Assess Empiricism

[Tostig]

A shortish essay question I've got to do for next week. I'll post a copy of mine (probably for it rather than against since so far all my essays have been rather negative.) Until then what's your opinion on it and why?

[Darth Wong]

A shortish essay question I've got to do for next week. I'll post a copy of mine (probably for it rather than against since so far all my essays have been rather negative.) Until then what's your opinion on it and why?

By its nature, it leads to science, and produces tangible results in the form of technology. It is also more objective by nature, since empiricism requires that every conclusion follow from a premise that is based on observation rather than revelation.

Seriously, imagine what society would be like today if science had not progressed beyond its medieval level, and then ask how science could have possibly progressed beyond its medieval level without the empirical method that it uses. How would you reliably decide between two competing theories of kinematics without testing their respective predictions against observation rather than analyzing them in pure thought-space?

[Tostig]

Assess Empiricism

In this essay I will outline the integrity of Empiricism along with it’s worth when compared to its great opponent rationalism. I will argue that it’s far greater given that it’s a basis for science (since I’m sure that everyone but Rousseau would rather be living in a modern society than be being burnt alive in the middle ages.) however it is fundamentally flawed.

In essence Empiricism says that we can be certain of our experiences, even if we’re not certain of what we’ve experienced or how we use the sense-data. The three main thinkers behind Empiricism were Lock in the latter half of the 17th century who argued that our sense experience was incorrigible (unchangeable), Bishop Berkeley in the first half of the 18th century who argued that all that there might be is ideas in our minds – a theory called Idealism, however it is arguable that he became scared with the repercussions of Empiricism on his faith, and Hume throughout the Age of Reason who wished to use Empiricism as a tool to validate concepts and who first realised the is-ought gap. Like Voltaire, Hume quarrelled with Rousseau and his concept of the noble savage, quite rightly in my opinion given the flawed logic in his criticism of “the right of the strongest” as well as his unjustified opinion on the role liberty has to play on a person’s humanity. , Empiricism was in effect a philosophical counter-revolution to the unverifiable guesswork and religious reliance of Rationalism and Dualism.

When understanding Empiricism it’s important to understand the criticisms they had of Rationalism and how they affected Empiricism. Locke’s main criticism of Rationalism is that it relies on innate ideas while the mind is a “blank slate” and that there are no innate ideas – a proposal that would be followed up with the is-ought gap by Hume. Hume was even more sceptical of our ideas of reality. First he argued against Leibniz and Spinoza (whose work was being re-discovered at the time) by saying that rationalism told us only about concepts rather than the real world. At one time he even argued that it was possible that cause didn’t result in effect, however in my opinion this was taking things a step too far as if he wanted to attack causation he should have spent his efforts on Descartes’ “Causal Adequacy Principle” from the 3rd meditation.

That said Empiricism has nearly as many flaws as Rationalism, although the quality of the criticisms varies immensely. The attack on the incorrigibility of our sense data is at first glance pretty convincing, however it is not the sense data that is false but rather how it is interpreted. In the staircase example although we picture it either as a staircase from below or from above our sense data is in fact showing us a series of geometric shapes, not a staircase at all. It is the interpretation rather than the sense data which is corrigible.

There has been a criticism that Empiricism, taken to its logical conclusion, leads us to solipsism. However exactly the same can be said about rationalism – taken logically (by which I mean without involving CDPs, God or any other unjustified concepts) the only real conclusion is that of the cogito – that something is thinking. Rather than being a criticism it is in fact an observation, as Berkeley willingly accepts. This is practically the same as the argument that there is still room for scepticism about the future and the past. Despite being “unintuitive” it is correct, we don’t know that the future will be like the past, and I do not know the past – I might have forgotten something or been taught a lie.

Rationalists have always needed innate ideas, Descartes needed God, Plato needed forms, Moore needed Morals and Chomsky needed Language. The evidence for these has been levelled against Locke’s “blank state”, however all of these are drivel. If they were truly innate then every human (by which I mean member of the species, not a person with human value or who acts rationally except when faith is demanded, no matter what red-cardigan-wearing theologians might say.) must believe in a monotheistic deity who is benevolent, omniscient and omnipotent (but who still allows evil, but I digress.), must be able to do maths (despite tribes of aborigines who don’t have numbers above two), must have the same morals (despite scalping red Indians or National Socialists) and must have language (despite everyone who doesn’t, not to mention the large amounts of research done which disprove Chomsky’s speculation.) There is in no a priori knowledge. Maths and logic are analytically self verifying however they don’t tell us anything new, and are instead as inane and trivial as the fact that all bachelors are men. Babbage’s difference engine, despite only being cogs and gears, was able to differentiate far faster then I can, does this mean that it had an a priori idea of maths?

In conclusion Empiricism is flawed as a form of foundationalism, but only because of the problems of foundationalism. Instead Hume’s argument of mitigated scepticism is far more feasible, as well as laying with way for science. Without Empiricism the world in which we live simply wouldn’t exist as there’d be no way to judge between different scientific theories. This is far better than Moore’s appeal to common sense which simply asks for us to have the wool pulled back over our eyes, or Wittgenstein’s appeal for ordinary language, which ignores that one word can have more than one meaning (eg. Power can be both knowledge and Joules-per-second.)



Ignore the dig at red-cardigan-wearing theologians, it's a guy from a lecture our class went to yesterday who got on my nerves. 990 odd words, not bad for a timed exam style answer.