Empiricism

Context

In the beginning, empiricism could be conceived like a Matérialisme, insofar as it were one of the forms of opposition to the Scolastique, during the birth of modern science (Galileo). Empiricism thus defined modes of Connaissance derived from the empirical method and Experimental method, which were not specific to the Révélation. However, speech of materialism at the 17th century is an anachronism, since the " term; matérialisme" appeared only at the 18th century.

In the same order of idea, empiricism is distinguished rather clearly from the Positivisme, insofar as that one more stresses the explanation of the Phénomène S by mathematical formulations. It is true that Auguste Count partly supported his philosophy on that of Francis Bacon, but that is not sufficient to find many common points between empiricism and positivism.

It would be more judicious to present empiricism like paradoxical Rationalisme of the continental Philosophe S (Descartes, Leibniz and Kant in particular). Indeed, one could see in this distinction the first steps of a separation Culturelle between the England (today the Anglo-Saxon world) and the continent, signs difference between the " populate mer" and the " populate terre".

Lastly, one should not confuse empiricism with the Pragmatisme (William James). Empiricism is based on the Expérience, the Pragmatisme on the Action. The pragmatism, stripped of any ambition Métaphysique, can thus enter in conflict with true a ethical, which should not be the case for empiricism. Empiricism constitutes the dominant philosophical tradition in England, pragmatism, one of the American philosophical traditions, which are not the same ones. An observer " continental" fact often confusion.

History

Perhaps should it initially be noted that empiricism represented a philosophical current in antiquity. It particularly appeared in the empirical Médecine, which influenced itself much Sextus Empiricus. It does not seem nevertheless that this form of empiricism played a part in the development of the movement born in England, if it is not perhaps at Hume, via the influence of the Scepticisme. More information can be found in the work of Victor Brochard, '' the Experimental method at Old the ''.

The empiricism which interests us here is a philosophical movement which is born initially in England.

It takes root at the 16th century and opens out mainly at the 17th century.

Its more famous representatives are:

Francis Bacon (which one often regards as the father of the empiricism),
Robert Boyle, physicist and chemist Irish, which took as a starting point Francis Bacon, and was the father of the natural Philosophie,
Thomas Hobbes, English philosopher,
John Locke, English philosopher, founder of the political Philosophie modern, with Montesquieu,
George Berkeley,
David Hume,
James Mill
and John Stuart Mill.

These doctrines were in particular condemned by Pie X in its encyclical Pascendi.

Doctrines

Thesis

When one is empirist, one considers initially that the base and the first source of the Connaissance are in the Expérience. For the empirists, there are only the singular objects and the Phénomène S which are real. Empiricism admits the existence of concepts, images or syntheses of images resulting from the experiment. The Esprit is then conceived as a tabula shaved on which are printed significant impressions. The human Connaissance is an assembly of received practices.

Distinctions

One often defines empiricism by opposing it to the Rationalisme or the idealism, but it is necessary to moderate, because the opposition is not simply between partisans of the Raison and in favor of the Expérience, since the empirists do not deny that the Raison can play a part in the Processus of knowledge. They refuse only the idea that there can be purely rational knowledge or a priori , and they stress the Experimental method.

Moreover, in certain cases, (see Berkeley, Condillac), empiricism does not support the thesis of the Existence of the world external independently of us, and defends on the contrary the idealism on this point.

Radical empiricism is an alternative defended by William James (1842-1910) and which affirms, like traditional empiricism, that one should not anything add with the Expérience, but also, which makes its specificity, that one should not anything withdraw to him: we have experience of the relations, which are as real as the terms of the experiment (cf Tests of radical empiricism, Agone, 2005, Essais 1 to 4).

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