PHIL / PSYC 477 Philosophy of Psychology Fall 2019 – Handout #2
1. The Peripatetic Axiom & The Copy Principle
The following empiricist claim, called the Peripatetic Axiom, is attributed to Aristotle: Nothing is in the intellect that was not first in the senses. It also appears in Scholastic writing, for example, in Aquinas.
The Copy Principle (clearly articulated in Hume’s Treatise) says that there are simple and compound ideas and that the simple ideas are all direct copies of simple sense impressions, “which they exactly represent.”
How should the Peripatetic Axiom and the Copy Principle be interpreted?
What is the intellect? What is an idea? What is sensation, and is it different from perception?
2. Some Other Empiricist Theses
The Weak Anti-Intuition Thesis – No propositions are knowable by intuition alone.
The Strong Anti-Intuition Thesis – There is no power (or faculty) of intuition.
The Source Thesis – There is no source for knowledge other than experience.
The Innate Knowledge Denial – We do not know any propositions in virtue of our (rational) nature. Everything we know, we know by way of experience.
The Innate Concepts Denial – We do not have any concepts in virtue of our (rational) nature. All of our concepts are acquired by way of experience.
Experiential Indispensability Theses for Propositions – Some propositions that we know cannot be known without experience.
Experiential Indispensability Theses for Concepts – Some concepts that we have cannot be acquired without experience.
The Possibility Thesis for Propositions – All propositions that can be known can be known on the basis of pure experience.
The Possibility Thesis for Concepts – Every concept that we can have can be acquired on the basis of pure experience.
If you are an empiricist, you need to show how human concepts and knowledge can be based entirely on (sense) experience. Hence, you need a minimal theory of learning that does not presuppose any concepts or knowledge.
Beginning with Aristotle, empiricists have advanced an account of learning and cognitive architecture on which the mind works by way of the association of ideas.
There is a difficult, terse passage in Aristotle’s work “On Memory” that suggests at least the following three associative principles:
1. Similarity: The idea of a thing triggers ideas of similar things.
2. Contrast: The idea of a thing triggers ideas of different things.
3. Contiguity: The idea of a thing triggers ideas of things close to it in space and time.
Locke also suggested associative principles. But Hume was (probably) the first to clearly articulate principles of the association of ideas. Hume thought there were three associative principles:
1. Resemblance: “A picture naturally leads our thoughts to the original.”
2. Contiguity: “The mention of one apartment in a building naturally introduces an enquiry or discourse concerning the others.”
3. Causality: “If we think of a wound, we can scarcely forebear reflecting on the pain which follows it.”
Associationism has recurred several times in history. We’ll see it in behaviorism, in connectionism, and in deep learning.
What are the limits of associationism?
Does associationism require the admission of some hard-wired, implicit, non-propositional knowledge (e.g. know how), and if so, can empiricists admit such knowledge?
4. An Explanatory Principle
If an alleged idea (e.g. the idea of matter, the idea of the self, or the idea of causal relation) cannot be cashed out in empiricist-associationist terms, then it is an illusory idea.
How does the empiricist explanatory principle compare with Descartes’ explanatory principle?