The Empirical Method Killed Its Parents

Anthony June 08, 2018 at 14:56 2075 views 2 comments

If it is so that humans are more inward directed than other earthlings, is it not a great wonder how empiricism came to be such a dominant and preferred ontology? Shouldn't an animal incapable of metacognition have developed such a radically outward directed, empirical science? Or since it is obvious science couldn't have developed without reflection and internally directed attention, how was the the vehicle so disrespected once the destination reached? How could not have it been realized science (empirical, mechanistic method) wouldn't exist without an anterior ontological domain that wasn't material, corporeal, or observable? In other words, the scientific method was born from something unobservable and incorporeal (the imaginative, insightful, questioning mind), but now claims there must be observable, material, measurable evidence for something to exist.

Wouldn't we have never evolved at all adhering to what the empirical method deems a requisite to its ontological posture? Were I to organize my own mind according to materialism, it would instantly disappear (since it can't be observed or measured to pass peer review) and I'd be at the level of a lower life form (or dead). And what in the hell is going to advance from this state? Serious contradictions here. Materialists need to think about this, as it doesn't even begin to stand up to reason. It appears that with the rise of positivist fundamentalism comes the death of metacognition (the core of what makes us privileged thinking animals capable of highly ordered disciplines)...baffling. Logical positivist scientists can't have it both ways, idealism and materialism, for such is to make a mistake in logical typing and to lose at their own game before it began; it was their choice to be such extremists of materialism. Even though we now know about the observer effect and how it is impossible to leave the observer/thinker out of the experiment, it appears as though, whether it's due to a dominance of applied science or what, I can't be sure, there continues to be revolting errors in reason made by the popular, algorithm driven standardized techniques of the day. If algorithms, machine learning, computer simulations, etc., can play scientist, maybe we can finally leave out the observer, right? The human programming will always be implied, and that there was once a subjective being that put the ball in motion.

Comments (2)

Rank Amateur June 08, 2018 at 15:28 #186470 0 likes

Interested to see how this progresses. Ask a similar question awhile back - Can you use the scientific method to prove the scientific method ? You did a much better job of framing it here.

Wayfarer June 08, 2018 at 22:13 #186503 0 likes

Quoting Anthony

If it is so that humans are more inward directed than other earthlings, is it not a great wonder how empiricism came to be such a dominant and preferred ontology?

I quite agree with your analysis. I've been reading a similar critique by the 20th Century French neo-Thomist, Jacques Maritain, which pretty well agrees also.

If we consider, from a historical point of view, the cultural meaning of Empiricism, we must observe that Empiricism, which, as a psychological disposition, is one of the eternal trends inherent in the human mind, developed as a philosophical theory, especially in England, and especially in the XVIIth Century.

At the same epoch, Rationalism developed and took the upper hand in France, simultaneously with the ascent of the bourgeoisie and the gentlemen of the robe. French Rationalism and British Empiricism were to merge in the Eighteenth Century Enlightenment, and Nineteenth Century Positivism. Let us say that Empiricism was a philosophy particularly appropriate to the rise of a commercially dominated regime of social life, as far as the mental patterns connected with trade activity and liberal-economic habits were concerned.

from The Cultural Impact of Empiricism.