Beliefs which require to be confirmed by future experience, or which actually refer to it, are evidently only presumptions; it is merely the truth of presumptions that empirical logic applies to, and only so long as they remain presumptions.
It is a vision radically empirical and radically romantic; and as William James himself used to say, the visions and not the arguments of a philosopher are the interesting and influential things about him.
For Kant had a genteel tradition of his own, which he wished to remove to a place of safety, feeling that the empirical world had become too hot for it; and this place of safety was the region of transcendental myth.
Bergson's proper achievement begins where his science ends, and his philosophy lies entirely beyond the horizon of possible discoveries or empirical probabilities.
The revision would consist chiefly in this, that empirical verification, utility, and survival would take the place of dialectical irony as the force governing the evolution.
One who follows an empirical method; one who relies upon practical experience.
The fifth chapter treats of hypnotism, considered as an empirical development of sleep.
We began by defining hypnotism as the empirical development of the sleeping phase of man's personality.
Supraliminal or empirical consciousness; aware only of the material world through sensory impressions.
We see, in short, that any empirical inlet into the metetherial world is apt to show us those powers, which we try to distinguish, coexisting in some synthesis by us incomprehensible.
In any case, it is something to have perfected , as has been done in India, the empirical methods favourable to the production of supernormal phenomena.
In his indefatigable search for empirical evidence he is a model even for his antagonists: he has compelled them to approach the problems of life along other lines than those which were formerly followed.
Weismann's theory in its entirety is a finely conceived molecular hypothesis, but it is devoid of empirical basis.
They were, however, more empirical than efficient and, for the most part, not only grossly overdesigned but of decidedly difficult fabrication and construction.
While making consistent use of mathematical analysis, he was at the same time more or less dependent upon empirical methods.
It seems most likely, however, that the empirical studies were used solely as checks against the mathematical.
It must be noticed, for the point is one of importance, that Bentham's purely empirical method draws no definite line.
To constitute an empirical science is to show that the difference between different phenomena is due simply to 'circumstances.
This, however, on Bentham's showing, at once introduces the conception of utility, and therefore leads to empirical considerations.
The empirical factor is so emphasised that we lose all grasp of the real world.
Bentham adheres, that is, to the strictly empirical ground.
It is not surprising that Stewart approximates in various directions to the doctrines of the empirical school.
I have dwelt upon the side in which Stewart's philosophy approximates to the empirical school, because the Utilitarians were apt to misconceive the position.
To this famous theory, which became the sheet-anchor of the empirical school, Stewart is not altogether opposed.
Blackstone, in fact, had tried to base his defence of that eminently empirical product, the British Constitution, upon some show of a philosophical groundwork.
When we have such a science, empirical or a priori, history is at most of secondary importance.
The empirical sciences were growing; and Locke, a student of medicine, could note the fallacies which arise from neglecting observation and experiment, and attempting to penetrate to the absolute essences and entities.
In other words, his theology is of the purely empirical kind, which was, as we shall see, the general characteristic of the time.
His adherence to the empirical method is too decided.
Intuitions' had in any case a negative value, as protests against the sufficiency of the empirical analysis.
For such a law would only be an "empirical law"; it would not be a causal law or an ultimate law.
So long as bridge building was anempirical art, great waste of material was unavoidable.
They reject the allowance for fatigue (that is, the effect of repetition) and design bridge members for the total dead and live load, plus a large allowance for impact varied according to some purelyempirical rule.
Launhardt, based on an empirical expression for Wöhler's law, has been much used in bridge designing (see Proc.
The margin of uncertainty which must be met by empirical allowances on the side of safety has been steadily diminished.
In the second place, the astronomical knowledge presupposed and accompanying early Babylonian astrology is essentially of an empirical character.
The growing opinion of economic students is veering round to register in theory the firm empirical judgment from which the business world has never swerved, that a high rate of consumption is the surest guarantee of progressive trade.
It employs totally different methods from the "classification, induction, analogy" familiar to the logic of the empirical sciences.
This self-consciousness retiring upon itself out of its empirical actuality and bringing its truth to consciousness, has in its faith and in its conscience only what it has consciously secured in its spiritual actuality.
But empirical statements of this sort help little towards a knowledge of what memory intrinsically is.
The so-called laws of the association of ideas were objects of great interest, especially during that outburst of empirical psychology which was contemporaneous with the decline of philosophy.
As the theory of Condillac states it, the sensible is not merely the empirical first, but is left as if it were the true and essential foundation.
Such a frame of spirit, where the empirical consciousness with all its soul and strength and mind identifies its mission into conformity with the absolute order, is the mood of absolute Ethics.
Under such metaphysical or extra-empirical presuppositions all investigation, whether it be crudely empirical or (in the physical sense) scientific, is carried on.
But even at the best, such a popular or empirical psychology has no special claim to be ranked as science.
For mere uncritical experience or merely empirical knowledge only offers problems; it suggests gaps, which indeed further reflection serves at first only to deepen into contradictions.
And love--well, love is a mere empirical sentiment.
Cases have been known where the theorist, in the clarifying and perfecting his own theory, has argued himself round to those very truths which his empirical antagonist had held to with a firm though less reasoning faith.
The Empirical Origins of Gandhi's Method Gandhi's autobiography brings out the origins of many of his ideas.
It seems to have been against the empirical method of such books as Ansted's that Huxley protested in his 'Physiography,' urging its replacement by a more educative method.
The genetic or empirical school tries to reduce the relations of extension to more or less complex relations of succession in duration.
Turning from such abstract considerations toempirical study of the sensation, the same sort of difficulty reappears.
The disadvantages of purely empirical thinking are obvious.
Education takes the individual while he is relatively plastic, before he has become so indurated by isolated experiences as to be rendered hopelessly empirical in his habit of mind.
Scientific Method [Sidenote: Scientific thinking analyzes the present case] In contrast with the empirical method stands the scientific.
Our beliefs about human nature in individuals (psychology) and in masses (sociology) are still very largely of a purely empirical sort.
The empirical method inevitably magnifies the influences of the past; the experimental method throws into relief the possibilities of the future.
Now this fallacy of method is the animating principle of empirical conclusions, even when correct--the correctness being almost as much a matter of good luck as of method.
The first is an extension of the empirical method of observation.
Starting from the empirical we run out at every step into the metempirical.
May we, broadening the basis upon which we are to build, and studying the manners, customs, and moral judgments of all sorts and conditions of men, develop anempirical science of ethics which will be independent of philosophy?
The consciousness of them is not of empirical origin, but can only follow on that of a moral law, as an effect of the same on the mind.
The latter resting on empirical principles, whereas the moral doctrine of ends which treats of duties rests on principles given a priori in pure practical reason.
Now in this philosophy (of ethics) it seems contrary to the idea of it that we should go back to metaphysical elements in order to make the notion of duty purified from everything empirical (from every feeling) a motive of action.
As the empirical knowledge is correct, and the mechanical idea a complete mistake, conflict between the two is inevitable.
Imitative Voice Culture was purely empirical in the ordinary meaning of this word.
Only when considered as an empirical description is the forward-tone precept of value.
Other causes contributing to the acceptance of the mechanical idea were the elusive character of empirical knowledge of the voice, and the unconscious aspect of the instinct of vocal imitation.
The conscious thought of the teacher is always turned to the mechanical idea supposedly conveyed by scientific doctrine andempirical precept.
In other words, the traditional precepts embody the results of the old masters' empirical study of the voice.
Further, empirical knowledge of the voice can be acquired in no other way than by actual experience in listening to voices.
Separately considered, neither the scientific nor the empirical study of the voice is alone sufficient to inform us of the exact nature of the correct vocal action.
Thus the mechanical doctrine is used in the attempt to explain the empirical knowledge.
Every modern teacher of singing possesses in full measure the empirical understanding of the voice.
Because the psychological process is purely sub-conscious, empirical knowledge is always indirectly and generally unconsciously applied.
But here again the result of the sub-conscious character of empiricalknowledge of the voice is seen.
Combining now the results of empirical and scientific investigation of the voice, throat stiffness is seen to be the interfering influence which disturbs the instinctive connection between voice and ear.
There is nothing new in this statement; considered as empirical knowledge, the modern vocal teacher understands the meaning of the old masters' precepts perfectly well.
That notions of such a loose, semi-philosophical nature should survive while the solid empirical content of medical science faded away, is characteristic of the decline of thought which culminated in the dark ages.
