(June 15, 2014 at 10:10 pm)Irrational Wrote: Empiricism is an assumption itself, yes. I assume empiricism and go by it as a result. Why do I assume it? Because it's the only way that I find reasonable enough to gain new semantic knowledge.
That's kind of my point.
Regarding why you find the assumption reasonable (I happen to agree), the fact that it *is* an assumption is precisely why I cannot agree with the second point of the OP. It seems likely, perhaps, but that it rests upon an assumption means that I cannot conclude reasonably that it is true. It is *useful*.