EmpiricismEmpiricism by nature is the belief that there is no knowledge without experience. How can you know what something tastes like if you've never tasted it? For example, would someone know that an apple is red if they had never seen one? Someone can tell you that an apple is red, but, if you've never seen one, can you really be sure? Empiricists use three anchoring points from which they draw their opinions. The first of these points is; the only source of genuine knowledge is sensory experience. An easier way to understand this is to compare the mind to a clean sponge. As the sponge touches things, it takes with it a piece of everything it touches. Without this, the sponge would remain clean and free of anything other than its own material. With this conclusion, the empiricist believes that we should be content with the knowledge we have at hand, rather than with things we have not yet been aware of. The second anchor point is; Reason is an unreliable and inadequate path to knowledge unless it is rooted in the solid foundation of sensory experience. Empiricists believe that all the meanings of our words derive from our experiences. Everything can be traced back to a single moment in our life. Empiricists understand that reason is necessary to help us make our experience intelligible, but reason alone cannot provide knowledge. The third anchor point is; there is no evidence of Ideas innate in the mind being known separately from experience. This means that the mind has no ideas that are not supported by experience. In no case do there exist a priori truths that can describe the world and at the same time be known independently of experience. When asked the three epistemological questions, the three empiricists all give different answers. The first of these questions is; Is knowledge possible? John Locke (1632-1704) states “Knowledge, however, is not something that lies out there in the grass; it is located in our mind. So to understand knowledge we must analyze the contents of our mind and see what they tell us about the world” (p. 93). Locke believes that all known truths consist of simple ideas. Simple ideas are what make up the rudimentary elements of everything we know to be true for us today. For example, they consist of ideas such as hot and cold, soft and hard, bitter and sweet. They also give us experience through our mind or... middle of paper... there is no way that our knowledge truly represents what reality actually is. According to him “the only certainty we can have concerns the relationships of our own ideas. Since these judgments concern only the realm of ideas, they do not tell us about the external world” (p. 108). This means that any knowledge of reality must be based on a posteriori judgments. These judgments are made by Hume because he believes that there is no way to have true reality through knowledge because one only gains knowledge through experience. In conclusion, Hume states that many empiricists have found reality to be an impossible target to understand. Overall, empiricists believe that there is no knowledge without experience. Although their individual opinions may differ, their fundamental ideas are used to draw conclusions about theories of the world. Each of these men has ideas about how knowledge is used and what it creates for each person. Through each of these theories it is evident that knowledge and reality are difficult to access in such a complicated world. ReferencesLawhead, William F., The Philosophical Journey: An Interactive Approach, Second Edition. McGraw-Hill, 2003.