John, Struan, Platt and All:
Struan sent a short post on Friday that I can't ignore. He was
responding to Platt's criticism of John's assumptions about empiricism.
Is that too complicated? It doesn't really matter, I'm just putting the
issue in context. The point I can't ignore has to do with Struan's
opinions on Empiricism. I'm almost afraid to disagree because he tells
us he's a Philosophy professor, but I think he's about 100% wrong about
the basic meaning of the word.
STRUAN SAYS "..the specific accusation that mainstream empiricists admit
verifiability by the biological senses, is quite wrong and Platt's
critique is misplaced"
AND QUOTES LOCKE "all the materials of perception (come from) external,
sensible objects or the internal operations of the mind."
I'd say Locke's statement is an epistemological claim, not a
metaphysical formulation, as Struan says. But the main objection is with
Struan's assertion that mainstream Empiricism is based on something
other than the senses. I checked several dictionaries and and dozens of
encyclopedia entrys to see if I'd lost my mind. Every one of them
affirmed my sanity and Struan's error. Sensory experience is precisely
the foundation of any philosophy that can rightly be called Empiricism.
That's exactly what the word means. (William James' radical empiricism
seems to defy this rule, but his is really more a kind of Pragmatism.)
I should add that the classical Empiricists certainly allowed for the
fact that sense experience is molded and processed by the mind, but for
them sense experience is still the primary foundation of all knowledge
and thought. You know, they're the "tabula rasa" set. And I'm sure
you're aware of Pirsig's objection to classical Empiricism and it's
implications for the larger SOM.
I think Platt's criticism was important and relevant. Just as Avid said,
John's Oganismic MOQ arues with Hume, not Pirsig. Each of us has tried
to show that biological sense data is NOT what Pirsig means by "the
primary empirical reality". I think John's ideas do contain classical
Empirical assumptions, which the MOQ seeks to replace.
Struan's re-definition of such a basic concept as Empiricism is SOOOO
unhelpful that I had to say something. This isn't a personal attack,
just a major disagreement. I fully expect Struan to react badly and
respond with bile. But please, please, please don't take my word for it.
Look it up on your own. Check any source you like. My disagreement isn't
really even based on my opinions, I'm just telling you what all the
books say about Empiricism.
QUESTION FOR STRUAN: You say that "most empiricism was quite happy to
include all manner of data outside of the biological senses". Could you
provide an example of non-sensory data? You're not talking about extra
sensory perception, are you? Are you refering to purely logical thought,
such as mathematics? What data comes to us outside of the biological
senses? See what I'm getting at? DMB
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