Epistemology †empiricism Essay

Principles reconstruct it those Parmenides assumed be said in contemporary jargon to be a priori principles, or principles of ground, which just means that they be cognise prior to learn. It is non that we arrest these principles maiden chronologic thaty plainly p aro enjoymentably that our companionship of them does non depend on our feels. For fleshly exertion, consider the principle You crappert shake up well-nigh debaseg extinct of naught. If you wished to defend this principle, would you pass off by conducting an investigate in which you seek to bewilder whatsoeverthing out of nonhing? In situation, you would not.You would base your defense on our in force to conceive of invariably makingsomething out of nothing every(prenominal)thing we live originates from four sources. The first, our backbones, foot be thought process of as our particular source of selective information. Two an new(prenominal)(prenominal) sources, apprehension and in tuition, be derivative in the sentience that they produce new facts from data already supplied to our judgments. The fourth source, authority (or hearsay, or testimony of others), is by constitution stand byary, and irregularhand fact- pick outs atomic consider 18 etern wholey more wiggly and strong to validate.Other sources of noesis argon norm everyy birdsonged, and it is not inconceivable that on that point office exist other sources and if they do exist, regard derived from them is problematic, and c arful analysis usu from all(prenominal) one(prenominal)y nonpluss that they erect be subsumed under mavin or more of the four ben sources and essential be seriously headmodal valueed as legitimate, separate sources of reliable information. In summary, what is the temper of our noesis adjoining to the rattling pityingkind of thatts/events? Our companionship of au indeedticity is composed of ideas our assessments stick created on the ba sis of our sensory bring. It is a fabric of association woven by the capitulum. noesis is not stampn to the headland nothing is poured into it.Rather, the encephalon manufactures perceptions, thoughts, ideas, beliefs, and so frontwards and holdsthem as workings hypotheses closely(predicate) outer cosmos. Every idea is a (subjective) working model that enables us to handle actu everyy object glasss/events with some degree of pragmatic efficiency. heretofore persuasive our thoughts and images whitethorn be, they atomic number 18 provided remote makeations of verity they ar tools that enable us to deal with realism. It is as though we draw nondimensional maps to do us visualise four-dimensional territory. The semanticists consent long re melodic themeed us to bewargon of confusing some(prenominal) figure of map with the real landscape. The map, they say, is not the territory. An abstraction, by definition, is an idea created by the straits to refer to com pletely objects which, possessing sure characteristics in earthy, atomic number 18 thought of in the aforesaid(prenominal) class. The itemise of objects in the class croupe revolve from two to infinity. We croup refer to all men, all hurricanes, all books, all energy-formsall everything. eyepatch abstraction-building is an inescapable mental motionin fact it is the first measuring rod in the organization of our fellowship of objects/eventsa serious problem is inherent in the process.At high trains of abstraction we break away to group together objects that gestate but a few qualities in park, and our abstractionswhitethorn be al most(prenominal) importeeless, without our knowing it. We strike into the habit of using familiar abstractions and plump to realize how empty they argon. For example, what do the objects in the pursuit abstractions restrain in common? All atheists, all Western imperialists, all blacks or all whites (and if you take its skin color, think twice), all conservatives, all trees, all French people, all Christians. When we think in practically(prenominal) high- aim abstractions, it is often the case that we are communicating nothing meaningful at all.The individual object or event we are naming, of course, has no name and belongsto no class until we rig it in one. Going as furthermost back as Plato, philosophers make peeing traditionally defined knowledge as admittedly justified belief. A priori knowledge is knowledge that is justified on an individual basis of (or prior to) engender. What kinds of knowledge could be justified without some(prenominal) solicitation to visualise? Certainly, we can know the equity of definitions and logical impartialitys asunder from recognize. Hence, definitions and logi makey driveful truths are examples of a priori knowledge.For example, All unicorns are one-horned creatures is current by definition. Similarly, the avocation line of sympathying is a sure bet eit her my universitys football team forget win their neighboring game or they wont. level(p) if they tie or the game is canceled, this would fulfill the they wont win part of the farsightedness. Hence, this statement expresses a logically necessary truth virtually the football team. These two statements are cases of a priori knowledge. Notice that in the particular examples of a priori knowledge I contract chosen, they do not flag us any real, f real information astir(predicate) the cosmos. Even though the statement nearly unicorns is square, it does not tell us whether there are any unicorns in the realness.Similarly, the football prediction does not tell us the actual outcome of the game. Experience of the dry land is require to know these things. The second kind of knowledge is a posteriori knowledge, or knowledge that is base on (or posterior to) screw. Similarly, the adjective falsifiable refers to anything that is ground on experience. Any claims ground on e xperience purport to score new information to the subject. Hence, Water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit and Tadpoles become frogs would be examples of a posteriori knowledge. We know the freezing maneuver of water and the life cycle of tadpoles with experience.Thus far, most philosophers would agree on these institutionalises. The difficult needion now arises Is there any a priori knowledge that does spend a penny us knowledge roughly the real world? What would that be homogeneous? It would be knowledge expressible in a statement much(prenominal) that (a) its truth is not determined solely by the meaning of its terms and (b) it does provide information roughly the way the world is. Furthermore, since it is a priori, it would be knowledge that we could justify through and through and through causality, separatistly of experience. The question, and so, is whether or not land entirely can tell us close the ultimate nature of human race. 1.Is it practicable to chip in knowledge at all? 2. Does background provide us with knowledge of the world one by one of experience? 3. Does our knowledge introduce pragmatism as it really is? logicalism claims that source or the instinct is the native source of our native knowledge most pragmatism. Non acuteists agree that we can use reason to draw resultants from the information provided by sense experience. However, what do ites the rationalists is that they claim that reason can give out us knowledge apart from experience.For example, the rationalists point out that we can arrive at numeric truths s easyly circlesor triangles without having to measure, experiment with, or experience circular or triangular objects. We do so by constructing rational, deductive proofs that persist to absolutely clear conclusions that are always comprehensively admittedly of the world outside our head teachers (a priori knowledge or so the world). Obviously, the rationalists think the second question sho uld be answered affirmatively. Empiricism is the claim that sense experience is the sole source of our knowledge intimately the world. Empiricists insist that when we let life, the original equipment of our intellect is a tabula rasa, or blank tablet. entirely through experience does that empty perspicacity become filled with content. Various empiricists give different explanations of the nature of logical and numerical truths. They are all agreed, however, that these truths are not already latent in the caput before we discover them and that there is no genuine a priori knowledge almost the nature of reality. The empiricists would respond No to the second epistemic question. With respect to question 3, both(prenominal) the rationalists and the empiricists think that our knowledge does make reality as it really is.Constructivism is used in this discussion to refer to the claim that knowledge is neither already in the mind nor passively received from experience, but that th e mind constructs knowledge out of the genuines of experience. Immanuel Kant, an 18th-century German philosopher, introduced this notion.He was influenced by both the rationalists and the empiricists and attempted to acquire a compromise between them. speckle Kant did not agree with the rationalists on everything, he did view we can keep a priori knowledge of the world as we experience it. Although Kant did not use this label, I call his position constructivismto capture his distinctive flyer of knowledge.One troubling consequence of his view was that be instance the mind imposes its own order on experience, we can neer know reality as it is in itself. We can neertheless know reality as it appears to us after it has been filtered and processed by our minds. Hence, Kant answers question 3 negatively. Nevertheless, because Kant thought our minds all have the same cognitive structure, he thought we are able to arrive at usual and clinical knowledge indoors the boundaries o f the human accompaniment.Before reading further, olfactory modality at the highway picture for an example of a classicexperiment in perception. Did you get the right answer, or were your eyeball fooled? One way that infidels attack knowledge claims is to point to all the ways in which we have been deceived by dissemblings.Our experience with perceptual illusions shows that in the past we have been put on nigh what we thought we knew. These mistakes lead, the disbeliever claims, to the conclusion that we can neer be certain to the highest degree our beliefs, from which it follows that our beliefs are not justified. Another, correspondent strategy of the skeptic is to point to the opening night that our apprehension of reality could be systematically flawed in some way.The boloney of Ludwig, the brain in the vat who go through a fictive virtual reality, would be an example of this strategy. Another strategy is to conceive of that there is an inherent flaw in human ps ychology such that our beliefs neer correspond to reality. I call these possible scenarios universal belief falsifiers. The characteristics of a universal belief falsifier are (1) it is a theoretically possible state of personal matters, (2) we have no way of knowing if this state of personal matters is actual or not, and (3) if this state of affairs is actual, we would never be able to love beliefs that are truefrom beliefs that seem to be true but are very spurious.Note that the skeptic does not need to mount that these possibilities are actual. For example, the skeptic does not have to establish that we really are brains in a vat, but tho that this condition is possible. Furthermore, the skeptic need not claim that all our beliefs are false. The skeptics point is however that we have no fail-safe method for harness when our beliefs are true or false. given up this circumstance, the skeptic support argue that we cannot distinguish the situation of having indorse t hat leads to true beliefs from the situation of having the same shield of yard cocksure a universal belief falsifier, which leads to false beliefs.Obviously, the skeptic believes that nothing is beyond mistrust. For any one of our beliefs, we can imagine a wane of circumstances in which it would be false. For example, I believe I was born(p) in Rahway, New Jersey. However, my birth security measure could be inaccurate. Furthermore, for whatever reasons, my parents may have wished to keep the truth from me. I go away never know for sure. I excessively believe that there is overwhelming evidence that Adolf Hitler committed suicide at the close of World War II.However, it could be true (as conspiracytheorists maintain) that his death was faked and that he watchd a long life in southward America after the war. The theme of the skeptic is that induction is necessary for there to be knowledge, and if motion is possible, consequently we do not have certainty. We now have the con siderations in place that the skeptic uses to make his or her case. at that place are many varieties of disbelieving arguments, each one exploiting some possible flaw in either human cognition or the alleged evidence we use to justify our beliefs. Instead of presenting various(a) specific arguments, we can consider a generic skeptical argument. Generic disbelieving Argument 1. We can find reasons for disbelieving any one of our beliefs. 2. It follows that we can doubt all our beliefs. 3. If we can doubt all our beliefs, whence we cannot be certain of any of them. 4. If we do not have certainty intimately any of our beliefs, then we do not have knowledge. 5. Therefore, we do not have knowledge. Pyrrho of Elis (360270 B. C. ), a philosopher in superannuated Greece, inspired a skeptical action that bore his name (Pyrrhonian skepticism).Pyrrho was skeptical concerning sense experience. He argued that for experience to be a source of knowledge, our sense data moldinessiness(p renominal) agree with reality. But it is impossible to cut through outside our experience to see how it compares with the immaterial world. So, we can never know whether our experience is giving us accurate information about reality.Furthermore, rational argument cannot give us knowledge either, Pyrrho said, because for every argument supporting one side of an issue, other argument can be constructed to prove the opposing case. Hence, the two arguments cancel each other out and they are every bit ineffective in leading us to the truth. The followers of Pyrrho stressed that we can make claims only about how things appear to us.You can say, The honey appears to me to be sweet but not, The honey is sweet. The best approach, according to these skeptics, was to avert judgment whenever possible and make no assumptions at all. They believed that skeptical detachment would lead to serenity. Dont worry about what you cannot know, they advised. Some skeptics distilled these arguments dow n into two bare(a) theses. First, nothing is self-evident, for any axiom we start with can be doubted.Second, nothing can be proven, for either we result have an blank space regress of reasons that support our preceding(prenominal)reasons or we get out end up assuming what we are trying to prove. Descartes began his quest for knowledge with the assumption that if he had rational certainty concerning his beliefs, he needs had knowledge, and if he did not have certainty, he did not have knowledge.The skeptics who came after Descartes agreed with this assumption. However, as we give see in the next section, Descartes argues that there are a number of things of which we can be certain and, hence, we do have knowledge. On the other hand, the skeptics doubt whether Descartes or anyone can achieve such certainty.Lacking any grounds for certainty, the skeptics claim we cannot have knowledge about the real world. Thus, the skeptics think that Descartess arguments for skepticism are st ronger than his proposed answers. Such a philosopher was David Hume, whom we lead experience later when we examine empir EXAMINING THE STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES OF SKEPTICISM positivist Evaluation 1.Weeding a garden is not sufficient to make flowers grow, but it does do something valuable. In what way could the skeptics be viewed as providing a philosophical weeding service by undercutting beliefs that are naively taken for give?2. The skeptics are un localisetling because they force us to canvas our most fundamental beliefs. Is it better to live in naive innocence, never call into question anything, or is it some eras worthwhile to have your beliefs challenged? Negative Evaluation 1. The skeptics make the avocation claim fellowship is impossible. But isnt this claim itself a knowledge claim that they declare is true? Is the skeptic organism inconsistent? 2. The skeptics use the argument from illusion to show that we cannot trust our senses.But could we ever know that there are illusions or that sometimes our senses are deceivedunless there were do when our senses werent deceived? 3. Some skeptics would have us believe that it is possible that all our beliefs are false.But would the human race have survived if there was never a isotropy between some of our beliefs and the way reality is constituted? We believe that fire burns, water quenches thirst, vegetables nourish us, and eating sand doesnt. If we didnt have some severalize of constituent(a) mechanism orienting us toward true beliefs, how could we be as successful as we are in dealing with reality? 4. Is skepticism liveable?Try utter to someone who claims to be a skeptic, lodge outfor that falling tree tree branch Why is it that a skeptic will always look up? mobilise of other ways in which skeptics competency demonstrate that they do believe they can find out what is true or false about the world. 5. Is Descartess command for absolute certainty unreasonable? jackpott we have justified beliefs based on inferences to the best explanation, probability, or interoperable certainty? Does certainty have to be either 100 percent or 0 percent? The answer is that our reason tells us that something cannot come from nothing and material objects do not vanish into thin air. We will distrust our senses beforewe will abandon these beliefs. Hence, our reason seems to have prevent power over our sense experience. We often trust our reason even in the face of apparently solid, experiential evidence. The rationalists budge this trust in reason into a full-fledged possibleness of knowledge. Rationalism is a very influential theory about the source and nature of knowledge. This position may be summarized in terms of the terce linchpin points of rationalism. These tether points are responses to the second question of epistemology, Does reason provide us with knowledge of the world independently of experience? sympathy Is the Primary or almost Superior Source of Knowledge about pragmatism According to the rationalist, it is through reason that we truly understand the fundamental truths about reality. For example, most rationalists would say the truths in the pastime lists are some very rudimentary truths about the world that will never change. Although our experience certainly does illustrate most of these beliefs, our experiences always consist of par-ticular, concrete events. Hence, no experiences of seeing, feeling, hearing, tasting, or pathetic specific objects can tell us that these statements will always be true for every afterlife event we encounter.The rationalist claims that the following statements represent a priori truths about the world. They are a priori because they can be known apart from experience, yet they tell us what the world is like. LOGICAL TRUTHS A and not-A cannot both be true at the same time (where A represents some proposition or claim). This truth is called the law of noncontradiction. (For example, the statement washbow l is unite and John is not married is necessarily false. ) If the statement X is true and the statement If X, then Y is true, then it necessarily follows that the statement Y is true. mathematical TRUTHS.The area of a triangle will always be one-half the duration of the base times its height. If X is big than Y and Y is larger than Z, then X is larger than Z. METAPHYSICAL TRUTHS Every event has a cause. An object with unconnected properties cannot exist. (No matter how long we search, we will never find a round square. ) honest PRINCIPLES Some basic moral obligations are not optional. It is morally wrong to maliciously torture someone for the fun of it. backbone Experience Is an Unreliable and Inadequate course to Knowledge Rationalists representatively emphasize the fact that sense experience is relative, changing, and often illusory.An object will look one way in artificial light and will look different in sunlight. Our eyeball seem to see water on the road on a zesty da y, but the image is merely an opthalmic illusion. The rationalist claims that we need our reason to sort out what is appearance from what is reality. Although it is obvious that a rationalist could not get through life without some reliance on sense experience, the rationalist denies that sense experience is the only source of knowledge about reality. Furthermore, experience can tell us only about particular things in the world. However, it cannot give us universal, foundational truthsabout reality.receptive experience can tell me about the properties of this ball, but it cannot tell me about the properties of spheres in general. Experience can tell me that when I combine these two oranges with those two oranges, they chip in up to four oranges. However, only reason can tell me that two incontrovertible two will always equal four and that this result will be true not only for these oranges, or all oranges, but for anything whatsoever. The Fundamental Truths about the World Can Be cognize A Priori They Are Either inbred or Self-Evident to Our Minds Innate ideas are ideas that are inborn.They are ideas or principles that the mind already contains prior to experience. The notion of inhering ideas is commonly found in rationalistic philosophies, but it is rejected by the empiricists. The theory of indispensable ideas views the mind like a computer that comes from the factory with numerous programs already loaded on its disk, waiting to be activated. Hence, rationalists say that such ideas as the laws of logic, the concept of judge, or the idea of graven image are already contained deep inside the mind and only need to be brought to the level of conscious awareness. Innate ideas should not be confused with instinct.Instinct is a noncognitive set of mechanical behaviors, such as nictate the eyes when an object approaches them. The theory of innate ideas is one account of how we can have a priori knowledge. Other rationalists believe that if the mind does n ot already contain these ideas, they are, at least(prenominal), either self-evident or inwrought to the mind and the mind has a internal predisposition to recognize them. For example, Gottfried Leibniz (16461716), a German rationalist, compared the mind to a block of marble that contains veins or natural splitting points that allow only one sort of trope to be formed within it.Thus, the mind, like the marble, has an innate structure that results in inclinations, dispositions, habits, or natural capacities to think in certain ways. In contrast to this view, John Locke (a British empiricist) said There is nothing in the intellect that was not first in the senses. In response, Leibniz tagged the following rationalistic qualification at the end of Lockes formula, except for the intellect itself. Obviously, in manifestation that the mind contains rational ideas or dispositions, the rationalists do not believe a sister is thinking about the theorems of geometry.Instead, they claim that when a person achieves a certain level of cognitive development, he or she will be capable of realizing the self-evident truth of certain ideas. Leibniz pointed out that there is a difference between the mind containing rational principles and beingness aware of them. Rationalists give different accounts of how the mind acquired innate ideas in the first place. Socrates and Plato believed that our souls preexisted our current life and received knowledge from a previous form of existence. theistic rationalists, such as Descartes, tend to believe that immortal implanted these ideas within us.Others simply claim that these principles or ideas naturally keep company rational minds such as ours. THE RATIONALISTS ANSWERS TO THE terce EPISTEMOLOGICAL QUESTIONS Section 2. 0 contained three questions concerning knowledge (1) Is knowledge possible? (2) Does reason provide us with knowledge of the world independently of experience? and (3) Does our knowledge represent reality as it r eally is? While differing on the details, all the rationalists give the same answers to these three questions. First, they all believe that knowledge is possible. Generally, we are able to discern that some opinions are better than others.For example, in the clear up of maths some answers are true and some are false. We could not know this fact if obtaining knowledge was impossible. Second, the rationalists agree that only through reason can we find an adequate basis for knowledge.For example, in mathematics and logic we are able through reason alone to arrive at truths that are absolutely certain and necessarily true. Third, rationalists agree that beliefs that are based on reason do represent reality as it truly is. In the following sections, I examine three unmingled rationalists to see how they illustrate the three anchor points of rationalism andanswer the three epistemological questions.Socrates answers to the three epistemological questions should be clear. (1) We are able to distinguish true opinions from false ones, so we must know the standards for making this distinction. (2) These standards could not be derived from experience so they must be unpacked through a rational investigation of the reservoir of all truththe soul. (3) Since our rational knowledge provides us with information that enables us to deal successfully with the world and our own lives, it must be giving us an accurate picture of reality.However, according to Plato, since thephysical world is everlastingly changing, sense perception gives us only relative and temporary information about changing, particular things. Being a typical rationalist, Plato thought that ultimate knowledge must be objective, durable, and universal. Furthermore, he argued that there is a difference between true opinions and knowledge, for our beliefs must be rationally justified to dispose as knowledge. Finally, Plato believed that the object of knowledge must be something that really exists. Plato and the Role of Reason Do mathematical truths, such as those in the multiplication tables, exist within the mindor do they exist outside the mind? Plato would say both. If mathematical truths exist only in the mind, then why does physical reality aline to these truths? If mathematical truths are only mind-dependent ideas, then why cant we make the truths about triangles be anything we decide them to be? The world of Alices Adventures in Wonderland was created in the mind of Lewis Carroll. He could have make the worlds properties be anything he decided. But obviously, we cant make up such rules for the properties of numbers. We dont create these truths we discover them.Thus, Plato would argue, these truths are objective and independent of our minds. But if they are independent of our minds, then they must refer to something that exists in reality. Although the number seven, for example, has objective properties that we discover, these properties are not physical. We do not learn the tru ths about numbers by seeing, tasting, hearing, smelling, or touching them. From this concept, Plato concludes that the world of mathematics consists of a set of objective, mindindependent truths and a domain of nonphysical reality that we know only through reason. What about referee?What color is it? How tall is it? How much does it weigh? Clearly, these questions can apply to physical things, but it is meaningless to describe justice in terms of observable properties. Furthermore, no society is perfectly just. Hence, we have never seen an example of perfect justice in human history, only frail, human attempts to rasping it. Because reason can contemplate referee Itself,* we can evaluate the deficient, control degrees of justice found in particular societies. busy nations come and go and the degree of justice they manifest can rise or fall. But the objects of genuine knowledgesuch as true Justice or true pear-shapedity are perfect(a) and unchanging standards and objects of kno wledge. Plato on ordinarys and the Knowledge of Reality Thus far, Plato has argued that there are some things that we could not know about (Justice, Goodness, Equality) if experience was our only source of knowledge.The soul must have somehow acquired knowledge independently of the senses. But what, exactly, are the objects of this special sort of knowledge? In answering this question, Plato builds on the distinction he has made between the here-and-now realm of sense experience and the unchanging realm of rational knowledge.He says that in the world of sense experience we find that particulars fall into a number of stable, universal categories. Without these categories, we could not identify anything or prate about particulars at all. For example, Tom, Andre, Maria, and Lakatria are all distinct individuals, yet we can use the universal term human being to refer to each of them. In bruise of their differences, something about them is the same. Corresponding to each common name ( such as human, dog, justice) is a comprehensive that consists of the essential, common properties of anything within that category.Circular objects (coins, rings, wreathes, planetary orbits) all have the comprehensive of Circularity in common. Particular objects that are beautiful ( rises, seashells, persons, sunsets, paintings) all share the Universal of Beauty. Particulars come into being, change, and pass away but Universals reside in an eternal, unchanging world. The rose grows from a bud, becomes a beautiful flower, and then turns brown and ugly and fades away. Yet the Universal of Beauty (or Beauty Itself ) remains constantly the same.Plato believes that Universals are more than concepts, they are in truth the constituentsof reality. Hence, in answer to the third epistemological question, Plato believes that knowledge of Universals provides us with knowledge of the fundamental features of reality, which are nonphysical, eternal, and unchanging. Plato also refers to these Un iversals as Forms. The following thought experiment will help you appreciate Platos emphasis on Universals and universal truth. Descartes on the Possibility of Knowledge Although Descartes was certain he could not be deceived about his own existence, the possibility of a Great Deceiver cast a shadow over all his other beliefs.Unless he could find something external to his mind that would guarantee that the circumscribe of his mind be reality, there was little hope for having any knowledge other than that of his own existence. Descartes sought-after(a) this guarantee in an all-powerful, good graven image. Hence, Descartes says, As soon as the opportunity arises I must examine whether there is a God, and, if there is, whether he can be a deceiver. For if I do not know this, it seems that I can never be quite certain about anything else. 12 If Descartes could prove that such a God exists, then he could know that knowledge is possible.But notice how limited are the materials Descart es has at his disposal for proving Gods existence. He cannot employ an falsifiable argument based on the nature of the external world, for that is an issue that is still in doubt. So, he must construct a rationalistic argument that reasons only from the contents of his own mind. STOP AND THINK Descartes on the Role of Reason In the following passage from Meditation III, Descartes says the natural light of reason shows him that (1) something cannot arise from nothing and (2) there must be at least as much reality in the cause as there is in the effect. What examples does he use to illustrate each of these principles? How does he apply these two principles to the existence of his own ideas? The argument that Descartes has given us in the previous passages can be summarized in this way 1. Something cannot be derived from nothing. (In other words, all effects, including ideas, are caused by something. ) 2. There must be at least as much reality in the cause as there is in the effect. 3. I have an idea of God (as an infinite and perfect being). 4. The idea of God in my mind is an effect that was caused by something.5.I am finite and imperfect, and thus I could not be the cause of the idea of an infinite and perfect God. 6. notwithstanding an infinite and perfect being could be the cause of such an idea. 7. Therefore, God (an infinite and perfect being) exists. THE THREE ANCHOR POINTS OF charlatanism The Only Source of Genuine Knowledge Is Sense Experience The empiricists compare the mind to a blank tablet upon which experience makes its marks. Without experience, they claim, we would lack not only knowledge of the specific features of the world, but also the ability even to conceive of qualities such.