Sensory epistemological empiricism has traditionally focussed on whether our sensory inputs can give us reliable theoretical knowledge of the world.
The public artifact of articulated theoretical knowledge - especially, perhaps, modern empirical science - depends not on whether we can take our own sensory inputs seriously, but on whether we can take the sensory reports of potential interlocutors seriously. If we are to be able to talk to each other about the world, we must trust each others' reports about the way it is - or the way it seems. And if it seems the same to everyone - if everyone agrees - then there is no room in our shared game for doubt about the reality. If some Martian meta-philosopher managed to engage us, we might change our minds, but only if we could understand it - only if we and it could share a language game ...
This is the ground of the link between sensory empiricism and the liberal scientific tradition - the practice of taking each others' sensory reports seriously, and articulating this agreement.
Taking our own sensory experiences seriously becomes just a psychological condition, which is exactly Hume's conclusion. He was just a bit confused by his unreflective linguistic competence ...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment