Talk:Empiricism/Archive 1

message: Do these two count as being offshoots, or even siblings? Because they are both concerned with human experiance and often ignore anything beyond a person's imminant concerns (existentialism deals with relationships, pragmatism deals with order, and Empiracism seems to be the main premise for both). Can they count as being related? -- 69.248.43.27 04:07, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Every wide scope position in philosophy is related to every other wide scope position in philosophy merely by the fact that they are wide scope.  Thus, pragmatism, existentialism, rationalism, empiricism, phenomenology, and so forth are related.  Each is trying to solve the big problem in philosophy:  How are we to begin doing philosophy?  Beyond that, there is no special connection between the three you mention. KSchutte 20:12, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I should speak more carefully.  There is, of course, a recognized connection between empiricism and pragmatism.  Peirce, after all, is considered a concept empiricist.  What I was trying to say above was just that these things aren't (and shouldn't be taken as being) the same. KSchutte 20:25, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pragmatism and Existentialism 

message: I removed the sentence 
:This terminology is particularly important in theoretical chemistry.
Since I can't work out what it is intended to convey (although I am no expert).  It seems to me it is important in any theoretical field.  Thoughts? --Hansnesse 02:55, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chemistry 

message: The establishment of the Royal Society marked an upsurge and organisation in empiricism, the substitution of experiment and observation for philosophical theoretising.
I may be depending on popular reinterpretation rather than formal history here, so I didn't just write it into the article, but it seems to me that the RS actually brought out empiricism, and it could then be refined into scientific method.  Astronomy for instance had been dominated quite famously by dogma, over empiricism, the RS and other developments around then (that century or two) made sure that when  it was observed to move, theoretical explanations in terms of epicycles could be dispensed with.   Midgley 01:51, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Empiricism and Science - a suggestion 

message: I think it would be useful to note, early on, that empiricism is really a family of (perhaps logically independent) views about epistemology, psychology, and semantics. The epistemological view holds that all (or most, or all synthetic, or all substantive) knowledge is based on experience. The psychological view (a.k.a., concept empiricism) holds that none (or few?) of our concepts are innate. The semantical view (e.g., logical empiricism, a.k.a. verificationism, etc.) holds that meaning is a function of potential experiences.
Locke, e.g., was a concept empiricist, hence his diatribe against innate ideas. Consequently, he was also a semantic empiricist, as were the other British empiricists. Unlike these, though, Locke wasn't really much of an empiricist in the epistemological sense. With the exception of 'sensitive knowledge', all knowledge for Locke was a priori, though, granted, most of it was trivial. His argument for the existence of God, however, and his scattered thoughts about morality as a demonstrative science indicate a strain of epistemological rationalism: here is substantive (non-trivial) a priori knowledge.
The logical empiricists, of course, held the semantical view while prescinding from any Humean-style psychologizing. Their view was explicitly not based on concept empiricism, hence the 'logical' in 'logical positivism'.
Snakefarmer 06:58, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Epistemology, Psychology, Semantics 

message: I have removed the following paragraph and placed it here for further consideration related to the historical develpment of today's empirical methodology within science as a whole.  It's content is true and well source, but so incomplete that it presents a distorted view without further perspective.  Among the many important figures are Hume, Kant, C.S. Peirce, Popper, etc. before one can properly understand what Kuhn was talking about...Kenosis 23:24, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Empiricism was a precursor of logical positivism, also known as logical empiricism. Empirical methods have dominated science until the present day. It laid the groundwork for the scientific method, which is the traditional view of theory and progress in science. However, in the past couple of decades quantum mechanics, constructivism, and Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions have created some challenges to empiricism as the exclusive way in which science works and should work. On the other hand, some argue that theories such as quantum mechanics provide a perfect example of the solidity of empiricism: the ability to discover even counter-intuitive scientific laws, and the ability to rework our theories to accept these laws.23:24, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "Empiricism as a doctrine is opposed to rationalism, the idea that all or a large part of our knowledge comes to us by way of innate ideas and the application of the faculty of reason to these ideas" Amerindianarts 16:27, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Amerindianarts, if you are referring to synthetic a priori knowledge such as mathematical principles, you are absolutely correct — today such principles are continually honed and developed, and work side by side with empirical investigation of the natural world.  Best it should be avoided in the introductory paragraph then.  Pls see my remarks below...Kenosis 18:48, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

text: The distinction between empirical knowledge and a priori knowledge is quite basic and can be found in any of a large number of standard philosophy textbooks.  Nonetheless, if it is to be controversial in this article it whould be avoided in the introductory paragraph of the article, at least until the article is cleaned up and contains reasonable explanations of these various "empirical" slants sampled further down in the article. Since this article requires cleanup anyway, I may as well start in bit by bit with some info and references to several such standard textbooks.  To begin, the historical background, if it is to be included at all, is needed going all the way back to the "debate" between Plato and Aristotle (yes, innate vs empirical knowledge derived from sense perception.  It is a debate that continues even today, except that in the context of accepted scientific investigation, "self evident" (a priori) principles are no longer regarded as acceptable (for at least the past hundred to two hundred years, with the notable exception of what are known as synthetic a priori statements, generally mathematical in nature).  Please be patient with the process, and I will do my best to provide sourcing, at least on this page, and where needed in the article itself as well...Kenosis 18:48, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I think you are referring to the debate in the 17th and 18th Century between the [primarily] Continental "rationalists" and the [primarily] British "empiricists".  It's an extremely interesting and important debate.  But that's where the confusion comes from about "empiricism" vs. "rationalism" or "reason", and much of it is no longer current.  Perhaps the editors should hold off on something like that in the intro, at minimum until the rest of the article makes more sense....Kenosis 19:09, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I will start in, then, bit by bit, farther down in the article — perhaps later today.  The intro is currently adequate, in my estimation, to hold steady for awhile.  Look forward to further discussion about it here, and hopefully at some point soon the article will begin to make some more "sense" ;-) Kenosis 19:22, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Discussion of lead section 

message: :::I think we are going in different directions here, monsieur. You have completely ignored phenomanlism (surely the major form of emoricism in the last two hundred years), logical empircism and so on. You have added Kant. I don't think Kant is relevenat to a hitsiry of empircism AT ALL. William Jame's notion of radical empiricism is perhaps marginally relevant. The criticism section should obviouly begin with TWO DOGMAS and not Khun which is nuch later. What say??--Lacatosias 17:29, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Please discuss major changes on this page prior to implementing.  The just added lengthy section is excessive and unsourced, and was not discussed here...Kenosis 17:46, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ummm...since when has this been a requirement on Wikipedia? I thought the idea was be BOLD and edit. Have you dicussed all of your changes prior to making them? The sources are not a problem. The length is tiny compared to the a single paragpraph of an average SEP entry. --Lacatosias 17:59, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Discussing major changes or being BOLD

message: Rmvd and put here for discussion...Kenosis 17:44, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: ==Comtemporary empiricm==
Contemporary empiricism thus begins with the rejection of the assummption that what we directly experience  are always are own sensations. Physical things actually constite the objects of perception17:44, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

text: This is obviously not done.  The point is that there will need to be a section which explains the rejection of sense-data and phenomenalism by most empiricists after the end of phenonenalism and logical empiricism. So-called "Constructive empiricism" is not even close to synonymous to contemporary empiricism. The article as it stands would leave this impression, however.--Lacatosias 17:52, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: ===Immanuel Kant===
In the early 19th Century, Immanuel Kant formulated a response to Hume's almost incredible skepticism and well framed arguments against the logical validity of inductive reasoning, which had already been taken granted as one of the bases of scientific method.  Hume's arguments stymied the discussion for a time and caused the debate among intellectuals to focus mainly on whether inductive reasoning was sufficiently valid for scientific method.  Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, sometimes translated as Critique of Speculative Reason, is a watershed piece in philosophy, in which Kant posited what is called the transcendental aesthetic as a schema to describe how empirical observation and reason fit together.  Kant coined the term sythetic a priori as a basis for legitimacy of mathematical propositions.  It would, however, take most of the 19th Century before Kant's concepts were more fully integrated into the ongoing discussion about empiricism in leading edge philosophy.17:44, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Empiricism is a difficult topic. It is not accidental that the article still is very much in limbo at this stage of Wikipedia's development in 2006. With appropriate discussion I believe it can be done, and done effectively in the end....Kenosis 17:59, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

text: The same was true of philosophy of mind until I brought it single-handedly to FA status: see philosophy of mind FA. The same true of just about every other philosophy article I have laid m hands on. Period. But I see you are new here and think that you might change the rules around a bit to suit your purposes. --Lacatosias 18:07, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Congratulations, then we will work at it until it's satisfactory, well organized and useful...Kenosis 18:16, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I am in the process of putting together a paragraph on Peirce, who actually is more important than James leading up to today's scientific usage.  I will put it here first so it can be gone over as desired.  The philosophic discussion, I should add, is thoroughly historic, and basically stops after Kant, Hegel,  Peirce and James-- this too can be sourced with due effort and discussion. For this reason caution is due in transitioning to phenomenalism in the article--you can see the verious inevitable POV's coming a mile away already. (The philosophic debate takes a fork in the road in the 19th with DeSaussure and those who follow in that direction through Derrida, and Husserl's phenomenology and its descendants are involved there too, but that is irrelevant to this article)...Kenosis 18:16, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Oh, I profundly disagree with this approach. Empriricms is not merely an historical phenomenon on philosophy no more than it is in science. You need not be conconcerend about POV dipsutes just becasue some of the concpet are still very much alive and discussed today. I have written an article on functionalism (philosophy of mind) in which  I charaterize abput six  or seven different version of functionalism.  Empiricims is much more than just "Britich Empiricism", as you would seem to suggest of you were to eliminate discussion of "logical empricims", "phenomenalism", "constructive emnpricms, etc.. from the article. Phenomenology and the continental stuff simply has nothing to do empiricism. Philosophy in ganeral takes a fork in the road at the end of the 19t century, but empiricims has a clear and undeniable lineage startin from Lock through Hume then toward Millian phenomenalism and Machian empiriocsiticms right into logical empiricim and then the turn away from sense-data into the contemporay empiricism and its sub-specied (construcive empiricism, etc.)... This is completely non-controversial.  Secondly, Empiricism is primarily a philoshical doctrine. The scientific use of empirical methods are subordinate to this. You are writing this article as if werean essay  dealing with the origin of empirical methids in science, as far as I can tell.--Lacatosias 10:34, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Kant and contemporary empiricism

message: Rmvd and placed here for discussion, sourcing and consensus:
::Recent empiricists have not agreed with Hume's conclusion that belief in an external world is rationally unjustifiable. Until about the 1950's, most of Hume's followers thought that his own principles implicitly contained the rational justification for such a belief: this argument for belief in the external world is known as phenomenalism. According to this extreme empiricist theory, anticipated by both Hume and George Berkeley, a physical object is a kind of construction out of our experiences. Macbeth knew that the dagger he saw was hallucinatory and not real not because he knew that there was no external cause  for his visual experience, but because he knew that if he reached for the dagger he would see and feel his hand breeze right through the space where the dagger seemed to be. So, according to the phenomenalist, to have a visual experience of a real physical thing is to have an experience which belongs to a certain kind of group of experiences.  This type of set of experiences possesses a constancy and coherence that is lacking in the set of experiences of which hallucinations are a part. As J.S. Mill put it, matter is a "permanent possibility of sensation". 
::One's instinctive belief that there is an external world of other selves is explained and justified in a similar manner.  The phenomenalist beleieves that Hume's principles show that each one of us is nothing more than a bundle of experiences having a certain constancy and coherence. This gives rise to the illusion of a simple abiding thing which is over and above the experiences and has them.
::It is important to note that the phenomenalist does not only claim that all we can possible know about daggers, other beings, and ourselves is confined to facts about our experiences: he also affirms that that all we can possibly mean when we speak of these things is confined to our experiences. To say that there is a jacknife in your drawer at home means that were you or someone else to go home and open the drawer, that person would have such and such experiences were he to do such and such things (were he to reach for it, he would have sensations of resistance, weight, smoothness; were he to drop it, he would hear a thump, and so on). 
::By the 20th century, when empiricists had come to take statements or propositions rather than terms or ideas as the basic units of meaning (logical empiricism), the phenomenalist thesis that a physical object is a construction out of sensations was interpreted as the thesis that any statement about a physical object is translatable into a statement about sensations (so-called translational phenomenalism). Thus, to make a categorical statement that there is along the banks of the Tiber a particular drainage pipe is really to make a hypothetical statement about sense data. Such a hypothetical statement woule be something like: if a normal observer under normal conditions were located in such a way as to view the banks of the Tiber, and were he to attentively make such-and-such observations, he would then have such-and-such experiential data. The phenomenalists believed that in these ways they could use Hume's own principles to analyse and justify the belief in an external world.
::The phenomenalist phase of post-Humean empiricism ended by the 1940s, for by that time it had become obvious that statements about physical things could not be translated into statements about actual and possible sense data. If a physical object statement is to be translatable into a sense-data statement, the former must be at least deducible from the latter. But it came to be realized that there is no finite set of statements about actual and possible sense-data from which we can deduce even a single physical-object statement. Remember that the translating or paraprashing statement must be couched in terms of normal observers in normal conditions of observation. There is, however, no finite set of statements that are couched in purely sensory terms and which can express the satisfaction of the condition of the presence of a normal observer. According to phenomenalism, to say that a normal observer is present is to make the hypothetical statement that were a doctor to inspect the observer, the observer woul appear to the doctor to be normal.  But, of course, the doctor himself must be a normal observer. If we are to speficy this doctor's normaility in sensory term, we must make refercne to a second doctor who, when inspecting the sense organs of the first doctor, would himself have to have the sense data a normal observer has when inspecting the sense organs of a subject who is a normal observer. And if we are to specify in sensory terms that the second doctor is a normal observer, we must refer to a third doctor, and so on ad infinutum.17:52, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: On second thought, I'll leave it to you to take care of. This is VOLUNTARY work after all. Good night from the old world. Maybe I'll take a look at it myself when you've finished. --Lacatosias 18:12, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I seriously need to take some time off though. It's been BAAAAAAAAAAAD day.--Lacatosias 18:57, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I understand that the dabate continued for another 50 years or so before it finally burned out among anyone who wanted credibility in philosophic circles.  This material above, if it is to be useful to readers, appears to belong in the article on Phenomenalism and in my estimation needs sourcing and better concision, in addition to much NPOV work.  If it can be summarized in a paragraph or two in the Empricism article, with a link to the Phenomenalism article, perhaps it would make sense.  I had a feeling the old substance v. attribute conundrum (noumena and phenomena here) would be a potentially very deep well to fall into.  Links, I think, are the appropriate solution...Kenosis 00:23, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That is false. Phenomalism was clearly profounly implicit  in the work of Berkeley and Hume.
(1)Enciclopedia Garzantine della filofia, 1993 (2)Challenges to Empiricism ed. Harold Morick. Hacket Publishing Company. 1980. among other sources.
I could go on and on and on about this. Phenomalism is an extrenmely significant part of the history of empiricims. MUCHHH more so, that Piierce, William James,. or Kant. J.S. Mill, the most reknowned empricist of them all, formulate the phenomalist credo: "Physical objects are nothing more than permanent possibility of sensation". Ernst Mach was another sort of phenomalist (empiriocriticism, something else which shuld be address on ANY artilce on empiricism). Mach's phenomalism led to Einsteonìt rejection of the conepts of absolute space and time. Even if, as you say, it was a 50-year movement, you still prove my point that it was hgihgly significant. Logical positivism lasted much less and surely IT cannout be ignored in an article on empiricims. What would you have leftas the timlime of empiricms? British empricism (Lock to Hume), silnece for three hundred years until Constructive Empricism cam along???!!! To put it midly, I think that's wacky!! I will cut back on the length surely (the argument againt phenomalism is not needed fot example and the mention of logical positivism shuld be redundant since their shpuld be a separate section on it). I will reinsert a modified versio  with sources. Incidently, there are NO SOURCES for ANYTING ELSE is the article. What's your problen with phenomalism? Perhaps you don't understand it?   Furhtermore, NPOV??? Give me a break!! What I wrote was plainly and simply a descritpion of phenomenalism and its derivation, the reason it was ultimately rejected (perahos this it the part you think is POV?? I certanly hope so, sicne that it tha part I plan on cutting). If you revert it, we will have an edit war on our hands. Period. There is no justifcation whatsoever for ignoring the important radical empircist movement of phenomenalism in an article ABOUT empircism.--Lacatosias 07:52, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Your more recent proposal to replace the link I left with a much more compact discussion makes better sense to me...Kenosis 14:40, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Lengthy section intro on Phenomenalism placed here for sourcing, discussion and consensus