Empiricism and reality
Alex Murphy
On a day to day basis, we assume that reality is what we see or can measure. The purpose of philosophy, however, is to question assumptions such as these in the search for truth. How we can know what reality is has been a major issue in modern philosophy, more specifically epistemology and metaphysics. Five central figures - Descartes, Locke, Hume, Kant and Russell - have made contributions to this debate that have changed the way that it has been understood. Each was responding to the attempts of his predecessors. An analysis of their views leads me to conclude that empirical evidence is the best of our limited ways to understand reality but it is not completely effective - not only is it possible to misconstrue empirical evidence but one cannot be certain that such evidence is evidence of the nature of reality. Descartes, like many important philosophers since, was also a mathematician and scientist. By doubting all that was uncertain and finding one indubitable principle, he aimed to build a body of ‘scienta’ knowledge which he could use to understand the world. Descartes doubted evidence of the senses ‘from time to time I have found that the senses deceive, and it is prudent never to trust completely those who have deceived us even once’ 184 . He went on to doubt all knowledge, postulating the existence of a ‘malicious demon of the utmost power and cunning’ 185 which could have deceived him, meaning that the whole world would be a sham. However, Descartes did find his indubitable first principle. In doubting his own existence, he was thinking, as to doubt is to think, and since non-existent bodies cannot think, he must therefore exist. The existence of God was central to Descartes. He thought that, if you could prove the existence of God, you could trust memory and innate ideas because their truth could be attributed to divinity. Descartes proved the existence of God through two arguments, the
Trademark Argument and the Ontological Argument, which both presupposed intellect and logical understanding. This created the Cartesian Circle: one could only trust intellect after proving God existed but one had to use intellect to prove it. Even with his proof of the existence of God, Descartes still doubted his sense perception ‘in many cases the grasp of the senses is very obscure and confused.’ 186 He concluded in his Innateness Doctrine that to understand reality we must ‘lay aside all our preconceived opinions...lead the mind away from the senses...[and] give our attention...to the notions we have within us.’ 187 Descartes was thus the first explicitly Rationalist philosopher, relying on thought rather than sensory experience to guide his understanding of reality. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, given the period in which Descartes lived, and Galileo’s treatment by the Church, Descartes’ views were limited by his need to rely on the existence of God, an existence he could only prove by using a circular argument. Locke, himself a scientist and a long-term friend of Newton, can claim to have started the Empiricist movement, defining knowledge as flowing only from experience of sensory perceptions. Locke argued that objects have a specific shape and size, are solid and are either at motion or at rest. Each object had an internal constitution composed of tiny particles that moved, a corpuscular theory of reality relating to those of Newton and Boyle. The arrangement and motion of the particles denoted the colour, hardness etc of the object. This, to Locke, suggested that there were certain qualities – Primary Qualities - that really existed in reality: shape, size, position, number, motion or rest. There were also Secondary Qualities of objects such as colour and taste, which were the powers of objects to ‘interact with our sense organs and, through them, with our minds in ways that give rise to
184 Cottingham, J. (1986) Descartes , p. 29 185 Ibid., 30.
186 Ibid., 79. 187 Ibid., 144.
84
Made with FlippingBook - Online Brochure Maker