Re-Reading Hume’s Empiricism

Abstract

Empiricism is an epistemological approach that contends that experience teaches us everything. Supporters of this viewpoint are referred to as empiricists. Empiricism originated with John Locke. Locke sees experience as the source of knowledge. According to him, we learn about exterior objects by sensation and internal mental objects through reflection. Locke's theory of knowledge recognizes three elements: the perceiver mind, external objects or substance, and thoughts. Berkeley, like Locke, believes that true knowledge can only be obtained via experience. However, Berkeley differs from Locke in that, while Locke accepts three elements in his theory of knowing, Berkeley acknowledges only two: perceiver minds, mind, and ideas, and rejects the presence of matter. David Hume was the last and great British empiricist philosopher and he pushed empiricism to its skeptical conclusions. For Hume all our knowledge is based on perception. Further Hume divides perception into two parts- impression and ideas. And he denied the existence of mind or soul. In this paper I shall try to delineate Hume’s empiricism and also try to compare his empiricism with Locke and Berkeley’s empiricism.