| HPS 2156 | Empiricism in Science | Spring 2024 |
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Author |
Experience |
Entities |
Methods |
Extent of skepticism |
Enemies |
Theoretical terms |
Category |
| Galen | Clinician’s observation of symptoms |
Clinician’s observation of symptoms |
Practical medicine |
Avoids causes |
Rationalists, reason to causes; Methodists mediate |
Avoided |
Philosophy of medicine |
Bacon |
Clinician’s observation of symptoms |
Clinician’s observation of symptoms |
Ordinary language |
Avoids causes, axioms |
Bacon’s cautious ascent to causes |
Avoided |
Philosophy of medicine, generalized |
| Hobbes | “Much memory, or memory of many things, is called Experience.” |
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Locke |
Sensations and reflections on the mind itself |
Ideas |
Ordinary language |
Decries innate ideas |
Innate ideas |
|
Proto-psychology. |
Hume |
Impressions and ideas |
Impressions and ideas |
Ordinary language |
Denies anything beyond sense impressions |
Innate ideas; necessary, causal connections |
|
Proto-psychology |
Comte |
“facts,” “observed without guidance of some theory” |
phenomena |
Ordinary language |
Denies anthing beyond regularities of experience |
Theological (e.g. gods), metaphysicsal (e.g. forces) |
Avoided |
Philosophy of science |
Mill |
Observable effects |
Effects |
Regularities expressed |
Avoids causes |
Mill’s methods |
Avoided |
Philosophy of science |
Mach |
Sensations |
Sensations (incudes bodies, self) |
Ordinary language |
Anything beyond the actual sensations |
Metaphysics, atoms, space, time, ... |
Avoided |
Proto-psychology and Philosophy of science |
| Russell External World 1915 |
Senses, acquaintance with particular objects of daily life, etc. |
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"Logic as the essence of philosophy" |
Hume's problem: experience alone is not enough |
Intuitions? |
|
Philosophy of science |
| Vienna Circle Manifesto 1929 | "Empirically given" | Statements about the empirically given | Formal logic | Restricted to verifiable statements | Metaphysical and theologising thought, symthetic a priori. | Meaningful only if connected to experience suitably | Philosophy of science |
Carnap |
Sentences formed with observation predicates |
Sentences |
First order predicate logic |
Restricted to testable sentences |
Metaphysics |
Meaningful only if connected to experience suitably |
Philosophy of science |
| Reichenbach Experience and Prediction, 1938 |
Impression sentences | Sentences and probability measures over them | Predicate logic and probability measures over sentences | Restricted to sentences that can be connected probabilistically with experience | Metaphysics | Admissible with probabilistic connections to experience | Philosophy of science |
| Carl Hempel | Observation sentences | Sentences | First order predicate logic | Restricted to testable sentences | Metaphysics, e.g. "vital forces" | Ineliminable in practical science | Philosophy of science |
| Van Fraassen | Observable subset of model of theory. | Sets. | Model theory: "semantic view of theories." | Belief only in observables. | Scientific realism. Language analysis of logical positivists. |
Allowed but not believed as true. | Philosophy of science |
| David Lewis, "Humean mosaic" | Not explicitly empiricist. Adjacent via Hume. | Particular facts | Accepts only what supervenes on particular facts | Claims that do not supervene on particular facts | Philosophy of science |