Introduction to Philosophy — Season 1, Episode 7: On Empiricism
Documentary, Talk • 67 min • 1 season, 1 episodes
Episode synopsis
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.
About Introduction to Philosophy
In Introduction to Philosophy, a nine-hour course, Dr. Bonevac guides us through the major traditions of Western philosophy in eight engaging lectures on ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology. We explore three key ethical frameworks—virtue ethics, deontology, and consequentialism—before tackling fundamental questions about reality, from realism to idealism. The course then examines theories of knowledge, weighing skepticism’s doubt, rationalism’s innate ideas, and empiricism’s reliance on experience. Finally, we consider how these philosophical traditions continue to shape debates about morality, reality, and human understanding today.