Empiricism
This philosophical school emerged in England almost simultaneously with Rationalism (found in the majority of continental Europe: France, Germany, etc.) and as a reaction against it.
It was a new attempt to revive the Aristotelian Court Philosophy to face the Platonism, which was in fashion during that time.
For Empiricism, the same as Rationalism, the first step in the order of thinking is without a doubt the forming of IDEAS. Now; the difference between both points of view lies in the way each tendency defines those 'IDEAS".
For Empiricism, ‘idea‘ is, of course, that which takes place in our mind. However, they consider that the problem of VALIDATING those ideas needs to be treated seriously; in this sense, Empirics insist on the RECEPTIVE ROLE OF THE MIND.
According to them, the validity of an idea for any 'thing' can only be originated by that 'thing' itself. In other words, the only REAL thing is that which is empirical.
JOHN LOCKE (1632-1703)
According to this author, the work of a philosopher rests precisely in what we said previously: in the ‘criticism’ of knowledge.
From such criticism, Locke states that THERE ARE NO INNATE IDEAS, infringing Descartes.
For him, knowledge is made up of the following three parts:
1. Sensation: Representing something on the outside
2. Reflection: The experience we have on our own state (including 'sensations')
3. Combination: for the spirit of simple ideas (originated by a ‘sensation’ or a ‘reflection’).
LOCKE
All ideas come from sensation or reflection. Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper, void of all characters, without any ideas:- How comes it to be furnished? Whence comes it by that vast store which the busy and boundless fancy of man has painted on it with an almost endless variety? Whence has it all the materials of reason and knowledge?
To this I answer, in one word, from EXPERIENCE. In that all our knowledge is founded; and from that it ultimately derives itself. Our observation employed either, about external sensible objects, or about the internal operations of our minds perceived and reflected on by ourselves, is that which supplies our understandings with all the materials of thinking. These two are the fountains of knowledge, from whence all the ideas we have, or can naturally have, do spring.
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The objects of sensation one source of ideas. First, our Senses, conversant about particular sensible objects, do convey into the mind several distinct perceptions of things, according to those various ways wherein those objects do affect them. And thus we come by those ideas we have of yellow, white, heat, cold, soft, hard, bitter, sweet, and all those which we call sensible qualities; which when I say the senses convey into the mind, I mean, they from external objects convey into the mind what produces there those perceptions. This great source of most of the ideas we have, depending wholly upon our senses, and derived by them to the understanding, I call SENSATION.
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The operations of our minds, the other source of them. Secondly, the other fountain from which experience furnisheth the understanding with ideas is,- the perception of the operations of our own mind within us, as it is employed about the ideas it has got;- which operations, when the soul comes to reflect on and consider, do furnish the understanding with another set of ideas, which could not be had from things without. And such are perception, thinking, doubting, believing, reasoning, knowing, willing, and all the different actings of our own minds;- which we being conscious of, and observing in ourselves, do from these receive into our understandings as distinct ideas as we do from bodies affecting our senses. This source of ideas every man has wholly in himself; and though it be not sense, as having nothing to do with external objects, yet it is very like it, and might properly enough be called internal sense. But as I call the other SENSATION, so I Call this REFLECTION, the ideas it affords being such only as the mind gets by reflecting on its own operations within itself.
(extracts of ‘An Essay Concerning Human Understanding’ by John Locke)
