Re: The Gadfly by E. L. Voynich

On Feb 4, 9:02 am, Catawumpus <kimmer...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

[...]

     On the other hand, "Prove all things; hold fast that which
is good" (1 Thessalonians 5:21) is much closer kin to
empiricism than your assertion about the non-existence of a god.

Nope. "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good"
is nothing like empiricism. Even a simple dictionary
definition shows that:

empiricism [...]
Philosophy. the doctrine that all knowledge is
derived from sense experience.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/empiricism

"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good" says
nothing about the *source* of knowledge, which is
precisely the issue when discussing the question
of whether revealed knowledge is possible.

Of course there is more to empiricism than my
motto about the rejection of revelation as a valid
source of knowledge. Philosophers have been
debating what empiricism is, or should be, for
centuries. It's a complicated matter.

The point of my motto, and it is meant to be
provocative and not comprehensive, is to
point out that empiricism should not be
conceived of as a doctrine about how all
knowledge actually is acquired, in all cases.
Some philosophers reduce empircism to
a bland doctrine about how perception and the
mind works. My position is that empiricism
is actually a doctrine about epistemological
methodology; it is a quasi-ethical statement
about how one *ought* to acquire knowledge.
It is a doctrine about what happens in the real
world, in society, not a doctrine about what
goes on inside one person's head. One *ought*
to eschew all other sources of knowledge besides
sense-perception. This is "dogmatic" only in the
sense in which all ethical injuctions are dogmatic.

In practice, historically speaking, revelation is
a key competitor as a supposed source of
vital knowledge. So, one might as well start
by ruling out revelation at the outset. Of course,
this is a bit of witticism and a purposefully
provocative position.

.

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