Objective empirical

Date: 11.08.2017

Author: Ilya Potapov

Ruslim.Org Method

On these pages empirical is used in strong connection to practical and objective, not in connection to empiricism and ultimately to the philosophy of nominalism. Empirically verified facts are closer to truth and objectivity, that is why we consider the empirical method to be powerful. In fact, there is nothing that can prevent the method to refute nominalism itself in favor of, for example, realism.

Truly, as one cannot define the essence of a thing, there is no way to objectively verify its existence [1]. Moreover, if someone discriminates one method over the other (e.g. inductive vs. deductive) based merely on a speculation, how can we trust such a philosophy? A simple thought experiment has proven to be misleading in many cases — the world's reality is much "smarter" than we imagine in our heads. The speculative thought, like that of nominalism, is useful when one can design an experiment in trying to refute it (Karl Popper). But when this thought is more related to the minds of its initiators and followers and not to the reality, the empirical objective testing of its validity seems to be impossible to accomplish.

Hence, nominalism (and, perhaps, much of philosophy) is a rationally justified belief. However, we are trying to find the method for objective verification, that is verification that can be done by potentially anybody (testable evidence). This is what the empirical method is for us [2].

Note also, that we understand the method wider than in traditional epistemology (e.g. logic): for example, obvious truths (like "whole is greater than its parts") are also empirical here, because one can go outside and apply the obvious rules to any object to see if they hold.

Finally, practical does not refer to the practicality of the philosophical pragmatism. We are not trying to resolve argues to the practical benefit only, that is to attain local or subjective or ad hoc truth. We are trying to reach objective truth, which, we believe, will be the most beneficial for all.

[1] I do not know about any empirical result showing reliably existence/nonexistence of essences. At the moment, they are from the realm of belief. Let me know if I am wrong.

[2] Our proposal is much stricter in regards to empirically obtained knowledge, so that it rules out many "scientific" areas, which are full of speculative thought and respective adherents. And we will see later on these pages, that it rules out many empirical experimentations themselves as these do not pass the repeatability tests, in other words, the results are not reproducible.