Lexicon of Arguments

 

Höffe I 244
Empiricism/Locke/Höffe: [Locke's empiricism has, initially] two dimensions.
1) According to the "empiricism of principles and ideas" even these come from experience (Book 1-111) ⁽¹⁾.
2) According to the "Empiricism of Statements", all statements about facts are to be checked against experience (Book IV).
3) "Empiricism of language": according to him, words that neither directly nor indirectly refer to experience, nor - like "and", "also", "or" - serve these words, are considered meaningless.
According to the first dimension, experience is not preceded by elements free of experience, neither finished ideas (basic elements of knowledge) nor finished theoretical or practical principles. Even an imperative as basic in moral and legal terms as the fundamental imperative, the prohibition of harm ("no one harms the other!"), is not considered innate. >Innate/Locke.

1. Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690).

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Euchner I 169
Locke / Euchner: today: his empiricism overcame the old worldview of divinely revealed knowledge - thesis: "there is nothing in the mind, which was not previously in the senses".
LeibnizVsLocke: "apart from the mind itself".
KreimendahlVsLocke: by limiting knowledge to the ideas he questioned his own empirical program.

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Arndt II 177
Locke/Arndt:Locke is the ancestor of empiricism - knowledge should be treated language dependent.