Very nice comments, John. I fully agree: 'words are birds' - and some of the focus on this list on 'this word' having 'just that meaning' has been, in my view, unfruitful...because it ignores what's going on within that semiosic action.
Edwina ----- Original Message ----- From: John Collier To: Benjamin Udell ; [email protected] Sent: Saturday, February 11, 2017 8:40 PM Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism - Interesting, Ben. How words change in meaning and connotation. Although mist of the negative references are to the medical use, some of them certainly apply to a sort of (Francis) Baconian science. Thanks for posting this. As I said, I was referring to the method, not the word. As my Tai Chi master was fond of saying, “Words are birds”, and he changed the meanings for basic movements just to help us focus on what really mattered. Interesting that some of the definitions have the modern meaning of both evidence and meanings being grounded in the senses, but still have negative connotations. I suppose that the rise of positivism in the late 1800s was somewhat instrumental in (slowly) changing attitudes. Full blown logical empiricism arises only with verificationism, which I think was the biggest error ever made by otherwise sensible philosophers. We are still suffering the consequences. I hasten to add that, although he was sometimes read that way (perhaps, for example, by Rescher and Putnam) Peirce was no verificationist. We see remnants in opposition views to logical positivism that try to reduce things to social phenomena, which I see as making precisely the same error. I am no empiricist in this modern sense, the one I contrasted with rationalism originally in this thread. John Collier Emeritus Professor and Senior Research Associate Philosophy, University of KwaZulu-Natal http://web.ncf.ca/collier From: Benjamin Udell [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Saturday, 11 February 2017 10:35 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism - Even in the days of the Century Dictionary (late 19th to early 20th Century), "empiric" and "empirical" had rather negative connotations. See the definitions of "empiric," "empirical," and related terms that I compiled at a website some years ago: http://peircematters.blogspot.com/#empir So empiricists in the modern sense would not have been fond of calling themselves "empiricists" way back when. Best, Ben On 2/11/2017 2:06 PM, John Collier wrote: The reference is to the method, not the word. There is an historical continuity between the Medieval empiricists like Roger Bacon, and Galen’s followers (he died about 299 AD (who go back to Arabic predecessors, perhaps influenced by Galen – medical usage, of course, but he seemed to extend it in his views of the natural world) and the later ones who came to called The British Empiricists, though not by that name at that time. On source puts the general use of the modern accepted sense at 1796, well after the British Empiricists. Typical definition: empiricist ɛmˈpɪrɪsɪst/ PHILOSOPHY noun 1. a person who supports the theory that all knowledge is based on experience derived from the senses. "most scientists are empiricists by nature" adjective 1. relating to or characteristic of the theory that all knowledge is based on experience derived from the senses. "his radically empiricist view of science as a direct engagement with the world" The term in its present form originated in 1660-70; some say about 1700. If you think that words determine thoughts, than there was no empiricism except in medicine before these dates. Aristotle had some things I common with empiricists, but his requirement for a rationalist/ essentialist middle term undermined that because it required the active nour. The Medieval ones gave that up. But so did many of the stoics, who were therefore empiricists. The term goes back to the Greeks, not that I think that some magic connects terms to ideas: Etymology The English term empirical derives from the Greek word ἐμπειρία, empeiria, which is cognate with and translates to the Latin experientia, from which are derived the word experience and the related experiment. The term was used by the Empiric school of ancient Greek medical practitioners, who rejected the three doctrines of the Dogmatic school, preferring to rely on the observation of "phenomena".[5] NB the restriction to medicine here, similar to the early restriction of semiotics to medicine. Peirce relevance: Peirce is usually included among those who tried to combine elements of empiricism and rationalism, though for my money he doesn’t fit either camp very well In any case, the recent attempts on this list to try to tie empiricism to the use of the word are pretty poor examples of scholarship. John Collier Emeritus Professor and Senior Research Associate Philosophy, University of KwaZulu-Natal http://web.ncf.ca/collier > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] > Sent: Saturday, 11 February 2017 5:58 PM > To: Jerry LR Chandler <[email protected]> > Cc: Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]>; John Collier > <[email protected]>; Peirce-L <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ----------------------------- PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. 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