Posted: May 26th, 2015

Empiricists

Paper, Order, or Assignment Requirements

In what sense can our authors be called “empiricists”? (Here, as in the other topics below, you should most likely select two of them to compare, not necessarily all three together). To what extent would “empiricism” mean the same thing applied to each, and in what ways would the meaning of the term have to differ? For example: what is “experience” for each of them, and in what way does it form the sole basis for our knowledge? As opposed to what? What makes anyone so much as suppose there might be some other basis (i.e., against what opponent is the empiricist arguing)? What else is there to our knowledge besides experience? What is the difference between sensation, imagination, and thought (if the last two are different)? What role is played by space, time, body (solid extended substance), spirit (incorporeal substance), or causation, in making experience possible and/or how does experience form the basis for the knowledge we have (if any) about those things?

use Gorge Berkeley’s A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge and Hume’s An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding