Thomas Hobbes & John Locke: The roots of Empirical Philosophy?

It is often suggested that British philosophy is the home of empiricism, that empiricism is what the English are famed for in this field, and John Locke is one of the more interesting figures to look at in this respect and we covered him in detail in Tuesdays lecture.

A typically British painting of John Locke, by Sir Godfrey Kneller

Philosophers in the time of the 17th century began thinking about the application of their philosophical theories, applying them to what they described as a 'state of nature' - briefly, an imagined world in which people are perhaps self governed and self reliant and not particularly ordered. They thought about their concepts in relation to this situation so they could be discussed and revised based on what they thought would happen under such ideas.

The first man to lay down a treatise of a social contract was Thomas Hobbes in his 1651 'Leviathan'. He surmised that in the state of nature people were violent aggressive and incapable of working or living together. He explained that people, he believed, would be apolitical and asocial, that the lives of people in this state of nature were "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short". So, suggesting an occurrence where by people came together to discuss their social construct, a number of contracts would be put in place, outlining primarily that there would be a sovereign entity whose job it would be to protect the rights of its individuals and their interests. This in effect then would be a god-like figure, but not someone all powerful, as both Hobbes and Lock wanted to demystify the political system, which I will describe in more depth later. By having this one powerful person chosen, the power of every other individual is taken away, but this person is to protect the people, and stop bellum omnium contra omnes- war of all against all. Ironically enough, Leviathan is a reference to the Old Testament, its use of course being the sea monster much feared but Hobbes in this case using the title to show the destruction of man and also highlighting the flaws of contemporary religion.

So this was Hobbes' idea of the perfect social contract, which came under a fair amount of criticism for its advocating of dictatorship. His contemporary John Locke also criticised him but has been busy writing up his own idea of the social contract and by 1689 had published his 'Second Treatise of Government' which differed in a few ways from Hobbes. It essentially agreed people would come together to form a social contract but Locke believed that people would not immediately be brought together to war with one another- he described his thoughts that people have within them a natural 'sense' of good and moral right, and generally that humans were actually innately rather nice, (perhaps sharing a few cups of tea and a good old chin wag) and opposed to this idea of killing straight away because common interests might not be agreed upon. If we cast our minds back to Descartes we can see Locke is disagreeing with his idea that God is outright an already existing all powerful being all around us, and Locke also argues that when we are born we are a fresh slate able to learn and be taught but have natural intuitive ideas of morality- an opposition to the Church who tell us that we all have Original Sin inside us, even just after being born. 

Locke doesn't totally deny the existence of God however, he simply thinks that God gave us the notion of thought and then went about his Godly business in a place where gods do business and in a roundabout way, sort of left us to get on with it. To further this, his book talks about the 5 senses, sight, touch, hearing, smell and taste, and how we suck senses into our brains which are then processed and lead to new and exciting ideas. He claimed that there was no idea in your brain that hasn't come from experience- a notion completely against Descartes who supported the idea that it was because of God that we were who were were and thought like we did and that everything had a seed originally planted by God. Locke was simply saying that we had a God-given ability to discover natural laws- it is accepted there will be man made laws and state laws but above these are our natural innate abilities to know right from wrong and good from evil.

He talks particularly of our Rights, basic human ones of course but also our right to liberty, to express yourself and to life and property. Sound familiar? Locke in fact played a big role in the development of the American constitution in a behind the scenes sort of way- "Life liberty and the pursuit of happiness"; something every American has the right to! As well as property which is thrown in there somewhere. So these then, as Locke outlines are our inalienable rights as human beings. He doesn't deny that there will be conflicts, he sees reason for a government, but one to protect the interests of the people. Where Hobbes says everyone must follow one leader Locke says that there should be laws to limit a Government so that people can live freely as they are naturally all 'good' people. 

To look at these last few paragraphs summatively

Locke was also interested in discussing Human Understanding- gaining REAL knowledge from experience and reasoning. It is slightly confusing however (or at least what I have thought on this) as it seems to go against the idea of innate ideas when he explains that we have been given, by God, the faculties to discover our own truth. 

Newton in his own right is obviously worldly known and famous in today's scientific spheres and rightly so. His initial approaches to the study of the sciences showed a new, more developed outlook on research which veered away from Aristotle and his firm principles of teaching. Newton seeked to find and explain new ways of universally understanding the world and quite often did this very well simply through his work in observation. He would observe an event and comment on it, reason as to how this happened and sometimes predict a similar outcome, but he never commented on WHY something had happened- which I think was a very mature approach to the sciences. When there are obvious gaps because we are slightly ignorant in a field, there is no need to try and explain something unexplainable. I like to think of it as explaining why the Earth is in a perfect balance, and why all the planets are aligned how they are and that sort of thing- its fairly impossible, yet easy to explain where they are and what this means for us. 

Newton was not simply a man of talk though, he gave the people rules for which to test his observation and predictions, again trying to make science a more universal subject and universally understood. 

Eventually his work 'Principia' was published in 1687 which outlined Mathematical Principals of Natural Philosophy. It was very complicated and difficult for the layman to understand but as it become more and more popular it was revised and reprinted and widely distributed so that all could become learners in this new and exciting contemporarily available field.

Isaac Newton

He did however come under many criticisms on his work mainly stemming from the Cartesian school. They were a fairly old school bunch who claimed that Newtons wonderful propositions of odd forces putting planets where they were sounded too much like magic. Newton tried to explain that science isn't interested in making things up, what the sphere of science didn't know it wasn't going to simply try and create an explanation that was false as there was no point in the deception. Critics however claimed he was trying to deconstruct God but Newton believed that actually his writing showed the people that the world around us and the space beyond was a beautiful masterpiece of gods omnipotency and freedom to be cryptic to our imperfect minds. 

The use of God was shown to be used for filling in the 'gaps' in knowledge of the time, but God was no longer needed as a compulsory source for education and learning.

Lecture One - History & Renaissance

Lecture one began with a look at Rafaels famous work, 'The School of Athens' which was painted it is thought between 1510 and 1511 and is a great celebration of the periods most celebrated philosophers and then 'modern thinkers'- although the painting itself was part of a commission to decorate the Stanze di Raffaello in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican.

Personally I find it slightly ironic (from a modern perspective) that the leading figure in Christianty, the Pope, would want to have such a paintaing- a presentation of the leading me of maths and science, which as we know has not always gone hand in hand with religion, but it is worth thinking about the context of the period, as philosophies and education were impacted by religion fairly heavily thus- the Bible was a book people lived by and there was not even a thought of going against the Church or its opinions as the Church was still the single most powerful organisation of the time.

We then began going through the key players of the time. Aristotle for example, though taught by Plato and regarded to believe essentially in the same teachings, that of the universal, Aristotle began to take a different approach. He believe the universal existed in particular things, like an 'essence' which Plato believed the universal existed apart from particular things. In the picture it is interesting to note that the figures in the middle, Plato (left) and Aristotle (right) are painted to portray their differing views. Plato has his hand towards the heavens, representing his belief in the forms, whilst Aristotle holds firmly his book Nicomachean Ethics, and is gesturing outward to the ground and earth, representing his belief in knowledge through empirical observation and experience.

Plato and Aristotle in Rafael's "The School of Athens"

It was Plato of course who introduced his 'Allegory of the Cave' or simply 'Cave Analogy' which was described to Illustrate in his work The Republic "our nature in its education and want of education".
It basically describes prisoners chained to, and facing a wall in a cave where they have no vision of the outside world. All they can see is shadows on the wall which they begin to ascribe forms to. Plato then makes the allegory that we are chained to a wall until we allow our minds to open as philosophers and understand that the shadows on the wall are not constitutive of reality at all, as we can percieve the true form rather than the simple shadow the prisoner sees.

All that has been mentioned above is just a short set of examples of writing from the period, other works such as Ptolomey and his outspoken idea of the Earth being the centre of the Universe for example, Pythagorus and his use of numbers as a center of understanding the sphere of science, and Socrates and the beginning of philosophy are all much celebrated and important works which the Greeks re-readand eventually began to use and develop to show unchalleneable law and fact, lifting the dogma from the Church after so much time.

The lecture then steered towards Art in the Renaissance period juxtaposed with Dark Age art, how for example Rafael's version of the Madonna and Child painting shows Madonna looking human and sensual, a celebration of beauty and the human form, as oppsed to more classical portrayals which show her to be not true to human form or being but more a baron symbol, and it is these which were generally adapted for use by the Church.

We then moved on to talk about Protagoras and his idea of "man is the measure of all things" which has been much mirrored by writers and idealists, and the lecture began to swing around to Italy and Renaissance starting of course with Machiavelli who I had studied laboriously during AS History and so remain unfortunately rather turned off to his history! Personal feelings aside, it is important to take note of him as a key figure in the development of new politics and a turning away from the Church and religious advisers when it came to his involvement in the hierarchical system in Italy and the Florentine system and his highly criticised and revered book 'The Prince' which portrayed some startling views about power based on his philosophies and his reaction to Church pressure, and was essentially a 'how to' guide on getting power fast and staying there, an almost insult to Church teachings of prosperous behaviour and love for the fellow man and God.

Caesar Borgia was among the first to put Machiavelli's musings into practice, adopting his 'slogan' if you will, of "It is better to be feared than loved, for love is fickle but fear is constant".
He wasted no time in hiring a governor whose sole job it was to crush powerful individuals, making sure that Borgia was the only person possible of holding and keeping his power, but this was a smart move for the people began to hate not Borgia but the governor, so when Borgia felt that the job was done, he had the governor cut in half and left him in the street for the people to do as they please to him, and the people loved it. We summed this up by talking about his approach to property in relation to killing in the respect that it wasnt as noticed when someone was killed but if someones property was taken unlawfully then it could cause much more than anger- "for men forget the death of their fathers quicker than they forget their inheritance"

Moving on on to the 17th Century saw the age of Reason and the birth of what is considered modern philosophy, and no longer claiming authority from the ancients thus giving way to new ways of thinking and bringing forth a new era of modern thinkers such as Descarte who we looked at in detail.
We followed his story of formal education, and how he felt that he had learned nothing by the time he left education, only a recognition of his ignorance and the idea that what we learn is useless- an idea I find particularly interesting when you think about contemporary university; it astounds me to think what knowledge one could learn from academic institutions but there is a set sort of difference in learning academia and applying this to a lifetime of hardship and skills in contemporary living for example.
So Descartes went about deconstructing everything he had ever learned in his quest to question the unquestioned and unquestionable! He clearly wanted to gain a sense of surety about himself and the world around him and after breaking down everything in his head to the most base possible form he left himself with this, his most famous axiom and the bedrock of everything about a being- "I think, therefore I am"


This idea then puts the individual as the centre of all things, although it should be recognised that Descartes was not of the anti-God sect. He believed in the existence of a supreme being because he knew that something had had to have given him the power to think and rationale- which gave God the status of a perfect being amongst us, the imperfect beings. This in turn led to the idea of 'Cartesian Doubt', something I find myself struggling with as I doubt the simple world around me! But that is a whole other story which gets so philosophical I lose track of the thought process myself after a while...