actually is. Therefore, our perceptions are the only guide to what is true.
However, there is no feud between Empiricists and Rationalists. Labelling a Philosopher under one of these categories can obscure the thinker’s individual views. Some Philosophers do not fit a particular ‘side’, their beliefs on knowledge can be a blur between the two, such as Aristotle; although he was mainly an Empiricist, he did hold some rational values. As with all fields of Philosophy, there is no right or wrong, just the outcome of our own personal thinking.