Presumably, an average person will have seen plenty of triangles, of all sorts of types, sizes, colors, materials … But until we have an idea of a triangle in our minds, how do we recognize that a three-sided figure is, in fact, a triangle? Empiricists will typically reply that the process of abstraction embeds a loss of information: impressions are vivid, while ideas are faint memories of reflections. He may approach a grasp of it by being told of its resemblance to other tastes of which he already has the ideas in his memory, imprinted there by things he has taken into his mouth but this isn’t giving him that idea by a definition, but merely raising up in him other simple ideas that will still be very different from the true taste of pineapple."įor instance, consider the idea of a triangle. How can you explain the flavor of a pineapple to someone who has never tasted one? Here is what John Locke says about pineapples in his Essay: "If you doubt this, see whether you can, by words, give anyone who has never tasted pineapple an idea of the taste of that fruit. Consider pineapples, a favorite example among early modern writers. Indeed – Hume continues in Book II – "all our ideas or more feeble perceptions are copies of our impressions or more lively ones." Empiricists support their philosophy by describing situations in which a person’s lack of experience precludes her from full understanding. Here is how David Hume expressed this creed: "it must be some one impression that gives rise to every real idea" (A Treatise of Human Nature, Book I, Section IV, Ch. Empiricists Maintain That Experience Leads to UnderstandingĮmpiricists claim that all ideas that a mind can entertain have been formed through some experience or – to use a slightly more technical term – through some impression.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |