Sunday, December 24, 2017

Experimentalism and Empiricism

Given that 'Empiricism' is widely applied to the Foundationalism of Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, while the Baconian Method incorporates instruments and the production of effects, the latter might be more accurately termed 'Experimentalism'.  Likewise, while the aim of that Empiricist tradition is the establishment of Knowledge that is certain, either immediately or mediately, Experimentalism is a method that aims at the repeatable production of effects.  Consequently, its values are not Certainty and Necessity, but, as Peirce later introduces and Dewey refines, Fallibility and Probability.  Hence, Experimentalism is inherently non-Foundationalist, and the topic that absorbs Hume--whether or not Causality entails Necessity--is irrelevant to it.

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