Jay Hanson wrote:
[snip]
> I am extremely simple-minded: my suggestions derive from my
> world view. I base my world view on as MUCH EMPIRICISM and
> as LITTLE METAPHYSICS [1] as possible.
[snip]
I agree with you that metaphysics is to be avoided, if, by
"metaphysics", we understand theories about things that,
on principle, cannot be objects of experience (e.g., theories
about some "objective universe" which might somehow "exist"
apart from the act of observation, i.e., apart from the
social praxis of living persons or other sapient beings).
IMO the questions is: What, what *really* is !empiricism!?
is it:
(a) generalizing observations about objects of
experience while not attending to the act of
experiencing, an not considering that
labelling anything as anything depends on
idealizations (etc.)?
(b) reflecting on the entire process of the act of
observation, in which entities observed have
*a* place?
(c) [of course:] other. If yes, what?
Hume pretty much beat #a to death, and Kant started the ball
rolling on #b. C.S. Pierce pointed out that significant
scientific theories are eidetic acts ("abduction") and
not synoptic impoverishments of collections of disconnected
"data" -- induction). Kuhn and Hanson and Michael Polanyi
and others pointed out the unavoidable
theory-ladenness of "observation and "facts", in terms
even a non-Kantian trained scientist could understand.
True empiricism, I would argue, is transcendental phenomenology
and hermeneutics (Husserl and Gadamer), because what is really
experienced is experience and not "objects of experience somehow
in-themselves apart from their being for-us".
There should be nothing novel in this position, "of course".
\brad mccormick
--
Mankind is not the master of all the stuff that exists, but
Everyman (woman, child) is a judge of the world.
Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
(914)238-0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA
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