[MD] Reductionism

[X Acto]

[Krimel]
James is quite clear that concepts arise from and are subservient to
perception. That is what empiricism is, anyway you slice it. He certainly
acknowledges their interrelations but when push comes to shove perception
wins. 
Ron:
If he was quite clear about the primacy of percept, then why did he forward
the idea of a radical empiricism to replace it?
[Krimel]
Exactly!
He didn't and it doesn't.
Ron:
Wow, even wiki misinterpreted what James means:
 Radical empiricism
Radical empiricism is a postulate, a statement of fact and a conclusion, says James 
in The Meaning of Truth. The postulate is that "the only things that shall be debatable 
among philosophers shall be things definable in terms drawn from experience". The fact 
is that our experience contains disconnected entities as well as various types of 
connections, it is full of meaning and values. The conclusion is that our worldview 
does not need "extraneous trans-empirical connective support, but possesses in its 
own right a concatenated or continuous structure."

 Postulate
The postulate is a basic statement of the empiricist method: our theories shouldn't 
incorporate supernatural or transempirical entities. Empiricism is a theory of 
knowledge that emphasizes the role of experience, especially sensory perception, 
in the formation of ideas, while discounting a priori reasoning, intuition, or 
revelation. James allows that transempirical entities may exist, but that it's not 
fruitful to talk about them.

 Fact
James' factual statement is that our experience isn't just a stream of data, it's a 
complex process that's full of meaning. We see objects in terms of what they mean to 
us and we see causal connections between phenomena. Experience is "double-barreled": 
it has both a content ("sense data") and a reference, and empiricists unjustly try to 
reduce experience to bare sensations, according to James. Such a "thick" description 
of conscious experience was already part of William James' monumental Principles of 
Psychology in 1890, more than a decade before he first wrote about radical empiricism 
and it's an important part of his argument.
It differs notably from the traditional empiricist view of Locke and Hume, who see 
experience in terms of atoms like patches of color and soundwaves, which are in 
themselves meaningless and need to be interpreted by ratiocination before we can act upon them.

 Conclusion
James concludes that experience is full of connections and that these connections 
are part of what is actually experienced:
Just so, I maintain, does a given undivided portion of experience, taken in one 
context of associates, play the part of a knower, of a state of mind, of 'consciousness'; 
while in a different context the same undivided bit of experience plays the part of a 
thing known, of an objective 'content.' In a word, in one group it figures as a thought, 
in another group as a thing. And, since it can figure in both groups simultaneously we 
have every right to speak of it as subjective and objective, both at once. (James 1912, Essay I)

 Context and importance
James put forth the doctrine because he thought ordinary empiricism, inspired by the advances 
in physical science, has or had the tendency to emphasize 'whirling particles' at the expense 
of the bigger picture: connections, causality, meaning. Both elements, James claims, are equally 
present in experience and both need to be accounted for.




________________________________
From: Krimel <Krimel at Krimel.com>
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Sent: Tuesday, June 30, 2009 1:17:41 PM
Subject: Re: [MD] Reductionism



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