Wednesday, June 19, 2002

Okay. Finished Nietzsche and finally understood what the book is about. Which is master and slave and the need to combat nihilism. It was okay. Reading The New Organon by Francis Bacon. It's all about how to help science progress through the use of induction. It's fairly farsighted really. Other than some of the Elizabethan science that he did believe.

I forgot to tell you what empiricism is: it's the belief that all knowledge comes from the senses. Considering that sense experience is useless without some basic principles to guide it, I really feel like empiricism holds little water. (Once again my lack of time and education leads me to attack a straw man.) Most empircists are skeptics, except the Randites. However most Randites hold empiricism as a point of faith rather than a philosophical position.

As for the rest of epistemology, let me say that the presence offirst principles, along with good deduction and induction, does not lead to Truth with a capitol T. You may find that a first principle needs to be amended or thrown out entirely. New axioms may need to be added. You're knowledge is necessarily incomplete, and therefore fallible. That doesn't mean you won't discover theories and applications, just that Absolute Knowledge is better left for God, not you. If you believe in God.

That's the end of that discussion. Next up applied and metaethics. This is really the place where I have the most difficulty in philosophy. It also is the most important in life. Talk at you later.

.: posted by Timothy 6:43 PM

home | archives The Way it Should Have Been Published poet, mystic, dreamer, lunatic. Read it because it's there. Sunday, June 16, 2002 Well, let's see. I'm a little over half through Beyond Good and Evil and I'm gofing around with Amazon. I just met some guy the other day, and we're passing emails. He's into the Fourth Way. We'll see how our correspondence goes. I'm waiting for my dad to get home for Father's Day. Father's day is going about as well as Mother's Day. So I haven't really finished epistemology. I'll probably talk about that more tomorrow. .: posted by Timothy 2:05 PM Dreaded Purple Master Blog majordork@msn.com