The principles guiding pursuit of empirical knowledge are themselves not truly empirical. There has to be a subjective handle put on all this objective knowledge. They have to guide the behavior of researchers to preserve the veridical integrity (truthfulness).

You can have a big pile of facts and data, and still wonder what it means. And there can be multiple answers to that question depending on your way of looking at it. In empiricism, no data can be correctly inferred unless it stems from sensory experience. If you suspect that something might be so, you have to experiment until your insight is proven or disproven by sensory experience.

That rules out intuition. There are some fringe thinkers in the empirical school that are open to semi-standard processes still arriving at empirical knowledge.

So if a dozen people had a metaphysical experience that could not be recorded, then it is not considered valid by empirical methodology? That would be correct.

I would think 100 eye witnesses would be enough to at least suggest the event happened.

These statements I’m making about empiricism seem fairly basic and concrete, no? As simple and common sense as the things I’m saying are, from the view of empiricism they are all metaphysical statements.

Empiricism is a philosophy? The philosophy is saying that you need such and such to be accurate. It can be called a branch of epistemology (the study of knowledge and its basis.)

I think there is validity to experimentation because human beings lie, and therefore some sort of proof is necessary. But just because something can’t be recorded with our current technology, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. But most subscribing empiricists would object to their views being compared to other types of philosophy.

So how much do we see empiricism playing out in our daily lives?

A lot in the sense we’re a number in the system? We’re counted, measured, tested. Economic decisions tend to be evaluated empirically, and educational decisions are made based on economic concerns. How does this affect us?

Political decisions are almost solely emotional. At least political promises are. I suspect, in the end, politics is just another branch of business.

It controls a lot of the economy, distribution of funds, distribution of voter blocs, reapportionments of same.

Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.

Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~