Category: Empiricism
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Is Empiricism Self-Refuting?
Russell says it is; I examine his claim. Substack latest. Addenda (11/19) Tony Flood writes, Brian Kilmeade mentioned Ayaan Hirsi Ali's conversion to Christianity quickly as he introduced her, one of his guests tonight, but I heard it on TV which was on in the background; I thought I had misheard Kilmeade. I've always admired…
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Bertrand Russell: Empiricism is Self-Refuting. Is He Right?
An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth (1940), 1969 Pelican ed., pp. 156-157: I will observe, however, that empiricism, as a theory of knowledge, is self-refuting. For, however it may be formulated, it must involve some general proposition about the dependence of knowledge upon experience; and any such proposition, if true, must have as a consequence…
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Are the Laws of Logic Empirical Generalizations?
London Ed raises the question whether logic is empirical. That puts me in mind of the old idea of John Stuart Mill and others that the laws of logic are empirical generalizations from what we do and do not perceive. Thus we never perceive rain and its absence in the same place at the same time.…
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Ducasse on the Nature and Observability of the Causal Relation
0. Herewith, some interpretative notes on Curt Ducasse, "On the Nature and Observability of the Causal Relation," in Causation, eds. Sosa and Tooley, Oxford 1993, pp. 125-136. 1. Assuming that causality is a relation (not entirely obvious!), the question arises as to what sorts of entity can serve as its relata. Following Schopenhauer, whom…