Empiricism
Empiricism, in philosophy, the view that all concepts originate in experience, that all concepts are about or applicable to things that can be experienced, or that all rationally acceptable beliefs or propositions are justifiable or knowable only through experience. This broad definition accords with the derivation of the term empiricism from the ancient Greek word empeiria, “experience.”
Concepts are said to be “a posteriori” (Latin: “from the latter”) if they can be applied only on the basis of experience, and they are called “a priori” (“from the former”) if they can be applied independently of experience. Beliefs or propositions are said to be a posteriori if they are knowable only on the basis of experience and a priori if they are knowable independently of experience (see a posteriori knowledge). Thus, according to the second and third definitions of empiricism above, empiricism is the view that all concepts, or all rationally acceptable beliefs or propositions, are a posteriori rather than a priori.
The first two definitions of empiricism typically involve an implicit theory of meaning, according to which words are meaningful only insofar as they convey concepts. Some empiricists have held that all concepts are either mental “copies” of items that are directly experienced or complex combinations of concepts that are themselves copies of items that are directly experienced. This view is closely linked to the notion that the conditions of application of a concept must always be specified in experiential terms.
The third definition of empiricism is a theory of knowledge, or theory of justification. It views beliefs, or at least some vital classes of belief—e.g., the belief that this object is red—as depending ultimately and necessarily on experience for their justification. An equivalent way of stating this thesis is to say that all human knowledge is derived from experience.
Empiricism regarding concepts and empiricism regarding knowledge do not strictly imply each other. Many empiricists have admitted that there are a priori propositions but have denied that there are a priori concepts. It is rare, however, to find a philosopher who accepts a priori concepts but denies a priori propositions.
Stressing experience, empiricism often opposes the claims of authority, intuition, imaginative conjecture, and abstract, theoretical, or systematic reasoning as sources of reliable belief. Its most fundamental antithesis is with the latter—i.e., with rationalism, also called intellectualism or apriorism. A rationalist theory of concepts asserts that some concepts are a priori and that these concepts are innate, or part of the original structure or constitution of the mind. A rationalist theory of knowledge, on the other hand, holds that some rationally acceptable propositions—perhaps including “every thing must have a sufficient reason for its existence” (the principle of sufficient reason)—are a priori. A priori propositions, according to rationalists, can arise from intellectualintuition, from the direct apprehension of self-evident truths, or from purely deductive reasoning.
Various Meanings Of Empiricism
Broader senses
In both everyday attitudes and philosophical theories, the experiences referred to by empiricists are principally those arising from the stimulation of the sense organs—i.e., from visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, and gustatory sensation. (In addition to these five kinds of sensation, some empiricists also recognize kinesthetic sensation, or the sensation of movement.) Most philosophical empiricists, however, have maintained that sensation is not the only provider of experience, admitting as empirical the awareness of mental states in introspection or reflection (such as the awareness that one is in pain or that one is frightened); such mental states are then often described metaphorically as being present to an “inner sense.” It is a controversial question whether still further types of experience, such as moral, aesthetic, or religious experience, ought to be acknowledged as empirical. A crucial consideration is that, as the scope of “experience” is broadened, it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish a domain of genuinely a priori propositions. If, for example, one were to take the mathematician’s intuition of relationships between numbers as a kind of experience, one would be hard-pressed to identify any kind of knowledge that is not ultimately empirical.
Even when empiricists agree on what should count as experience, however, they may still disagree fundamentally about how experience itself should be understood. Some empiricists, for example, conceive of sensation in such a way that what one is aware of in sensation is always a mind-dependent entity (sometimes referred to as a “sense datum”). Others embrace some version of “direct realism,” according to which one can directly perceive or be aware of physical objects or physical properties (see epistemology: realism). Thus there may be radical theoretical differences even among empiricists who are committed to the notion that all concepts are constructed out of elements given in sensation.
Two other viewpoints related to but not the same as empiricism are the pragmatism of the American philosopher and psychologist William James, an aspect of which was what he called radical empiricism, and logical positivism, sometimes also called logical empiricism. Although these philosophies are empirical in some sense, each has a distinctive focus that warrants its treatment as a separate movement. Pragmatismstresses the involvement of ideas in practical experience and action, whereas logical positivism is more concerned with the justification of scientific knowledge.
When describing an everyday attitude, the word empiricism sometimes conveys an unfavourable implication of ignorance of or indifference to relevant theory. Thus, to call a doctor an “Empiric” has been to call him a quack—a usage traceable to a sect of medical men who were opposed to the elaborate medical—and in some views metaphysical—theories inherited from the Greek physician Galen of Pergamum (129–c. 216 CE). The medical empiricists opposed to Galen preferred to rely on treatments of observed clinical effectiveness, without inquiring into the mechanisms sought by therapeutic theory. But empiricism, detached from this medical association, may also be used, more favourably, to describe a hard-headed refusal to be swayed by anything but the facts that the thinker has observed for himself, a blunt resistance to received opinion or precarious chains of abstract reasoning.
Stricter senses
As a more strictly defined movement, empiricism reflects certain fundamental distinctions and occurs in varying degrees.
Fundamental distinctions
A distinction that has the potential to create confusion is the one that contrasts the a posteriori not with the a priori but with the innate. Since logical problems are easily confused with psychological problems, it is difficult to disentangle the question of the causal origin of concepts and beliefs from the question of their content and justification.
A concept, such as “five,” is said to be innate if a person’s possession of it is causally independent of his experience—e.g., his perception of various groupings of five objects. Similarly, a belief is innate if its acceptance is causally independent of the believer’s experience. It is therefore possible for beliefs to be innate without being a priori: for example, the baby’s belief that its mother’s breast will nourish it is arguably causally independent of his experience, though experience would be necessary to justify it.
Another supposedly identical, but in fact more or less irrelevant, property of concepts and beliefs is that of the universality of their possession or acceptance—that a priori or innate concepts and beliefs must be held by everyone. There may be, in fact, some basis for inferring universality from innateness, since many innate characteristics, such as the fear of loud noises, appear to be common to the whole human species. But there is no inconsistency in the supposition that a concept or belief is innate in one person and learned from experience in another.
Two main kinds of concept have been held to be a priori. First, there are certain formal concepts of logic and of mathematics that reflect the basic structure of discourse: “not,” “and,” “or,” “if,” “all,” “some,” “existence,” “unity,” “number,” “successor,” and “infinity.” Secondly, there are the “categorial” concepts—such as “substance,” “cause,” “mind,” and “God”—which, according to some philosophers, are imposed by the mind upon the raw data of sensation in order to make experiences possible. One might add to these the more specific theoretical concepts of physics, which are sometimes said to apply to entities that are unobservable in principle.
In the long history of debate over the a priori, it was long taken for granted that all a priori propositions are necessarily true—i.e., true by virtue of the meanings of their terms (“analytic”) or true by virtue of the fact that their negations imply a contradiction. Propositions such as “all triangles have three sides,” “all bachelors are unmarried,” and “all red things are coloured” are necessarily true in one or both of these senses. Likewise, it was held that propositions that are contingently true, or true merely by virtue of the way the world happens to be, are a posteriori. “John is a bachelor” and “John’s house is red” are propositions of this type.
In the 1970s, however, the American philosopher Saul Kripke argued to the contrary that some a priori propositions are contingent and some a posteriori propositions are necessary. According to Kripke, the referential properties of “natural kind” terms like heat can be understood by imagining that their referents were fixed, upon their introduction into the language, by means of certain definite descriptions, such as “the cause of sensations of warmth.” In other words, heat was introduced as a name for whatever phenomenon happened to satisfy the description “the cause of sensations of warmth.” Of course, the phenomenon in question is now known to be molecular motion. Thus heat refers to molecular motion, then and now, because molecular motion was the cause of sensations of warmth when the term was introduced. Given this introduction, however, the proposition “heat causes sensations of warmth” must be a priori. Because its introduction stipulated that heat is the phenomenon that causes sensations of warmth, it is knowable independently of experience that heat causes sensations of warmth, even though it is only a contingent matter of fact that it does. On the other hand, the proposition “heat is molecular motion” is a posteriori, because this fact about heat was discovered (and could only be discovered) through empirical scientific investigation. But the proposition is also necessary, according to Kripke, because once the referent of heat has been fixed as molecular motion, there are no imaginable circumstances in which the term could refer to anything else. This conclusion is supported by the intuition that, if it were discovered tomorrow that sensations of warmth in humans are actually caused by something other than molecular motion, one would not say that heat is not molecular motion but rather that sensations of warmth are caused by something other than heat. Kripke proposed a similar analysis of the referential properties of proper names like “Aristotle,” according to which a proposition like “Aristotle was the teacher of Alexander the Great” is contingent but a priori.
Degrees of empiricism
Empiricism, whether concerned with concepts or knowledge, can be held with varying degrees of strength. On this basis, absolute, substantive, and partial empiricisms can be distinguished.
Absolute empiricism
Absolute empiricists hold that there are no a priori concepts, either formal or categorial, and no a priori beliefs or propositions. Absolute empiricism about the former is more common than that about the latter, however. Although nearly all Western philosophers admit that obvious tautologies (e.g., “all red things are red”) and definitional truisms (e.g., “all triangles have three sides”) are a priori, many of them would add that these represent a degenerate case.
Substantive empiricism
A more moderate form of empiricism is that of the substantive empiricists, who are unconvinced by attempts that have been made to interpret formal concepts empirically and who therefore concede that formal concepts are a priori, though they deny that status to categorial concepts and to the theoretical concepts of physics, which they hold are a posteriori. According to this view, allegedly a priori categorial and theoretical concepts are either defective, reducible to empirical concepts, or merely useful “fictions” for the prediction and organization of experience.
The parallel point of view about knowledge assumes that the truth of logical and mathematical propositions is determined, as is that of definitional truisms, by the relationships between meanings that are established prior to experience. The truth often espoused by ethicists, for example, that one is truly obliged to rescue a person from drowning only if it is possible to do so, is a matter of meanings and not of facts about the world. On this view, all propositions that, in contrast to the foregoing example, are in any way substantially informative about the world are a posteriori. Even if there are a priori propositions, they are formal or verbal or conceptual in nature, and their necessary truth derives simply from the meanings that attached to the words they contain. A priori knowledge is useful because it makes explicit the hidden implications of substantive, factual assertions. But a priori propositions do not themselves express genuinely new knowledge about the world; they are factually empty. Thus “All bachelors are unmarried” merely gives explicit recognition to the commitment to describe as unmarried anyone who has been described as a bachelor.
To continue reading click on the following link:
About Abderrahmane Al jazairi
No comments