On The Sound Theory Of British Empiricists

This paper discusses the views of sound in British Empiricism. By reading the empiricist's works, I attempts to lay bare the evolution of their thoughts of sound, and expose difficulties of their theories.The first part briefly introduces several kinds of theory of sound both of history and of contemporary. The next part examines Hobbes' doctrine of sensation and therefore of sound. Hobbes maintains that sound is not the quality of objects, but the idea of human being. It is originated by motion which is partly from object and partly from ourselves. The third part deals with John Locke's views of sound. Locke makes a distinction between the primary quality and secondary quality of the object. He holds that sound is the result of the second quality imposing our ears. He takes the music as the compound of simple sounds by mind. The fourth part explores Berkeley's views of sound. According to him, sound does not come from the external substance, because there is no such thing at all. Sound is just the idea of mind. Music is the collection of sounds in the mind. The last part treats Hume's empiricism and corresponding thoughts of sound. In his view, sound is neither produced by external substance i.e. matter nor produced by internal substance i.e. mind. Where is it from? We cannot know. Furthermore, We cannot know if there is some necessary relation between sounds either. So music is merely the conjoined sounds.