Krimel, The paper you use as justification for your assertions "some problems of philosophy" is a paper focused of that body of rationalism "Philosophy" itself.
"It is possible therefore, to join the rationalists in allowing conceptual knowledge to be self-suffic ing, while at the same time one joins the em piricists in maintaining that the full value of such knowledge is got only by combining it with perceptual reality again. This mediating attitude is that which this book must adopt." He then focuses his attention on sensory empiricism leveling similar criticisms of only looking at one side of the coin. "Percepts and concepts interpenetrate and melt together, impregnate and fertilize each other. Neither, taken alone, knows reality in its completeness. We need them both, as we need both our legs to walk with." The conclusion is that our worldview does not need "extraneous trans-empirical connective support, but possesses in its own right a concatenated or continuous structure." James is in fact refining empiricism to exclude "trans-empirical connective support" which is a kind of rationalism, the charge against positivism as well. Pragmatic Value and meaning therefore has a "truer" grip on the interpretation of experience. I think the evidence points to James focus on the primacy of percept in "some problems of philosophy" is contextualy aimed at the tendancy for the discipline of Philosophy to ignore and discount percepts. Now if he would have emphasised this in "Pragmatism" , "essays on radical empiricism", "the meaning of truth" and/or "principles of psychology" you may have had a valid point which would have shook the foundations of the school of continental philosophy. ________________________________ From: X Acto <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, July 1, 2009 8:12:47 AM Subject: Re: [MD] Reductionism Krimel, Therefore James is not expanding sensory empiricism, he is to a point, but he is by limiting it to expereince, percept is actually a concept and it's primacy is actually conceptual, it stands symbolically for raw sensory data, but we never experience raw sensory data, it is an assumption drawn from experience. The reason he focuses on value and meaning in his work on "Pragmatism". -Ron ________________________________ From: X Acto <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, July 1, 2009 8:00:23 AM Subject: Re: [MD] Reductionism Ron: I think what he points to is the idea that sensory empiricism IS in fact a kind of rationalism, this is the rationalism he builds his arguement against in his essays on radical empiricism. So you are correct, he does rail against rationalism, but its the rationalism of sensory empiricism. Ironicly, Dave is actually charging YOU with being a rationalist by calling you a reductionist. ________________________________ From: X Acto <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, July 1, 2009 7:39:19 AM Subject: Re: [MD] Reductionism [Krimel] I get it. I was having trouble figuring out what you were getting at with your last post. No, I have not been saying that James is the same as Hume and Locke. He is adding the experience of conjunction and disjunction to overcome the limits of simple sensory empiricism. In terms of radical empiricism his aim to still to overcome rationalism. It certainly is not his aim to do some kind of reverse zwabydah and turn empiricism into rationalism. Dave would paint James as a rationalist in empirical clothing. But I am saying that he is just adding to the British empiricists not throwing them out. Ron: Ok, I'm still not sure I understand, either James, like the sensory empiricists, asserts that percepts are primary or he's not. If he is, then most of what he wrote is a refinement of sensory empiricism and can not or would not suit the term he chose, that of a "Radical" empiricism and would not correspond with the body of his arguements leveled at sensory empiricism. ________________________________ From: Krimel <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, June 30, 2009 3:06:01 PM Subject: Re: [MD] Reductionism I think you would find at least the two chapters on concepts and percepts in Some Problems of Philosophy very helpful. http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=1051665 Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/ Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/ Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/ Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/ Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
