Philosophy Questions

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 are made from.

Similarly, we can't tell what material substances are made from (Meyers, 2014).

For instance, can you tell what wood or clay is made of? Of course, not. Therefore, our knowledge of things is limited by their impact on us and relationship to us. We can neither define spirit nor matter. There are different spiritual substances we cannot define. All the facts we can know regarding a substance, spiritual or material, are the inherent qualities of the subject and important existence conditions, only from our relationship to the subjects. A blind man can't know much about light as they don't have a relationship. He can only believe what he's told because he has no organism affected by light. Therefore, we can't have knowledge of material and spiritual substances lying beyond the senses if we base all knowledge of matters of fact upon immediate sense experience and regard the mind as passive in sense perception (Meyers, 2014).

Of the three aforementioned philosophers, the one who is most consistent in following empiricist principles is Hume. Hume is deemed to have taken as a beginning point of the empiricism meaning that's was outlined by Locke and came up with its complete fundamental inferences (Bennett, 1971). Skepticism is the perspective of lacking knowledge. The three empiricists had plenty of skepticism regarding a great deal of the things we normally take for granted. From my perspective, this skepticism was justified. This is because, for instance, the skeptical inferences made by Hume emanate from the application of the theory of meaning. If the customary notions of causality and personal identity are to hold meaning, it is imperative to have the ability to mark out such ideas to some impression. In particular, Hume does not entirely repudiate the notion of essential connection and causality. However, Hume does repudiate the customary notion of it being something like a main quality within objects themselves. As an alternative, he recommends that essential connection is similar to a minor quality that we onlookers carry out onto A-B categorizations when humans often perceive A and B. adjoined. Hume asserts that it is merely a habit of the human mind and not a reality in the objects themselves (Fieser and Lillegard, 2012).

Question 2

Causal inference is a reasoning process of what's known from experience to what's claimed as the 'cause' of a particular 'effect' without directly experiencing it. For instance, if we see smoke on the horizons, we conclude or infer that fire must be the cause of the smoke. Therefore, such inference utilizes a 'causal principle' premis. A causal principle is a formal statement 'E is the effect of C', 'C is the cause of E' or 'C causes E'. According to Hume, 'C' and 'E' are the 'cause' and 'effect' 'events' or 'objects'. They signify the causal relation between E. and C. For instance, freezing temperatures convert water to ice is a good example of the 'causal principle'. Hume, according to his empiricism, holds that ideas can be analyzed into their basic components, showcasing the simple impression that every part of each simple idea emulates. E and C. are connected and when C. happens, E must follow; if E. occurs, it means C. had already occurred. Only a necessary connection between C. and E. follows the causal principle. This kind of reasoning is known as causal inference. It assumes that a particular causal principle holds true or there's a necessarily connected relation between 'C' and 'E' as a cause and effect, respectively. Since causal inferences are sound, they're usually true as long as we know that the applicable causal principle is true (Hutchings, 1998).

Causality was deemed to be a central maxim of reality and presumed to be an undisputable, general, and essential law of reality. Nonetheless, Hume postulates that causation is not based on any sensible, a priori argument and that it is completely baseless. Hume makes the argument that there is no foundation in occurrence of one event succeeding essentially upon another and therefore causation or causality cannot be reasonably vindicated. In simple terms, no incongruity is encompassed in repudiating the presumed necessity of causality; however, a statement's repudiation is what demonstrates it as necessary, in case the repudiation gives rise to a noticeable incongruity (Hutchings, 1998). Therefore, due to no incongruity being involved in repudiating the presupposed necessity of causation or causality, its repudiation does not bring about an incongruity. If no incongruity is tangled in refuting the causality necessity then causation is not a priori. In this case, Hume contemplates human faith in the necessary link amid two events should be posteriori; and for that reason, a product, devoid of rational justification, is of psychological habit. Therefore, overall, Hume rejected that we can ever see cause and effect, as well as, neither are we able to inferentially prove it. The philosopher upholds that the reason why human beings have that perception is that the mind cultivates a habit in the sense that people have a sense of being prompted to perceive necessary connections between occasions in the world. Nonetheless, these connections are not as necessary as human beings might perceive. In actual fact, human beings make the supposition that every event has a cause grounded upon inductive reasoning (Hutchings, 1998).

On the other hand, Kant argues against Hume. He states that instead of seeing causation or causality as an establishing principle of nature, somewhat metaphysical, causality happens to be a collectively and necessarily prevailing category, enforced by the human mind on the reality. Per se, it happens to be a necessity for the unambiguousness of experience. Artificial 'a priori' decisions are presented to be sensibly rationalized as necessities for intelligibility. Moreover, Kant goes on to assert that certain mental classifications must portray objects involving experience for the fullness of someone's experience to be intelligible. These 'a priori' perceptions, for instance, time and space, let's say, are presumed within any knowledge-action, and are validated by being values of all conceivable experience. To repudiate the pure perceptions of time, space, as well as, causality or causation would be to create experience incoherent (Velasquez, 2016).

Hume posits that the necessary and universal synthetic judgment, "Every event must have a cause," can be psychologically explained but not rationally justified, because it is the result of custom and habit. On the other hand, Kant considers that this belief can be justified within the bounds of experience due to the innate 'a priori' structures of the mind. I do not think either of these two thinkers is right. On one hand, Kant goes along with Hume that reason cannot assist us comprehend the concept of cause and effect. In actual fact Kant further posits that, without a doubt, knowledge starts with experience. On the other hand, Kant disagrees with Hume that the causal relation between events or ideas is a simple outcome of habit, or an incoherent sequence of separate events (Alvaro, 2012).

Question 7

I believe that I have a free will and that I have the individual ability to make my own decisions. In delineation, free will is the conviction that human beings can make individual decisions regarding their own actions and discard the notion that human actions are decided by destiny or external circumstances. In contrast, determinism is delineated as the notion that each occurrence or circumstance, encompassing each human decision and deed, is the unavoidable and essential consequence of precursor set of circumstances (Timpe, 2012). On one hand, with respect to determinism, philosophers such as Honderich, assert that human beings are free to instigate moral actions or undertake moral choices. As a result, this makes the notion of moral responsibility futile. The supposition made is that any moral choice that individuals make has inexorable preceding causes. Therefore, from a determinism perspective, it is perceived that free will and determinism are incompatible. Honderich makes the argument that the thoughts, decisions, choices and actions are simply consequences in a causative chain. He goes on to assert that nothing can take place except for that which does eventually take place (Honderich, 2005).

The subject of free will arises due to scientific discoveries about human behavior's causal influence. If science can show that free will is an illusion, many important elements of the society can be undermined. Theoretical philosophical questions involve the definition of free will, and if it can accommodate scientific discoveries on the causes of human behavior and how so. Questions with regards to epistemology, metaphysics and the language and mind philosophy are just as important to people's daily lives as moral and ethics of practical philosophy. However, people's free will beliefs are relevant. Empirical evidence in the last half a decade has associated increased aggression, low job performance, increased willingness to cheat and reduced assistance with a reduction of belief in free will. Moreover, your belief in free will also influences the manner in which your brain prepares for action. Application of these study results at the societal-level should be a concern about supporting the supposition that humans don't have free will (Honderich, 2005).