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DB 5: What is Experience?
DB 5: What is Experience?
Part 1: Locke argues for an “Empiricist Principle” in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding that one must have a sensation of a quality before we can have a thought about that quality. Do you agree that we can only have thoughts about things once we have had experiences of those things (and not before)? Provide either an example or a counter example that supports your conclusion.
Part II: As a thought experiment that may directly address this abstract question, let us consider the “Molyneux Problem”:
- Suppose a man is born blind and taught by his touch to distinguish a cube from a sphere.
- Now suppose that the cube and sphere are placed on a table and through a new laser surgery technique, the blind man is made to see.
- Could this man by his sight alone (and without touching any other object momentarily) distinguish which object is the cube and which is the sphere? Why or why not?