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13 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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What was the true foundation of knowledge according to empiricism? |
It is found not in "reason" but in observation, that is, in the data provided by the five senses |
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Who was the first modern empiricist? Explain |
John Locke. He knew that in order to establish the theory of the mind as a "blank slate," he would have to refute the rationalists' contention that knowledge is based on innate ideas. |
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Ockham's razor |
William of Ockham, a fourteenth century philosopher, set forth as a principal of economy the following thesis: "What can be done with fewer [terms] is done in vain with more |
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Simple ideas |
Those that cannot be further analyzed into simpler components, for example, the idea of solidity |
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Complex ideas |
1) compounds of simple ideas 2) ideas of relations (larger than, smaller than) created by setting two ideas next to each other and comparing and contrasting or 3) abstractions, wherein the mind seperates out a feature of an idea and generalizes it. |
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What is conceptualism |
Locke's view is that the rationalists had confused these "abstract general ideas" with actual existing entities (platonic forms) or with innate ideas |
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Primary qualities |
Were said to be characteristics that necessarily in here in material bodies |
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Secondary qualities |
Defined as "such qualities, which in truth are nothing in the objects themselves but powers to produce various sensations in us by their primary qualities, that is, by the bulk, figure, texture, and motion of their insensible parts, as colours, sounds, tastes, etc." |
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Representative realism |
"The ideas of primary qualities of bodies are resemblances of them, and their patterns do really exist in the bodies themselves; but the ideas produced in us by these secondary qualities have no resemblance of these at all. There is nothing like our ideas existing in the bodies themselves." |
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Locke's account of substance |
Locke's believed that he had refuted Descartes because he thought he had given a complete account of knowledge using a theory simpler than that of Descartes. |
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Berkley's correction of Locke |
He saw Locke's errors clearly and thought they could be corrected simply by a more vigorous application of application of Ockham's razor-this time , to the notion of material substance itself. |
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What did Berkley argue |
That primary and qualities and secondary qualities really are the same thing |
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What role does language play in epistemology for Berkley? |
Language is used to unify these ideas in our minds |
