Greetings,
Although the roots of empiricism can be traced back at least as far as the Greek, Galen (CE
129-199), who claimed that all medical knowledge was solely a matter of experience, it was Locke who
formulated it as a metaphysical position. He stated (Essay II i 2) that, "all the materials of
perception, (come from,) external, sensible objects or the internal operations of the mind." From
that point until the more extreme forms of logical positivism manifested themselves in the 1930's,
most empiricism was quite happy to include all manner of data outside of the biological senses. This
remains the predominant position today.
This being the case, the specific accusation that mainstream empiricists (John?) admit only to
verifiability by the biological senses, is quite wrong and Platt's critique is misplaced.
Struan
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Struan Hellier
< mailto:struan@clara.co.uk>
"All our best activities involve desires which are disciplined and
purified in the process."
(Iris Murdoch)
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