Empiricism is fundamentally the belief that all knowledge is eventually resultant from the senses and experience, and that all conceptions can be linked back to data from the senses. John Locke, George Berkeley, and David Hume are considered to be three of the most persuasive empiricists in philosophy. The key aspects that the philosophies of these three empiricists have are that knowledge develops from sensory experience. However, it is imperative to note that each of these three empiricists have their own views (Meyers, 2014).
To begin with, Locke repudiated the prospect of intrinsic ideas and that when an individual is born, his or her mind is blank. Therefore, Locke makes the argument that all notions come from experience and that devoid of such experience, reason does not have a benchmark for differentiating the truth from fallacy. In turn, Locke asserted that the foundation of all ideas stem from sensation and reflection. Moreover, Locke posited that human beings are able to think about things solely subsequent to having experienced them. As a result, all ideas are devised from sense data. To illustrate this, Locke explains that if an individual is born blind, he or she can never have the idea of color. Therefore, if both a blind and seeing individual are handed shapes that have color, then the seeing individual would be able to identify both whereas the blind individual would only ascertain the shape but not the color. This is due to lack of experience (Solomon and Higgins, 2013).
Berkeley, on the other hand, makes the argument that there is no existence of a material world. He posits that merely ideas exist, and ideas are mental states, not material objects. Basically, Berkeley asserts that it is not possible to know what an inexperienced presence would be made up of. All humans can know are ideas. In accordance to Berkeley, any qualities that are allocated to material objects are in relation to the one perceiving them. For instance, food can be considered hot, warm or cold depending on an individual's perception. As a result, Berkeley makes the argument that individuals solely know perceptions and not materials or things, but rather aspects as they are perceived (Solomon and Higgins, 2013).
Lastly, Hume makes a gripping argument against materialism, the conceivability of a spiritual or supernatural reality and also the immortality of the soul. In essence, Hume posited that neither matter nor mind exists. He makes a distinction between antedating a perception from the mind and perceiving it in reality. Hume goes on to state that it is imperative to differentiate ideas, which are abstract in nature, from impression, which are mental replications, from human senses. Therefore, Hume insists that all ideas can be linked back to impressions and consequently, they originate from experience (Meyers, 2014).
In general, Locke, Berkeley and Hume promoted experience as the source of knowledge, not pure reason. Locke proposed innate ideas, primary and secondary qualities, simple and complex ideas, along with revolution and natural rights. Berkeley, on the other hand, believed in idealism of not using materials as objects, God and Evil, and arguments against material objects. Hume believed in miracles, emotion vs. reason morality, idea origins and associations, personal causality and identity, and natural belief and radical skepticism. Clearly, these ideas work towards a common goal known as empiricism (Meyers, 2014).
Moreover, matter is what's important and all unique and true knowledge about the spiritual world depends on its correct answer. Spirit is a substance with a form. Substances can either be spiritual or material, and totally different from each other. Although matter and spirit are real substances, they're not related to each other. This point is important and contrary to common opinion. Any existence, being or entity is formed from a substance. A material thing is made from a material substance. For instance, ice is made from water substance. Similarly, spirit or the soul is a substance made from a spiritual substance. Humans are partly a spirit and that part is made from spiritual substances.
Although a spiritual world is different from a material world and made from spiritual substances, we can't tell what spiritual substances...
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