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Empiricisms is about the value of experience and experiments. Why do we esteem them and what is their contribution to knowledge? The work is unique in the detail with which it explains empiricism, from its beginning in ancient medicine to its emergence as a philosophy of modern science. It elucidates the ideas of the so-called radical empiricists, clarifying their relation to historical empiricism, and explaining what is "radical" about them, and develops a comparison between European empiricism and ideas and practice in traditional China. Bringing China into the argument is an unexpected innovation, and makes the work a model for comparative philosophy.
List of contents
- Introduction
- Part One: History's Empiricisms
- Chapter 1. Empiricisms of Antiquity
- Chapter 2. Experimental Empiricisms
- Chapter 3. Epistemological Empiricisms
- Conclusion to Part One
- Part Two: Radical Empiricisms
- Chapter 4. Radical Empiricism. William James
- Chapter 5. Empiricism Worthy of the Name. Henri Bergson
- Chapter 6. The Art of Experience. John Dewey
- Chapter 7. The Dogmas of Empiricism and the Linguistic Turn
- Chapter 8. Transcendental Empiricism. Gilles Deleuze
- Part Three: Empiricisms Compared
- Chapter 9. Empiricism with Chinese Characteristics
- Conclusion
- Glossary of Chinese Expressions
About the author
Barry Allen studied philosophy at the University of Lethbridge and Princeton University, and is Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy at McMaster University, in Hamilton, Ontario. He has held visiting appointments at universities in Jerusalem, Shanghai, Istanbul, and Hong Kong, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
Summary
In this sweeping volume of comparative philosophy and intellectual history, Barry Allen reassesses the values of experience and experiment in European and world traditions. His work traces the history of empirical philosophy from its birth in Greek medicine to its emergence as a philosophy of modern science. He surveys medical empiricism, Aristotlean and Epicurean empiricism, the empiricism of Gassendi and Locke, logical empiricism, radical empiricism, transcendental empiricism, and varieties of anti-empiricism from Parmenides to Wilfrid Sellars.
Throughout this extensive intellectual history, Allen builds an argument in three parts. A richly detailed account of history's empiricisms in Part One establishes a context in Part Two for reconsidering the work of the radical empiricists--William James, Henri Bergson, John Dewey, and Gilles Deleuze, each treated in a dedicated chapter. What is "radical" about them is their effort to return empiricism from epistemology to the ontology and natural philosophy where it began.
In Part Three, Allen sets empirical philosophy in conversation with Chinese tradition, considering technological, scientific, medical, and alchemical sources, as well as selected Confucian, Daoist, and Mohist classics. The work shows how philosophical reflection on experience and a profound experimental practice coexist in traditional China with no interaction or even awareness of each other, slipping over each other instead of intertwining as they did in European history, a difference Allen attributes to a different understanding of the value of knowledge.
Allen's book recovers empiricism's neglected, multi-textured contexts, and elucidates the enduring value of experience, to arrive at an idea of what is living and dead in philosophical empiricism.
Additional text
In Empiricisms Barry Allen discusses Western philosophical approaches to experience and empiricism. The book offers insights into various traditions in an overall chronological organization. His discourse on the relation between medical practice, theory and philosophy displays a fine sense for historical dynamics and connections.
