Empiricism is the correct view of knowledge

Empiricism as the Correct View of Knowledge

Introduction

The issue here is whether or not all knowledge is derived through the senses . Here I will argue that Empiricism is indeed the correct view of knowledge all knowledge is gained from experience , by way of the senses . My main argument is that all knowledge is essentially a posteriori . It is not claimed , however , that reason is not essential to knowledge also , only that real knowledge is not created , and cannot be created , by the mind independent of the senses

Review of Ideas

p John Locke , argued that the mind is a blank slate on which experiences leave their impressions (these impressions are what is understood to be knowledge , and he opposed the doctrine of innate ideas , which maintains that there are some ideas with which we are born , not derived from any previous experience . This was furthered by George Berkeley , who argued that we can be certain of our sensory experiences , because there can be no question of whether these sensory experiences represent an actual reality

John Stuart Mill argued that things are just the permanent possibilities of sensation ' He even claimed that mathematical ideas are merely generalizations from experience , and founded ultimately on empirical information . Bertrand Russel , also , was a philosophical realist for most of his life until his death , believing that our direct experiences have primacy in the acquisition of knowledge

Ralph Waldo Emerson on the other hand was a transcendentalist , and opposed empiricism . He believed that there is a higher reality not palpable through sense experience or reason . He believed that there was a class of ideas or imperative forms , which did not come by experience , but through which experience was acquired .[they are] intuitions of the mind itself ' Also , for Emmanuel Kant , whose epistemology is called constructivism , knowledge (and thus reality ) is constructed by the mind , not passively derived through the senses

Definitions and Assumptions

By empiricism , what I mean is the view that the origin of all knowledge can be traced ultimately , always , to the senses , where senses are the human modes of perception (among them sight , hearing , taste , balance smell , etc , even self-awareness

By knowledge what I mean is an awareness of reality , where reality is independent of human experience

I do not say that reality is whatever it is that is experienced or perceived . Here I will label perceptions that do not represent what is actually happening as illusions . As in the movie The Matrix , where the general populace 's reality ' is actually computer generated , the illusion may be a reality ' for whomever is experiencing it , but (actual ) reality must be independent of human experience

Argument

Premises

1 . Knowledge cannot be attributed to reason alone (independent of sensory experience . Sense experience is necessary to reason . One can only reason if one has gained knowledge from experience . Even mathematics has its deepest roots in the senses one can only understand what is meant by the adjective straight , for example , if straightness has already been perceived in...