The Resurrection

[Angrboda]

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 pituitary 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.

Grounded in observation is worth nothing unless empiricism is entirely grounded in observation. Beliefs about what is or isn't knowledge are philosophical by their very nature. You could be sitting in your basement, or you could be hallucinating, or you could be dreaming. Observation by itself isn't knowledge except in the most colloquial sense of the word. It's not even information. True and false perceptions may appear to consciousness to be the same, so the act of perception doesn't become knowledge all by itself. You seem to be of the opinion that there's some bright line between having an opinion about observation and "doing philosophy." There isn't. They are just different forms of the same thing. And the former is typically just an inferior version of the latter.