The Empirical Stance

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ISBN: 9780300088748 | 0300088744
Cover: Trade Book
Copyright: 4/10/2002

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What is empiricism and what could it be? Bas C. van Fraassen, one of the world's foremost contributors to philosophical logic and the philosophy of science, here undertakes a fresh consideration of these questions and offers a program for renewal of the empiricist tradition. The empiricist tradition is not and could not be defined by common doctrines but embodies a certain stance in philosophy, van Fraassen says. This stance is displayed first of all in a searing recurrent critique of metaphysics, and second in a focus on experience that requires a voluntarist view of belief and opinion.

Preface
Introduction
Against Analytic Metaphysics	p. 1
Living with a Dead Metaphysics	p. 2
Ontology Reborn	p. 4
Does the World Exist?	p. 5
A Spectrum of Theories	p. 6
Scientific Steps Beyond Science?	p. 11
The Form of Success, and Its Failure	p. 18
A Dilemma for the Conscientious	p. 25
A World Well Lost	p. 27
What Is Empiricism and What Could It Be?	p. 31
Sketch of the Tradition as Usually Understood	p. 31
History of the Word "Empiricism"	p. 32
Codification by the Historians: The Defining Criterion	p. 34
Immediate Inadequacy of the Criterion	p. 35
Sketch of the Tradition Continued: The Recurrent Rebellion	p. 36
The Period of Empiricist Critique of Empiricism	p. 38
Foundationalist Epistemology: Doomed to Vicious Circle or Infinite Regress?	p. 39
Reaching Deeper: Why Stonewalling Can't Work	p. 40
The Recurrent Rebellion Re-examined: What Separates Empiricists from Metaphysicians?	p. 47
How to Violate Principle Zero: The Stance	p. 47
The Stance as Will and Idea	p. 48
Is This a Factual Claim?	p. 50
What Is Matter?	p. 50
Two Moves for Materialists	p. 53
Materialism as False Consciousness	p. 57
Materialism Without False Consciousness?	p. 60
Scientific Revolution/Conversion as a Philosophical Problem	p. 64
Epistemic Trauma, Revolution, Conversion	p. 67
The Problem of Radical Conversion as a Criterion of Adequacy	p. 72
Two Forms of Epistemology	p. 74
"Objectifying" Epistemology	p. 77
Voluntarism in Epistemology	p. 81
The Problem of Revolutionary Changes in View: Not Yet Solved	p. 90
In Transit Perilous: Conditions for Revolution	p. 93
Pascal's Wager and Its Limits	p. 94
Scientific Revolution/Conversion as a Decision Problem	p. 101
Sartre and Pascal: Breaking the Decision Paradigm	p. 103
No Exit?	p. 108
Experience: (Epistemic) Life Without Foundations	p. 111
Ambiguity: Our Deconstructible Language	p. 113
Criteria for Royal Succession in Science	p. 115
Feyerabend's Critique of Classical Empiricism	p. 119
The Argument Hoist on Its Own Petard?	p. 125
Experience: Undermining the Analogy	p. 131
Fallibility: The Problem of Epistemic Frailty and Sin	p. 137
The Uses of an Unfollowable Rule	p. 140
An Example: Bohm Versus the Copenhagen School	p. 143
Ambiguity and Vagueness: Our Redeeming Weaknesses	p. 145
What Is Science - and What Is It to Be Secular?	p. 153
The Senses of "Science"	p. 155
Objectification as Characteristic of Science	p. 156
Objectifying Inquiry: Pre-demarcation	p. 160
Objectification: Science in the Widest Sense?	p. 164
The Objectifying Attitude	p. 174
Secularization of the World Picture	p. 176
Existential Response	p. 179
Persons; Encounter with the Divine	p. 189
Stranger in a Strange Land	p. 194
Scientific Cosmology	p. 197
A History of the Name "Empiricism"	p. 201
Bultmann's Theology Is Not a Philosophy	p. 226
Notes	p. 231
Bibliography	p. 261
Index	p. 275
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The Empirical Stance

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