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Locke’s Empiricism
Philosophy 322: Modern Philosophy
Professor Geoff Pynn
Northern Illinois University
Spring 2018
rationalism vs. empiricism
Traditionally, European philosophy from Descartes through Kant is divided into three parts:
I. II. III. Rationalists Empiricists Kant Descartes Locke Spinoza Berkeley Leibniz Hume
This schema can be traced back to Hegel, a German philosopher in the nineteenth century. Though they overstate similarities and understates differences, the general categories of ratio- nalism and empiricism are useful. Descartes’s rationalism can be seen in his claim that we have an innate idea of God, his doctrine of clear and distinct perception, his idea that our knowledge of the nature of bodies comes from the mind alone, his privileging of knowledge based on logic and reason over anything that comes from the senses, and his reliance on conceivability as a guide to possibility in his argument for the distinction between mind and body. Spinoza’s rationalism is even more thoroughgoing: from the very structure of the Ethics , modeled on Euclid’s geometry, to his rigorous adherence to the Principle of Sufficient Reason, to his doctrine that the structure of thought mirrors precisely the structure of reality itself, Spinoza is rationalism’s poster boy. With Locke, we turn towards philosophers who exemplify the empiricist outlook. The contrast between rationalism and empiricism is not easy to distill in a set of explicit dis- agreements. But there are two important contrasts with the rationalist outlook that play central roles in the work of both Locke and Hume. The first concerns epistemology, and the second psychology. For anything you know, you can ask the question: how do I know it? I know that my mother is in Los Angeles because I heard it from my father. I know that it’s sunny outside because I can see so myself. I know that the Pythagorean Theorem is true because I have worked through a proof of it. And so on. Much of your knowledge comes to you through experience and observation. That seems to be the case with the examples above involving my mother’s location and the sun’s being out. By contrast, some of your knowledge comes from reason and understanding. Arguably, that’s what’s going on in the case of the Pythagorean Theorem. My basis for knowing the Pythagorean Theorem isn’t some
series of observations and measurements of triangles. Instead, it involves abstract reasoning based on my understanding of the mathematical nature of triangles, all of which I could accomplish from my armchair without examining at any actual triangles at all.
epistemological rationalism The most significant part of our knowledge comes from reason or understanding alone.
epistemological empiricism All, or nearly all, of our important knowledge comes from experience and observation.
Descartes endorses epistemological rationalism, for example, when he claims that his knowledge of the wax’s nature, which he might have originally thought to come through his senses, in fact comes through the mind alone. Or consider Spinoza’s very bold metaphysical claims made on the basis of abstract definitions, axioms, and proofs: these claims rest on propositions proven from definitions, not from experiments and observations. As we shall see, both Locke and Hume allow that some of our knowledge comes from reason alone, but it occupies a much less privileged place in their philosophies than it does in those of Descartes or Spinoza. For them, experiential, experimental, observational knowledge plays a much more fundamental role. In addition to asking about how we know things, we can ask why we have the beliefs, con- cepts, and ideas that we do. Where do our beliefs and concepts come from? Many have been acquired through experience. My belief about my mother’s location, for example, came from my conversation with my father. My concept of redness is a product of my many visual experiences of red things; my idea of Paris comes from pictures I’ve seen and descriptions I’ve read. By con- trast, some of our beliefs and concepts may be innate ; i.e., somehow naturally built into our minds. An innate belief, concept, or idea is one that it is part of our nature to have, and is not acquired through experience. This distinction between acquired and innate ideas enables us to draw an- other contrast between rationalists and empiricists:
psychological rationalism Many of our (most important) beliefs and concepts are innate.
psychological empiricism All, or nearly all, of our beliefs and concepts are acquired.
Descartes, for example, thought that his ideas of God and the infinite were innate; Spinoza agreed. Although we didn’t read him, Leibniz thought that all of our ideas were in a certain important sense innate. By contrast, as we’ll see, Locke and Hume both endorse a strong form of psycho- logical empiricism according to which none of our concepts or beliefs are innate. Is there a connection between epistemological and psychological rationalism? Locke and Hume often move back and forth between the two ideas with ease. They seem to presuppose the following:
Psychological empiricism leads to epistemological empiricism.
As we’ll see in a moment, Locke mounts a very forceful defense of psychological empiricism, and both he and Hume appear to regard psychological empiricism as having very wide-ranging epistemological consequences. In the Essay Concerning Human Understanding , Locke’s goal is to
- Some principles are universally agreed upon by all mankind.
- The only way there could be such universal agreement is if there were innate ideas.
- Therefore, some ideas are innate.
Locke’s first response to the argument is raise a doubt about premise 2: we may deny it “if there can be any other way shewn, how Men may come to that Universal Agreement, in the things they do consent in; which I presume may be done” (1.2.3). The other explanation he has in mind is experience. If all of us have similar experiences, then we will wind up with similar ideas. So the similarity of our experiences may explain any universal agreement we have about anything just as well as the claim that those ideas are innate. However, Locke is more concerned to attack premise 1. He does so by denying that there is anything about which everyone agrees. This denial takes up the rest of Book I. His argumentative strategy is to pick some principles that are often thought to be subject to universal agreement, and to argue that no, in fact they are not. His initial candidates are:
“Whatsoever is, is.”
“It is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be [at the same time].”
But, Locke says, these ideas are not universally agreed to, as can be seen by the fact that “all Children, and Idiots, have not the least Apprehension or Thought of them” (1.2.5). Still, the proponent of innateness could respond that these principles are agreed to by all who have acquired the use of reason (1.2.6-16), or to anyone who understands them properly (1.2.17-23). Locke gives the same sort of reply to each: if that’s all it is for an idea to be innate, then vastly more of our ideas are innate than even a rationalist will want to admit. For example, if any conclusion assented to by everyone who understands it is innate, then, Locke thinks, the following principles must also be innate (1.2.18):
“Two Bodies cannot be in the same place.”
“White is not Black.”
“Square is not a Circle.”
“Yellowness is not Sweetness.”
...and “a Million of other such Propositions”
But, Locke assumes, no one would think these principles are innate. Locke thus presents the defender of innate ideas with a dilemma: his most characteristic form of argument. If innate ideas are just those that are “imprinted on the mind,” then since children are born without any ideas, none of our ideas is innate. If, on the other hand, everything which we have a “natural capacity for knowing” is innate, then since everything we know is something we have a natural capacity for knowing, all of our ideas are innate. Thus, Locke concludes, they “must be all innate, or all adventitious [i.e., acquired]: in vain shall a Man go about to distinguish them” (I.2.5).
In the next chapter Locke considers the possibility that certain “practical principles,” i.e. moral principles, are innate. He is even less amenable to this suggestion than he is to the thought that “speculative principles” (such as “What is, is”) are innate. First, he points out, they all re- quire “Reasoning and Discourse, and some Exercise of the Mind, to discover the certainty of their Truth” (1.3.1). And he is even more skeptical that there is any universal assent to be found when it comes to morality:
Whether there be any such moral Principles, wherein all Men do agree, I appeal to any, who have been but moderately conversant in the History of Mankind, and looked abroad beyond the Smoak of their own Chimneys. Where is that practical Truth, that is universally received without doubt or question, as it must be if innate? (1.3.2)
After a few more chapters, Locke concludes his attack, and turns to the question of where our ideas do come from, if they are not innate. Leibniz wrote a long response to Locke’s Essay in which he proposes the following analogy in response to Locke’s argument against innateness:
For if the soul were like [an empty tablet], truths would be in us as the shape of Hercules is in a block of marble, when the marble is completely indifferent to receiving this shape or another. But if the stone had veins which marked out the shape of Hercules rather than other shapes, then that block would be more determined with respect to that shape and Hercules would be as though innate in it in some sense, even though some labor would be required for those veins to be exposed and polished into clarity by the removal of everything that prevents them from appearing. This is how ideas and truths are innate in us, as natural inclinations, dispositions, habits, or potentialities are.
Leibniz’s thought is that we might have some ideas that are not “imprinted on the mind” from birth, but are nonetheless ‘in’ us in another sense: given enough experience of any kind, we’ll come to have those ideas. This seems like an interesting category of ideas, and one apt to be called ‘innate’. And, moreover, it seems that none of Locke’s arguments against innate ideas show that we do not have such ideas. Would the existence of such a category enable the rationalist to evade Locke’s dilemma?
locke’s empiricist principle
If our ideas are not innate, our mind is like ”white Paper, void of all Characters” (2.1.2). So where do our ideas come from? Locke’s answer: experience. He distinguishes between two kinds of experience: sensation and reflection. Sensation is experience that involves the senses. Reflection is experience that involves the “perception of the operations of our own mind” (2.1.4). Ideas that come to us from sensation include “yellow, white, heat, cold, soft, hard, bitter, sweet, and all those we call sensible qualities” (2.1.3). Ideas we acquire through reflection include “perception, thinking, doubting, believing, reasoning, knowing, willing, and all the different actings of our own minds” (2.1.4). Locke says that:
All Ideas come from Sensation or Reflection (2.1.2).
Could Locke defend a weaker version of the principle according to which most of our ideas are derived from experience? The problem with the weaker version is that it is not obvious that anyone would disagree with it. All but the staunchest rationalist will allow that the most of our ideas are not innate. To take an interesting empiricist position, Locke needs a stronger claim than this.
