The Empiricists: Locke: Concerning Human Understanding; Berkeley: Principles of Human Knowledge &3 Dialogues; Hume: Concerning Human Understanding & Concerning Natural Religion

by Richard Taylor (Editor), George Berkeley, David Hume

The rise and fall of British Empiricism is probably philosophy's most dramatic example of pushing premises to their most logical and fatal conclusions. Empiricism was born in 1690 with the appearance of Locke's Essay, and it flourished as the reigning school until 1739 when Hume's Treatise strangled it with its own cinctures. What started as "common sense" dualism in Locke dwindled into the optimistic idealism of Berkeley, and then into the disintegrating skepticism of Hume. In just fifty years the men who claimed that all knowledge derives from experience, from the testimony of the senses, had shown that if this is really so we lose not only the material world, the "law" of cause and effect, and other people, but also our own selves: the "I" becomes no more than a succession of sensations. Thus, while Empiricism annihilated the "innate ideas" of Rationalism and set the stage for Immanuel Kant, to many thinkers it also meant the irrevocable end of philosophic certainty.

All the essays in this volume are complete except that of Locke, for which even he advised abridgment.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, College, Empiricism, History

528 pages, Paperback

First published December 21, 1960

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database named Richard Taylor.

Richard Taylor was an American philosopher known for his dry wit and Socratic approach, and an internationally-known beekeeper. He received his Ph.D. at Brown University, and taught principally there as well as at Columbia and the University of Rochester, from which he retired in 1985.

Reviews

[Ethan Zimmerman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This anthology is an excellent collection of writings by the British empiricists of the 18th century. There's no way that a star rating could reflect the complexity of three authors with varying and contradictory ideas. So take my rating as a statement about their importance in English speaking philosophy. They loom large in the history of philosophy and continue to do so to this day.

I did not read this in its entirety, just portions of each author.

[Ray · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is good for basic familiarity with these philosophers, and for reference. Its contents are cut and dry, with no editorial notes or additional scholarship (excepting the abridgment of Locke's Essay).

John Locke (1632-1704) brought back a philosophical theme mostly abandoned for two millennia: the nature of knowledge itself. He sort of asks, How did we come about our knowledge, i.e.; How can we trust it? And he concludes that empirical knowledge--knowledge attained through experience--is the best qualifying and most trustworthy. Perception, reflection, sensation--are all forms of experience; the Will or Volition is what we do with this data. Of course he throws this out the window when he discourses on the Deity and religion by saying "we are capable of knowing certainly that there is a God", while precisely the opposite is true. The naysayers? "...I have shown, with an evident and incontestable proof a Deity; and I believe nobody can avoid the cogency of it..." (That I would've liked to have seen, and if Mr. Locke had studied his Plato as hard as he obviously had his Aristotle he'd have made no such statements.) But of course Locke lived in a time when the religious state was still very powerful, so it's impossible to know whether he was trying to simply avoid unwanted attention by getting too scientific. He was also influenced by Milton's Paradise Lost, and surely wasn't unaware of the Galileo situation. If the pope and the king said that the sun orbited the earth and you said "no, it doesn't", you were in deep shit. So much for "emancipating our thoughts from particular objects", as Berkeley would say, and then commit the same folly himself.
Berkeley (1685-1753) was a greater writer than Locke, but ultimately, as I've said, paints himself into the same corner as Locke, and then simply walks over it, claiming no foul. "A fair and ingenuous reader will collect the sense from the scope and tenor and connection of a discourse, making allowances for those inaccurate modes of speech which use has made inevitable" says he. Yes, methinks I apprehend your meaning. He says "my aim is only to know what ideas are connected together; and the more a man knows of the connexion of ideas, the more he is said to know of the nature of things". This is the essence of the whole thing: investigation.
David Hume's (1711-1776) value is greatest, but ends with his Essay. And (again, following a pattern) despite the fact that "a wise man proportions his belief to the evidence", as he says, Hume confounds science with religion, which must have confused and disappointed his contemporaneous readers, and kept the Enlightenment not so brightly lit. That said, Hume was a very capable writer, and I enjoyed reading some passages of his Essay.
The additional value of reading this book, in my opinion, is its historical significance. Seeing at which point in time intellectuals were--if not questioning the authority of the Church, approaching the age of science--is very interesting, and provides a better understanding of the contemporary, and subsequent, literature.

[Greg Gauthier · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a useful condensation of the three pillars of "empiricism", such as it is. But (1) you can get all their work from creative commons sources. So, paying for this isn't necessary; and, (2) the creative commons sources are complete, whereas this is abridged. So, paying for this is ill-advised, anyway. About the only thing worth having this book for, is Richard Taylor's introduction. Which is why, ultimately, I gave this 3 stars.

[Ryan Young · Rating 4 out of 5]

locke: objects exist but they do not contain their attributes. also god is real because of logic.
berkeley: nothing is real at all except god and the things in your mind. did not care for this guy at all. his dialogues were between a pompous ass and an idiot.
hume: people with faith are actually more skeptical than skeptics. all the people in his dialogues were smart.

[E J · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't understand a goddamn word of this bad boy. Absolutely couldn't concentrate on it. Really dry.
It's not the books fault, really, but there you go.

[R.K. Cowles · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 1/2 stars

[Kurt Wallinger · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very difficult reading.

[JP · Rating 3 out of 5]

In his introduction, David Armstrong argues that Berkeley is studied because he was a trailblazer in philosophical thought, despite the fact that his assumptions are invalid. Berkeley actually made multiple attempts to convince others of his thesis, following this essay with a more casual style in his "Three Dialogues." I found Berkeley very difficult to read, mostly because the meaning of specific terms seems to shift throughout the argument. Perhaps better scholars than I are able to follow the flow. Nonetheless, I hold to the conviction that part of our advance in argument has come about through the use of more specific terms. The point with which I am most in agreement is more of an aside by Berkeley -- that man tends to over-complicate thinking and therefore loses the true meaning behind many things. Unfortunately, he seems to do the same within the pages after that point. Even if all of his points held, he results in a metaphyisical world that appears and disappears as we blink. Berkeley goes on to expound upon certain possibilities, such as God also perceiving that the objects exist and thus holding that they always exist.

[Jake Maguire · Rating 2 out of 5]

I kept falling asleep, even when I was fully rested. Oh well

[Craig Bolton]

The Empiricists: Locke: Concerning Human Understanding; Berkeley: Principles of Human Knowledge & 3 Dialogues; Hume: Concerning Human Understanding & Concerning Natural Religion by John Locke (1961)

[Luke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent reader featuring key texts of the leading British Empiricists. Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion are a delight and quite thought provoking.

[Joshua Duffy · Rating 2 out of 5]

A little more easier to comprehend than the Rationalists, but c'mon, I mean, give me some Nietzsche!

[Aaron · Rating 3 out of 5]

a nice collection of essays by the big three