The Resurrection

[Alan V]

Philosophers keep insisting the world should be logical.  Empiricists describe what they see, whether it seems to make sense or not.  That is a kind of knowledge of the world.

Empiricists describe what they see, and they know that the evidence of the senses is far from reliable. So to get to anything like science or useful engineering, "what they see" must be analyzed and interpreted through logical and theoretical frameworks. 

If you say simply that they describe what they see, and this is knowledge, you're still doing the circular logic bit. Empiricists hold that knowledge BEGINS in the evidence of the senses but if it stopped there it wouldn't be knowledge. 

As a well-known philosopher said, "Nothing in the mind that was not first in the senses." So what you're arguing here, that empiricism is the best way of knowing, is a philosophical argument. You are doing philosophy.

Actually what I was doing was pointing out that empiricism isn't circular since it is grounded in observation.  "I am sitting in my basement" is a fact (right now).  That is a kind of knowledge all by itself, philosophy aside.  So no, I was not doing philosophy when I made my statement of fact.

It is taken for granted that we simultaneously interpret as we observe.  That is how Descartes decided that the pineal gland was the seat of the soul.  He was certainly doing philosophy, but without enough information.  Interpreting is not the basis of empiricism, observation is whether we interpret it or not -- or make sense of it or not as I said above.

Yes, there are all sorts of steps after that, as you pointed out, but I was emphasizing the basis of empiricism in facts. The problem with ambiguous information is dealt with statistically, for instance, with all of the ambiguities included. After all, ambiguities are also facts.

One of the problems is that philosophers always want the facts to be more definite and conclusive than they really are. So of course they think other people are doing the same thing, people like empiricists and materialists. I think they are projecting when they accuse us of overreaching.