The Philosophical Tendency Of Empiricism

The philosophical tendency of empiricism

INTRODUCTION

This essay has been written to publicize various aspects of the philosophical tendency of empiricism. The various points to be treated have been considered the most relevant for this reason the fact that they are in this work.

Empirical thinking has its roots in classical antiquity, especially in the work of Aristotle and other Greco -Roman philosophers (sophists and skeptics). In fact, he takes his name from the Greek word began, equivalent to "guided by experience". 

Empiricism is a philosophical movement that arises in the Modern Age, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in England, as a consequence of a philosophical tendency that came from the Middle Ages (rationalism). The philosophical current of empiricism affirms that any type of knowledge comes only from the experience or observation of the facts, whether internal experience (reflection) or external (sensation), and that this is its only base. In addition, he affirms that these human experiences are the only ones responsible for the formation of existing ideas and concepts in the world.

Empirical knowledge substantially is that which does not apply any scientific knowledge, but makes use of experience, as an example;It is known that something is dangerous because it has already been experienced.

On the other hand, he denies that the absolute truth is accessible to man, since he must weigh it, and it is from the experience that can be known with certainty if it is true, or on the contrary, correct it, modify it or abandon it.

It should be noted that when we talk about "empiricism" we refer properly to "English empiricism" or "modern empiricism", despite the fact that classic philosophers already mentioned knowledge from experience. The main representatives of this philosophical current are John Locke and David Hume, on whom we will base ourselves to carry out this work.

DEVELOPING

Experience as a source or origin of knowledge

For empiricism, experience is the only criterion of truth;The limits of the experience will only be speculation, this is located in an extra-experience plane. To know, empiricism is based on the inductive method.

Locke postulates that through experience we know in two ways:

External form: the experiences that man crosses through the senses such as smell, touch, sight, hearing and taste. To this process of acquiring Locke’s knowledge is called "sensation".

In addition, two acquisition ways are distinguished according to the intervention of the senses: primary qualities, which are the characteristics that we can know in any sense, for example: we can know the shape of a table through sight and touch;Secondary qualities, we can only know the aspects or accidents of a reality by one sense, for example: the taste of a dessert, we can only feel it for the sense of taste.

The knowledge starts from the experience, with the succession of events that we live, which is opening space in memory, and over time we learn through the senses to detect a sequence of patterns in the copies that remain in our mind, andAs a consequence the concepts arise;In turn, these concepts are constantly combined, thus this process expands the concepts that at the beginning is difficult to understand, but as time passes the senses are getting used to and the intellectual capacity also uploads the pace of assimilating.

b.- Internal or reflection form: thanks to different operations that our mind performs, that is, reflecting, provides our minds of ideas, through internal, is called by Locke, perception, which occurs in the operations of our mind. These become the ideas that were captured at first by our senses. Thanks to this, we can form ideas that do not depend on the sensation, but on the operations of our mind, we can doubt, desire, reason, know, that is, reflect. This comes from internal sense. Reflection is the second form of knowledge, reflection is the understanding of the mind about its own operations, for whose reason we also get ideas. Locke also says, there can be no reflection if there is no feeling, there must be as a condition, the sensation. I can’t reflect on what I don’t know;And we know through experience, that is, through the senses.

Empiricism performs inductive method, through the observation and registration of the facts, analysis and classification of the facts, inductive derivation of a generalization of the facts, and the contrast. With the inductive method, general conclusions are obtained, based on private data. For this, empirical verification, the validity of scientific theories is necessary, depends on empirical verification.

Rasa tabula

This term is the one that John Locke uses, to refer to the state of human consciousness, in which it is postulated that we come to the world without innate ideas or principles, but that we are acquiring knowledge through life experience. Similarly, consciousness is compared to a rasa tabula, or a blank sheet, on which, objects of the outside world, of reality, are printing their stamps, through experience. Locke considers that the mind is a blank sheet, that the person will have to fill with ideas throughout his life, fills his mind through experience, from it arises and the knowledge of man is founded.

The doctrine of the Rasa tabula has set the agenda of much of the social sciences and the humanities during the last hundred years. (…) Psychology has tried to explain all thought, all feeling and all behavior through a few simple learning mechanisms. Social sciences have wanted to explain all customs and all social provisions as a product of children’s socialization through the culture that surrounds them. 

Main representatives of empiricism

• John Locke (1632-1704)

PHILOSOFO AND MEDICIA Ingreno, in addition, father of classical liberalism, his work was very influenced by the writings of Sir Francis Bacon, and based on them he proposed great contributions to the social contract theory. His famous essay on the human understanding of 1689 was a replica to René Descartes, proposing the human mind as a rasa tabula or a "blade in white", where external impressions are taxed, so the existence of the existence of theInnate ideas, or universal knowledge, on the other hand, knowledge is only determined by the experience derived from sensory perception. Locke’s theory of mind, is conceived as the origin of the modern conceptions of identity and self, later Hume, Rousseau and Kant take their postulates, Locke was the first to define the self as a continuity of consciousness. Locke is materialistic, so the objective reality of things distinguishes and estimates that ideas and representations are the fruit of the gesture of things about our sensory organs. Giving a materialistic empiricism (consider that the objects of material nature are the foundation of sensitive experience).“In its materialistic dialectical understanding, experience will be closely linked, in the knowledge process, to the description;First, immediately, in its form of enumerative description;But experience entails the enumerative to the explanatory description, where it is interpreted, for the purpose of knowledge of causality and essence of phenomena.”Locke distinguishes two ways to have double knowledge: internal (reflection) and external (sensation). Where external thanks to the senses we can know the particular and sensitive things (color, shape, etc.) This arriving in our mind thanks to the sensitive perceptions of our senses, internally, knowledge in favor of several operations of our mind is reached, obviously weighing about that we know for the sensation. We can clearly see that material nature is the key foundation for sensitive experience.

• David Hume (1711-1776)

Philosopher, economist and Scottish historian, is one of the central figures of Scottish illustration and Western thought, whose works defended the thesis that knowledge derives from sensitive experience. His writings "Treaty of human nature" and "Research on human understanding" are illustrious, in which he leads to all knowledge to "impressions" or "ideas", of which two types of truths give us: "truths in fact"And" Relationship of Ideas ".

For Hume, the facts of experience are the perceptions of the spirit (which we know as states of consciousness);And sensitive impressions are the perceptions that are perceived directly, referring to how we know the outside world through the senses;On the other hand, there are "the impressions of reflection", that is, referring to our own interiority, such as joy or sadness. Derived perceptions or ideas are not sensitive impressions or direct knowledge, but phenomena of fantasy or memory, derive from an impression, for example, the memory of a feeling of pain. For Hume, all our thinking derives from our external and internal sensations. All complex ideas are derived from simpler perceptions.

Critical appreciations

LOZA CARREÓN VALERIA NICOLE: Personally I am partially according to the empiricist current in his statement that the human being comes to the world as a "rush tabula" and that he obtains his knowledge thanks to the experiences, since it is not something totally proventhat the human being has innate knowledge since it was born. However, I do not agree when he states that man only knows for experience, since he would be a reductionist, since to know, man needs both sensitive and intellectual knowledge (reason), that is, he needs experience and reasonTo know the essence of things.

Portocarrero Shimizu Kiria Esther: I agree with empiricism, on the one hand, in the sense that knowledge comes from experience, however, I lean more towards Kantian philosophy, about a priori knowledge and afterwards, since, since, since,While we know through our sensitive experience (a posteriori), we also know through our pure reasoning (a priori), where we do not need experience, but only through our intellect, for induction and deduction, as part of the useof our reasoning. Therefore, empiricism is quite valid in that we know through our experiences throughout life, but we cannot conclude that it is the only knowledge parameter.

Rojas inheritance Anais Alicia: Empirism establishes the experience as the only valid source of knowledge, because in part we trust our senses to know things, such as when we puncture our finger with the needle, we will know what we feel pain and then we will not return itDo or in the natural sciences, which through the analysis can be formulated hypothesis to know reality and then apply them, therefore requires observation, experimentation and verification in addition to the inductive method, but in this sense these results are generalized,But, the experience is not universal, it is lived differently and in a different context therefore, the conclusion would not even reach its extreme of affirming that everything that is not governed by this "scientific method" that if notIt is experienced then it is not true or it is simply imaginary therefore it would not become "science" logic, history, why?, why hasn’t he lived.

Hume affirms that all perceptions are of two classes impressions and ideas, which differ in their livel? We say then that sensory impressions does not guarantee the existence of the bodies from which they proceed, that is, it denies the existence of the substance, it only believes in what can be touched in what can be seen through internal and external experiencethen the problem of how what is within the mind can happen to what is outside it then Berkeley says the foreign physical world actually resides in the mind.

Another paradigm is that of the notion of causality that tells us it is not possible

Sandobal Luque Katherine Vanessa: From my perspective, empiricism is at first scope that doctrine that postulates that “knowledge develops a posteriori, since it is the experience itself that teaches us what are the rules that govern the existence. Its origins are, therefore, sensitive impressions."In other words, knowledge is acquired, not inherent in man with just his existence. Taking this into account despite leading to future doctrines empiricism as such brings transcendental problems therefore I do not agree with it. As the first prejudice is the fact that this position brings with it a main problem;As Hume demonstrated "bringing this doctrine to the extreme means falling into the most absolute skepticism since complete knowledge cannot be achieved with the conclusion that nothing is really known". Another problem caused is the fact of being falling into a doctrine that formulates that the human being was born as a blank sheet and acquires knowledge, this could be harmful by confusing the human being as a blank entity;We run at risk by saying that we are born as blank leaves, the human being was born with knowledge inherent to him being classified as a changing thinking being.

Rimachi Choquepuma Pablo Angel: The positive is that, from an empiricist position for example, it is affirmed that the theory of electrical conductivity depends on human observation, since through several experiences we know that electricity is transmitted through a pieceMetal and not wood, thus consolidating the information that metal is a conductor, in the same way scientists use experiments to determine by observation whether an assumption is true or not;The validity of scientific theories depends on their empirical verification. The negative thing is that perception is not universal: what a person perceives as truth, can be false for another person, in the same way the experience acquired can be perceived differently by another. On the other hand, perception can also be affected by external factors: the same experiment under different conditions (temperature, for example) may vary. Therefore, this position opens a minimum space to the discussion, since if a person observes certain experiential or experiential practices, he generally trusts the result and generalizes it. This position is very limited, since, if something does not come from our senses and experience, for empiricism it does not exist, it also limits the man of intelligence and reason, reducing knowledge to simple concrete objects of experience. Due to what was raised, I disagree with the empiricist position.

Moroco Cahuari Alder Nestor: Locking into a bubble with a single philosophical doctrine and thinking that taking it as a unique posture is the maximum expression of my truth is wrong, therefore, it is much better to have an open mind with sufficiency of possessing a perception and a great retaining about the reality I experience particularly taking many things from several sources, that is, empiricism tells us what is true and that thanks to experience we could reach knowledge, it is true, but not in everything, being able to almost support that when We are born our mind is empty (tabula rasa) then would need to live (experience) to learn many things (in one part it is right), but that does not mean that the child has an innate knowledge of some vital operations, clearly a little I could not know the football ball, without having the sensitive experience (looking at it, touching it) or being able to play with it, but it would be aware of Dor mir without having the need to teach him to close his eyes and be sleepy. It shows that not all knowledge would always take hand with the experience and the sensitive, our open mind could take a bit of rationalism or other philosophical current, thus understanding that perception is not the only reliable source of unique truth.

Hanco Hidalgo Erika Nicole: While man can know through experience through his external or internal senses, I think that knowledge is not simply exhausted in what we can know for the daily experiences of the human being. I agree with the philosophical current of empiricism, because there are experiences of life that help the human being develop, head towards its end and perfectly of their being, however, I think we should open ourselves to more possibilities, such as therationalism, relativism, etc. In addition, external senses can provide us with information on the different aspects of reality, but only encompasses the superficial and we need reason to know reality deeply.

CONCLUSION

Empiricism affirms that the sensitive and perceptible reality are the origin of all ideas, that is to say that experience opens up to knowledge, so it closes the possibility of spontaneous ideas. Requires observation and senses to validate or deny hypotheses. As a consequence of experience, enable spaces for human beings to become a disciplined car of their future, therefore of their life. This current has enough bases to question the concepts, religious and theoretical visions, because they are not a product of sensations.

He also argued that knowledge is subjective, and that there are no preconceived ideas, but is born with the mind "blank". Then knowledge is acquired from internal experiences (thoughts, emotions, etc.) and external (material and physical experiences).