COMMENTS ON THE CRISIS OF EMPIRICISM by Roger Blackwell (1996)
1) The emergence of Empiricism
The historical conditions in which empirical philosophy first emerged in England
were those of Feudalism. The merchants and gentry were growing both in wealth
and confidence and their outlook at the time was expressed in the Protestant
reformation. The monarchy and feudal aristocracy still held political power, but
the merchants were becoming more important due to the increase in trade and
prosperity accompanying the Far East markets and the beginnings of the
colonisation of America. The feudal organisation of society was becoming more
and more of a barrier to the growth of this trade and the emerging middle class
was coming into increasing conflict with the old society in many ways.
One of the expressions of this conflict was ideological, first with the
Protestant reformation and then natural science increasingly began to challenge
the world-view passed on through Christian theology. It was indeed dangerous to
challenge the old world-view and many scientists and heretics were burned at the
stake for doing so.
The best known example of this scientific revolution was that of Copernicus who
established that the planets revolved round the sun, instead of around the Earth
as proposed by Hipparchus and Ptolemy which was the prevailing orthodoxy.
Another important example was Michael Servetus, an Aragonese physician and
theologian who discovered the circulation of the blood through the lungs. He was
condemned by Calvin and burned slowly at the stake at Geneva.
Despite the obvious dangers of questioning the established orthodoxy, whether
Catholic or Protestant, nevertheless considerable advances were made in many
sciences during this period.
When the experimental and observational techniques of these sciences were given
a philosophic form by Francis Bacon, we had the beginnings of Empiricism.
2) The philosophy of Empiricism
What exactly is the philosophy of Empiricism? The most basic definition holds
that sense experience is the only source of knowledge and all knowledge is
founded on experience and obtained through experience. If this seems somewhat
familiar to the English or American reader, it is not surprising as Empiricism
has held sway in these countries for many centuries. Let us see how this
philosophy differed from that passed on by Aristotle, the famous Ancient Greek
philosopher.
Aristotle regarded contemplation as the highest form of mental activity, saw
matter only as a passive principle and attributed all activity to form.
According to Aristotle, we think we know a thing when we think we know both the
cause because of which a thing is and also that it is not possible for it to be
otherwise. He started with axioms and deduced conclusions through syllogisms,
which are logical figures consisting of two premises and a conclusion. From a
small set of primary truths, every other truth might be logically deduced. Such
formal reasoning was strictly non-contradictory. Indeed the principle of
non-contradiction was later considered the most important rule of logic.
The Schoolmen, of the Middle Ages, such as Thomas Aquinas, emasculated the ideas
of this Aristotelian philosophy and adapted it to Christian dogma. In the
process the original, relatively naive, formal logic of Aristotle became
rigidified more and more into a set of rules for logic. Another Schoolman who
opposed Thomas Aquinas' views was William of Occam.
He asserted that the existence of God and other religious dogmas could not be
proved by reason and were founded solely on faith. He was a prominent
representative of the nominalist school which asserted that only individual
things with their individual properties existed and that general concepts
created by our minds did not reflect reality. This was opposed to the so-called
realist trend which asserted that universal concepts possess real existence and
precede the existence of singular objects. This was a form of neo-Platonism
expressed by Anselm and followed closely by Thomas Aquinas.
It was against this background of scholastic disputes that Francis Bacon said
that the schoolmen brought forth "cobwebs of learning, admirable for the
fineness of thread and work, but of no substance or profit." He declared that
the purpose of learning was to increase man's power over nature by cleansing the
mind of preconceptions and prejudices and then rationally interpreting the facts
of experience. This meant using the method of induction, which was an analytical
comprehension of observation and experiment.
The philosophy of Empiricism has four distinct stages which correspond to the
historical developments of the time and the working out of the subject matter
itself. These are:- (a) Materialist Empiricism, (b) Idealist Empiricism, (c)
Sceptical Empiricism, (d) Pragmatism. When we consider these types of Empiricism
in detail, it should be remembered that they all stem from the same basic method
of regarding sense experience as the source of all knowledge.
a) Materialist Empiricism:- Its best known advocates were Bacon, Hobbes and
Locke.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) thought that by using a correct method huge advances
could be made in knowledge, which was in opposition to the sceptics argument
that "doomed men to perpetual darkness". His method was to begin with
experience, guided by reason and understanding, and then appraise and digest
such experience. Bacon rejected the method of producing syllogistic arguments
from axioms, but retained Aristotle's aim of achieving knowledge of causes. He
supported the views of the Greek Materialists, such as Democritus, and
considered matter to be a combination of particles, and nature a combination of
bodies endowed with many properties. He considered motion to be an essential
property of matter.
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) was a direct follower of Bacon's and had discussions
with him when still a young man. He considered that not only did matter in
motion cause sense perception, but also that our sensory ideas were motions in
matter. In fact everything was matter in motion in one way or another, and that
included the mind which was "nothing but the motions in certain parts of an
organic body".
John Locke (1632-1704) advocated that we should first stand back and investigate
our capacity for knowledge. He considered that all our knowledge came from
experience and rejected any notion of innate knowledge. Experience gave us the
ideas which formed the base of our knowledge. Prior to experience, the mind was
"white paper void of all characters". Locke believed that ideas either came
directly from our sensory interaction with the world or else by reflecting on
the operations of our own mind as it operated on the ideas it had from
sensation. He further made a distinction between simple and complex ideas, the
latter being composed of the former. Through the process of reasoning, simple
ideas were transformed into complex ones. He also made a distinction between
primary and secondary qualities. By primary qualities, Locke meant motion,
impenetrability, solidity, cohesion of particles, shape volume etc. Secondary
properties were subjective and included colour, smell, taste and sound.
b) Idealist Empiricism (or Subjective Idealism):- The best known exponent of
this school of Empiricism was George Berkeley (1685-1753). Berkeley considered
that any element of materialism led to scepticism and atheism and sought to
build his philosophy on religious foundations and reverse the tide of the world
view developed in the 17th century, by philosophers and scientists. He
considered that there was no such thing as matter and that the concept of matter
was totally superfluous and even unintelligible. He claimed that everything
which existed depended for its' existence on his mind, someone else's mind or
the mind of some eternal spirit. He opposed the earlier distinction made between
things and ideas and concluded that ideas are things. Berkeley developed his
ideas in opposition to the philosophical basis of Newton's science and when
Newton spoke of absolute motion and contrasted it with relative motion, Berkeley
claimed that this was an abuse of words and that no meaning could be attached to
the expression 'absolute motion'. He developed the views of Locke and the
earlier medieval nominalists on an idealist basis, whereas Hobbes had earlier
given the nominalists views a materialist base.
c) Sceptical Empiricism:- Best known for these views is the Scottish philosopher
David Hume (1711-1776). He sought to put the science of man, human nature, at
the centre of all the sciences. Hume divided perceptions into impressions and
ideas, the former being sensations, passions and emotions and the latter
comprising the faint images in the thinking, reasoning, memory and imagination.
The difference was supposed to be one of degree with impressions being lively
perceptions and ideas as less vivid copies of these. He considered that the
ideas of cause and effect were derived from custom and habit involving the much
repeated observation of objects. It was a manifestation of mental habit which
had developed as a result of past experience. Thus he denied the objective
nature of causality, and this led to scepticism which questioned whether it was
possible to have any exhaustive cognition of the world. Although this view is
best of all refuted by the actual progress of science and technology, yet the
modern 'Philosophers of Science' take Hume's outlook as their starting point.
d) Pragmatism:- This, the most degenerate form of Empiricism, was associated
with Charles Sanders Peirce and William James. At the centre of this philosophy,
was the notion that the value of an idea lay in its practical utility. By this
practical utility was meant whatever met the subjective needs of the individual.
This led James to advocate the right to believe what could not be proved or
reasoned. Many trends led directly to irrationalism, considering the world to be
chaotic, devoid of regularity and depending on chance and unconscious will. The
philosophy of Pragmatism was a further development of the Utilitarianism of John
Stuart Mill which was itself a historical progression of the ideas of Berkeley
and Hume.
Whilst this is just a brief sketch of Empiricism, certain historical tendencies
can still be discovered. Firstly, when the merchants and gentry were a rising
class, fighting for political power, they boldly broke from Aristotle and the
Schoolmen and turned to experiment and industry as a way forward. The main
thrust of their philosophy was Materialist Empiricism and in Hobbes it reached
the point of almost a complete break with religion. Once the capitalist class
had gained political power in England, Empiricism became more openly idealist
and sceptical, reaching its' lowest point in the pragmatism of the USA in the
19th century, which considered a philosophy had to have a 'cash value'* This
reflected the needs of the capitalists to consolidate their rule and then defend
the existing order against the working class and the people of the oppressed
nations.
Once Empiricism became the outlook of the ruling class, it was no longer
essentially progressive and the further development of philosophy took place
firstly in France and then in Germany.
3) French Materialism
French Materialism developed in opposition to the Metaphysics of the seventeenth
century expressed by Descartes, Malebranche, Spinoza and Liebniz. It traces its
origin to the physics of Descartes (as opposed to his metaphysics) and the
philosophy of Locke. The leading exponents were La Mettrie, Helvetius, Diderot
and Holbach.
Medicine, physiology, and biology, which had made considerable steps forward
since the time of the English Materialists, were incorporated into the new
philosophy alongside the earlier Newtonian mechanics.
Holbach saw in nature nothing but matter and motion and
since man himself was matter and possessed the faculty of thinking, then matter
itself could think or was capable of that specific modification that we called
thought.
Helvetius regarded man as a machine which, put into movement by physical
sensibility, did everything that it performed. Physical sensibility was the
prime source of human needs, passions, sociability, ideas, judgements, desires
and actions. He considered virtues and vices to be actions that were useful or
harmful to society. Helvetius considered that all humans possessed the same
abilities at birth and that differences at a later date were due to upbringing
and education. The sensory qualities and self-love, enjoyment and correctly
understood personal interest were the basis of Helvetius's morality. The
teachings of these French Materialists led directly to the ideas of socialism
and communism. Helvetius's books, amongst others, were denounced by the Sorbonne
and publicly burnt in Paris.
4) German Idealism
The classical German idealist philosophy was developed by Kant, Fichte,
Schelling and Hegel and the pace of change of thought and indeed logic itself
was quite remarkable. It was recognised during this period that the fundamental
problems of philosophy were concerned with what thought itself was and what was
the relationship between thought and the external world.
Kant set out to give a set of rules to all thought whether they be a priori or
empirical. These rules were such that they might justify any absurdity as long
as it was not self-contradictory. He made a preliminary study of the forms of
cognition and the limits of human ability to cognise. He was led by his studies
and especially by his rigid adherence to the principle of non-contradiction to
the conclusion that we can know only the appearance of things, but not the thing
in itself. He asserted that reason was, by its nature, antinomic or
contradictory and set out four antinomies where he proved both the thesis and
antithesis to be true. The first thesis was that the world had a beginning both
in time and space. The antithesis was that the world was infinite both in time
and space. His solution to these antinomies was that we know only appearances
and not things in themselves and so he limited knowledge in favour of faith.
Fichte considered Kant's concept of a 'thing in itself' was logically
impossible, because he saw it as impossible for the Ego to be conscious of a
thing outside consciousness. For Fichte the ego affirmed itself as the first act
of consciousness and constructed the objective world or non-ego from
appearances. Fichte discarded the question of the relation of a concept to the
external object and instead replaced it by the relation of a concept to itself.
He considered that if you came up against a contradiction in a logical
expression then it was necessary to return to the intuition and if it proved
necessary then the principle of non-contradiction could not be regarded as the
indisputable measure of truth.
For Schelling consciousness itself was the only immediate object of knowledge
and knowledge of the objective world only arose merely in the form of a limiting
condition to the process by which consciousness became aware of itself. The most
comprehensible thing was how we defined everything according to the law of
identity, and the most enigmatic was how we could define anything outside this
law. For a real synthesis of knowledge Schelling considered that it was
necessary to use a practical method rather than a theoretical one. The
contradictions that Schelling was acutely aware of in philosophy drove him to
conclude that philosophy on the whole was impossible as one science and he moved
on to say that it was in art alone that mind became fully aware of itself.
Hegel's philosophy was profoundly influenced by the impact of the French
bourgeois revolution of 1789, which transformed social relations across much of
Europe. Germany was relatively backward at this time and what happened socially
in European upheavals had its biggest influence on German philosophy, rather
than the conservative German politics. Hegel's dialectical logic was first
originated by the Ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus (535-475BC), but little
has survived from this period of Ancient Greek philosophy and in Hegel it
received it's most comprehensive and systematic development ever recorded in any
written philosophy. Hegel complained in his works that logic as derived from
Aristotle and modified by the Schoolmen had not undergone any real development
in thousands of years. Yet natural science in contrast had made great strides
forward. At the centre of the formal logic stood the principle of
non-contradiction, held in holy reverence, by the scholastics and empiricists
alike.
Hegel, in his monumental work, "Science of Logic" made a full frontal assault on
this 'inviolable' principle. When he considered the law of identity A=A, he said
this expressed nothing more than an empty tautology. For example to say wealth
is wealth says nothing and leaves the reader bored. Likewise with power is
power, but if we say wealth is power then we are making a statement which
arouses interest and leads to further investigation. The statement which arouses
interest contains a contradiction, i.e. that A is not A, or A is B. Of course A
is still A, but that is an empty tautology and Hegel said that "truth is only
complete in the unity of identity with difference, and hence consists only in
this unity." Hegel also said that the law of diversity, that all things are
different, was opposed to the law of identity, i.e. that A is distinctive,
therefore A is also not A. Brought together these so-called original laws of
thought show that formal thinking, when developed to its conclusion leads to
contradiction.
Prior to Hegel, philosophers who paid homage to the law of non-contradiction
were led by such paradoxes to scepticism, or like Immanuel Kant declared that we
could only know the appearance of things, but not things in themselves. When the
Ancient Greek philosophers such as Zeno discovered contradiction in motion, they
declared that motion was not true, however Hegel corrected this by declaring
motion to be existent contradiction itself. What Hegel did was to revolutionise
the science of logic and break from Aristotle in a way that the Empiricists
could never do. Because Hegel was an idealist and his thought often shrouded in
mysticism, the revolutionary nature of his philosophy was often overlooked and
emphasis was placed in his conservative 'system'. However once Marx and Engels
had placed dialectics on a materialist base and stood Hegel on his feet then its
revolutionary nature could no longer be ignored. Before moving to Marx and
Engels, here is a quotation from Hegel that succinctly expressed his dialectical
method.
"Therefore though ordinary thinking everywhere has contradiction for its
content, it does not become aware of it, but remains an external reflection
which passes from likeness to unlikeness, or from the negative relation to
reflection-into-itself, of the distinct sides. It holds these two determinations
over against one another and has in mind only them, but not their transition,
which is the essential point and which contains the contradiction. Intelligent
reflection, to mention this here, consists on the contrary, in grasping and
asserting contradiction. Even though it does not express the Notion of things
and their relationships and has for its material and content only the
determinations of ordinary thinking, it does bring these into a relation that
contains their contradiction and allows their Notion to show or shine through
the contradiction. Thinking reason, however, sharpens so to say, the blunt
difference of diverse terms, the mere manifoldness of pictorial thinking, into
essential difference, into opposition. Only when the manifold terms have been
driven to the point of contradiction do they become active and lively towards
one another, receiving in contradiction the negativity which is the indwelling
pulsation of self-movement and spontaneous activity."
5) Dialectical Materialism
It was really only Marx and Engels that recognised the revolution accomplished
in logic by Hegel, but for Marx "The philosophers have only interpreted the
world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it." Marx and Engels
dialectical method was the direct opposite to that of Hegel. It was a
materialist dialectics in which being determined consciousness and not the other
way round as it was with Hegel. Although this outlook was a direct opposite to
Hegel's, nevertheless, it was not a simple rejection of Hegel and return to the
earlier materialism of the French and English. As we shall see, there is much
that divides Marxism from the earlier materialism such as that of the
Materialist Empiricism of Hobbes.
Marx and Engels were both thoroughly immersed in dialectical thinking before
they became materialists. It was Ludwig Feuerbach who first broke from
Hegelianism and became a materialist. Marx and Engels then came under his
influence, but went far beyond his philosophy by sublating the dialectical
method into their materialism. Feuerbach had been unable to preserve nowhere
near so much of the dialectical method, as he simply discarded most of it,
returning mainly to 18th century mechanical materialism.
Many of the differences between Marxism and mechanical materialism were
expressed clearly, in note form, in Marx's theses on Feuerbach. In the first
one, Marx criticised the contemplative nature of earlier materialism, which, he
said led to the active side being developed by idealism. This was replaced by
revolutionary, practical-critical activity in Marxism. Another thesis, which is
crucial, is that the highest point attained by contemplative materialism is the
study of the single individual in capitalist society. This is the standpoint of
modern psychology, which has its philosophical basis in Empiricism. There is a
clear connection here between empiricism and the earlier nominalism of the
schoolmen. As we saw earlier this nominalism was opposed to the realist school.
Such an opposition was based on the precepts of formal logic. However, by the
use of dialectics, both Hegel and Marxism were able to supersede both outlooks
and overcome the one-sidedness of each philosophy.
Engels mentioned the main dialectical laws in his work 'Dialectics of Nature'.
These were the law of the transformation of quantity into quality and vice
versa, the law of the interpenetration of opposites and the law of the negation
of the negation. These laws were abstracted from the history of nature and human
society.
Marx used the dialectical method in all his mature works including the writing
of 'Capital'. Lenin used the dialectical method to build the Bolshevik party and
lead the Russian revolution and Trotsky founded the Fourth International also
guided by this outlook.
6) The crisis of Empiricism today
Engels in his important works 'Anti-Duhring' and 'Dialectics of Nature' pointed
to the limitations of Empiricism with regard to the natural sciences and said
that only by the adoption of the dialectical method could natural science
achieve clarity. He remarked that a return to dialectical thinking might even
come about by the sheer force of natural scientific discoveries themselves "But
that is a protracted, laborious process during which a tremendous amount of
unnecessary friction has to be overcome." He then advised the theoreticians of
the sciences to acquaint themselves with dialectical philosophy by a study of
Ancient Greek philosophy and classical German philosophy especially Hegel. He
also added that Hegel should be studied from a materialist standpoint.
Even in Engels' day, over a century ago, natural science had accumulated a
tremendous amount of empirical knowledge and today this is very much more the
case. What this science was incapable of doing, and the philosophy of Empiricism
was no help either, was to be able to systematize the separate fields and bring
them into the correct connection with one another.
The so-called Philosophy of Science, developed in this century from aspects of
Hume's Sceptical Empiricism has also failed in this respect. The crisis of the
empiricist outlook drives many scientists back into an open embrace of religion
and the most reactionary philosophy. Professor Stephen Hawking found it
necessary to quote St Augustine in his book 'A brief history of time' and also
to complain that the philosophers had been unable to keep up with the advances
in scientific theories.
We have other scientists at various institutes throughout
the world trying to bridge the gap between their specialities and engage in a
broader view of the world. They will not succeed unless they listen to the
advice that Engels gave. They may well have developed Mathematics into an
extraordinarily useful tool for physical science, but the concepts, categories
and logic that they use is still stuck in the Middle Ages. Even a brilliant, and
part philosophically educated, scientist such as Einstein could not conceive of
the dialectical relation between chance and necessity and this proved a barrier
to an acceptance of Quantum Mechanics.
Our century is full of specialists making important discoveries in their own
particular fields, but owing to the increasing one-sidedness produced by the
ever-greater division of labour there are few who can understand the essence of
the whole. This often means that scientists who are working on major projects,
such as the Atomic bomb earlier this century, are not aware of the social
implications of their work until it is too late for them to do anything about
it.
Also scientific progress can lead to unforeseen environmental problems, because
there is no global view taken of the work being done. All in all Empiricism and
all its related modern philosophies leave humanity with only a short-term view
within a narrow perspective at that. It is necessary to assimilate the major
philosophical advances made since Hume, especially Dialectical Materialism if we
are to be able to take a broader and longer view of our current and future
problems.
The philosophers of the twentieth century have increasingly become academic
specialists who study what was previously only a tiny part of philosophy. When
Bacon wrote his works there were in existence many speculative works by the
schoolmen and other theologians, but there were few examples of genuinely
empirical investigation.
We really have virtually the opposite situation today with a veritable explosion
of information available from both publications and the electronic media. Not
all of it is of any use, but empirical data is not only the great strength of
20th century scientific investigation, but is also its weakness. With modern
data processing machines like computers and supercomputers, it is possible for
our body of knowledge to be enormously increased with ever greater rapidity.
However, this can never be a substitute for our theoretical thinking, because
dialectics is a property of all human knowledge, whereas computers are
restricted by their software to a complex, but fixed programme, which can only
ever proceed formally in a logical sense.
There have been a number of scientists and theoreticians of all kinds, including
philosophers, who have turned to Marxism, especially since the Bolshevik
revolution of October 1917, but many of these theoreticians have misunderstood
Marxism, because they have failed to grasp the revolutionary role of the working
class.
To understand Marxism, it is necessary to take sides. It can only be developed
in a living struggle to overthrow the existing order and establish Socialism.
Scientists and philosophers cannot stand aside from this struggle and expect
their outlook to develop by purely academic work. This way their outlook will
only become sterile. The relationship between theory and practice is such that
the whole of human activity needs to be cognised, not in a purely contemplative
way, but through the practice of consciously changing the world itself.
Empiricism was for many centuries an extremely successful outlook, but now in
the epoch of wars and revolutions, it has to give way to a more advanced
philosophy, just as society itself is faced with either socialist revolution or
the decline of the whole of human culture.