empiricism

rationalism

Immanuel Kant

description

science

scientific method

modeling

is a holistic enterprise to which we are always indebted. In a sense we are tethered to the conceptual schemes we inherit and from which we theorize.

for Quine, empiricism is a holistic enterprise to which we are always indebted. In a sense we are tethered to the conceptual schemes we inherit and from which we theorize. We cannot magically step outside of them and achieve an aperspectival or transcendental viewpoint... conceptual change, when it occurs, is conservative and incremental'

is a method for getting at things by avoiding the metaphysical questions 'what is power'' 'Where does it come from'' And simply posing the flat, empirical question 'what happens''.

it is to suspect that an extremely complex configuration of realities is allowed to escape when one treads endlessly in the double quesiton: What is power' and Where does power come from' The little question, What happens', although flat and empirical, once scrutinized is seen to avoid accusing a metaphysics or an ontology of power of bieng fraudulent... rather, it attempts a critical investigation into the thematics of power' (Foucault 1982:786)

is, as it were, to have faith in a mere shadow over faith in the entire church... that is, despite the church's teachings, it is clear that the earth is not flat because we can see its shadow on the moon.

The Church says that the Earth is flat, but I know that it is round. For I have seen the shadow of the Earth on the Moon and I have more faith in the shadow than in the Church. attr. Ferdinand Magellan

is concerned with wanting to know what is the most basic kind of evidence which justifies us in claiming to know certain things about the world.

First of all, empiricist are concerned above all with the theory of knowledge, or epistemology: they want to know what is the most basic kind of evidence which justifies us in claiming to know certain things about the world. (Matthews 22: 2006)

is incapable of explaining the basis for consciousness. This is because when we are 'conscious' of a thing, it stands to reason that, in a decidedly non-empirical fashion, we need first to know what we are looking for (otherwise we would not be looking for it). [by the same token, intellectualism fails to see that we need to be ignorant of what we are looking for (or equally again we should not be searching).].

In the first case consciousness is too poor, in the second too rich for any phenomenon to appeal compellingly to it. Empiricism cannot see that we need to know what we are looking for, otherwise we would not be looking for it, and intellectualism fails to see that we need to be ignorant of what we are looking for, or equally again we should not be searching' (PP 28).

is not an effort to rediscover the eternal or the universal, but to find the conditions under which something new is produced.

I have always felt that I am an empiricist . . . [My empiricism] is derived from the two characteristics by which Whitehead defined empiricism: (1) the abstract does not explain, but must itself be explained... and the aim is not to rediscover the eternal or the universal, but (2) to find the conditions under which something new is produced (creativeness). (Deleuze Dialogues vii... cf. N 88... WP 7)

is not that which, in actor-network theory, is to be fought, but that which must be renewed.

The question was never to get away from facts but closer to them, not fighting empiricism but, on the contrary, renewing empiricism. (Latour 2004: 231)

is not the doctrine according to which the intelligible 'comes' from the sensible. But rather a concern for the concrete richness of the sensible, for contingency, difference and incommensurability, and a resistance to universalizing abstractions through emphasis on the particularity of situated, historical practices.

Deleuze's empiricism is not a dogma about the essence of mind, nature or reality, or 'the doctrine according to which the intelligible 'comes' from the sensible.' It is rather a concern for 'the concrete richness of the sensible' (D 54), for contingency, difference and incommensurability, and a resistance to universalizing abstractions thorugh emphasis on the particularity of situated, historical practices (see D 112).

empiricism, n.Memes

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