On Empiricism

Overview

In lecture seven, we study empiricism through John Locke and David Hume, who follow Aristotle in arguing that all knowledge comes from experience rather than innate ideas. We trace how they break complex ideas into simple impressions, yet reach different conclusions about causation, substance, and identity. The lecture concludes with Hume’s radical skepticism, demonstrating how many core concepts—including causation, the self, and morality—may be mere psychological projections rather than features of objective reality.