Concept Empiricism

Question 1

What is the basic idea of concept empiricism?

Answer 1

The idea that we are born with no innate concepts, and that all our ideas must therefore derive from experience.

Question 2

Define tabula rasa.

Answer 2

Blank slate- the idea that we have no innate knowledge

Question 3

What is a concept?

Answer 3

A concept is the impression of an idea which remains in the mind, even when that idea is not being directly experienced or perceived. It can be called to mind, remembered, and can have belief and knowledge built around it.

Question 4

What is a sense impression?

Answer 4

The imprint that a direct sensory experience leaves on the mind.

Question 5

Describe the process of concept formation.

Answer 5

1- We have a sensory or introspective experience
2- This experience leaves a sense impression on our mind
3- We use this sense impression to form a concept of what we experienced
4- We can recall, extrapolate and build knowledge around this concept

Question 6

Define introspection.

Answer 6

Looking inwards at one’s own mind and thought processes.

Question 7

What are simple and complex ideas/ concepts?

Answer 7

Simple ideas consist of a singular, undeveloped concept, such as a specific colour or shape. They must come from simple sense impressions. Complex ideas consist of multiple simple ideas linked together, such as ‘a red triangle’. They can come from distorted simple ideas instead of direct experiences.

Question 8

How does concept empiricism account for imaginary concepts- concepts of things we cannot experience?

Answer 8

Hume uses the example of a ‘golden mountain’ to show that false complex ideas can be made from valid simple ideas. We cannot experience a gold mountain, but we can experience both ‘gold’ and a ‘mountain. Therefore we cannot create new concepts, we can simply join different concepts together.

Question 9

What is Hume’s philosophical method?

Answer 9

The idea of tracing concepts back to the experiences that caused them in order to show whether or not they are valid.

Question 10

What does it mean if a concept can’t be traced back to an experience?

Answer 10

Hume concludes that the experience must be in some way false or erroneous. He suggests that sometimes we have words for ‘concepts’ that are essentially empty or meaningless. He suggests that these things are unknowable.

Question 11

What is Hume’s argument with regards to God?

Answer 11

Hume believes that the idea of God is not innate, however it does pose a problem as we do not experience God. He suggests that we create an idea of God by taking desirable human qualities and extrapolating them infinitely. So we make God in man’s image, as opposed to the other way around.

Question 12

Explain Hume’s ideas about ‘self’, in reference to Descartes’ cogito.

Answer 12

Hume criticizes Descartes assumption that ‘I think therefore I am’. He argues that since we can have no experience of ‘self’ other than intraspective experiences of our reactions to specific, momentary circumstances, we cannot have any concept of ourselves beyond a series of memories of sensations. There is nothing which I can experience which constitutes ‘me’- our idea of self is simply our understanding of a sum of conscious experiences which make up our mind. Thus the concept of one’s self is false.

Question 13

Describe Hume’s views on morality.

Answer 13

As we have no direct experience of ‘good’ or ‘bad’ these must be false concepts. Hume argues morality is just a recollection of positive or negative emotion as a result of certain actions, which we therefore associate with moral good or moral evil.

Question 14

What conclusion does Hume draw on causation?

Answer 14

We never directly observe the process of causation, we merely experience a link between one event and the next. Therefore we cannot argue we know anything about causation- or that it even exists. Our concept of causation is simply the repeated, constant conjunction of one thing followed by another in our mind. We therefore understand our anticipation of the ‘effect’ of one action to be ‘knowledge’ of causation.

Question 15

What is logical positivism?

Answer 15

The idea that sentences are only ‘meaningful’ if they present an idea that is relevant to the word, and they can be verified or falsified.

Question 16

How does Locke define an ‘idea’?

Answer 16

Locke uses the term ‘idea’ to mean a sensation or a concept.

Question 17

According to Locke, how do we create ‘ideas’?

Answer 17

Via ‘sensation’ (our experience of objects outside the mind) and via ‘reflection’ (our experience of the internal operations of our mind)

Question 18

How does Hume distinguish between ‘impressions’ and ‘ideas’.

Answer 18

Impressions relate to directly feeling or sensing something, and ideas to thinking about something. Ideas are faint copies of impressions.
eg. At the moment that we experience ‘red’ we have an impression of that colour. When we recall that experience, we have an idea of that colour.

Question 19

What does Hume mean by the term ‘perception’.

Answer 19

Hume uses the term perception to describe anything we are immediately aware of- this can be both in the form of ideas and impressions.

Question 20

What are the 5 main criticisms of concept empiricism.

Answer 20

1- The concept of simple ideas is incoherent.
2- The missing shade of blue
3- Some complex ideas do not relate to experience
4- Some concepts must exist in the mind to make sense of experiences
5- Innate structures

Question 21

Explain the criticism that the concept of ‘simple ideas’ is incoherent.

Answer 21

This criticism questions what constitutes a simple idea- how far down do we have to break down an idea for it to be simple.
For example, what simple ideas make up a unicorn? Initially it can be broken down into a horse, and a horn. But a horn can be broken into ideas about cone shapes, pointiness, etc. and a horse into a mane, tail, neighing, galloping etc.
Even these qualities can be broken down further. It is unclear when they become simple concepts.

Question 22

Explain the criticism that not all simple ideas come from sense experience.

Answer 22

This criticism considers a blind person experiencing the colour blue for the first time. Having only seen one shade of blue- sky blue for instance- would they be able to form a general concept of blue in all its varieties? If they were to look at a scale of blues, with one shade missing, would they be able to form a concept of the missing one?
If the answer is yes- as Hume claims it is- then this means it is possible to have a sense impression that doesn’t correspond to experience.

Question 23

Explain the responses to the missing shade of blue criticism and their pitfalls.

Answer 23

Empiricists can either argue that
a)We can imagine the missing shade as it is actually a complex one. We have a concept of blue, and a concept of light and dark, from which we can form a concept of any shade of blue.
or
b)We cannot form a concept of the missing shade. We have a distinct idea of every shade of blue we experience.
The issue with (a) is that it now becomes impossible to see where the simple idea of blue comes from- we can never experience pure blue, without it being linked to a shade. How can we move from an experience of many specific shades of blue, to the idea of blue in general?
The issue with (b) is that it means our general concept of blue must be a complex idea of all the shades we have experienced. But as everyone has experienced different shades, no two people’s concept of blue could be the same.