[benl]

> "Non-empirical statements are meaningless"

This is a non-empirical statement, given that you probably don't believe that you can demonstrate the truth of it empirically.

Putting it another way, perhaps you might agree with the following statement?

"All legitimate knowledge is gained empirically."

But how do you know this? Did you reach this conclusion empirically?

So there must be some things that you know through non-empirical means.

[lmm]

> But how do you know this? Did you reach this conclusion empirically?

Yes I did, that was my point. I haven't solved and am not claiming to have solved the problem of induction - the generalisation from "a bunch of empirical knowledge turns out to be valuable/effective/legitimate and all the supposed non-empirical knowledge I've seen turns out not to be valuable/effective/legitimate" to "all valuable/effective/legitimate knowledge is empirical" rests on potentially shaky ground. But that's a problem that already exists when making ordinary, object-level generalisations about the universe; it doesn't render the conclusion any weaker than ordinary scientific conclusions.

[benl]

That sounds like you're saying something like this:

"I believe empiricism is true because empiricism seems to be true."

We strive to live our lives based on reason, so we should look for ways to understand the world that go beyond a circular argument.

Such lines of thinking exist. They have been well argued and debated and have much going for them. Plenty of places to start learning about them, but maybe start with Aristotle.

[lmm]

> We strive to live our lives based on reason

I don't think we do. Reason is a means to an end, not a goal in itself.

> so we should look for ways to understand the world that go beyond a circular argument.

I don't see it as circular, but even if it were, my point is it's impossible to do better: all of us accept everyday common sense before we can even begin to argue technical philosophy, and if we're willing to set it aside then there are infinitely many self-consistent things we could think and no reason to prefer one over another. So no amount of sophistry will ever get you away from having to believe in everyday common sense.

> Such lines of thinking exist. They have been well argued and debated and have much going for them. Plenty of places to start learning about them, but maybe start with Aristotle.

Please. You're dismissing rather than engaging. If you're not willing to actually contribute to the discussion then don't post at all.

[benl]

I'm sorry you thought I was being dismissive. I felt I had reached the limit of my own pursuasiveness on the question and wanted to point you to somewhere better than me.

One final point I will try to make is that in thinking about how we know things, there's no suggestion that we need to set aside common sense. It's about starting with common sense and then seeing what we can add to it.

[foldr]

That's only an empirical generalization if you can cache out "valuable/effective/legitimate" in genuinely empirical terms (at minimum, in terms of observer-independent observations free from value judgments).

[lmm]

> That's only an empirical generalization if you can cache out "valuable/effective/legitimate" in genuinely empirical terms (at minimum, in terms of observer-independent observations free from value judgments).

I can cash it out empirically as "generates accurate empirical predictions and suggests fruitful avenues for future investigation" (fruitful in the sense of ultimately leading to more detailed and accurate empirical predictions). That the measure of a theory is the accuracy of its predictions is of course a subjective human position (there are an infinity of possible measures on which to evaluate theories, and a priori no reason to prefer one over another), but again that's (a cautious Neurath's boat extension of) the common-sense way that we all evaluate theories in practice in everyday settings.

[foldr]

No, that's not even close to cashing out the generalization in empirical terms. To do this you'd need to specify exactly which observations would confirm or disconfirm it. Without the parenthesized parts, your gloss of the generalization remains vague and value-laden. With the parenthesized parts it is virtually tautological, since it's in the nature of empirical knowledge to generate accurate empirical predictions. It's surely not news to anyone that if forms of knowledge which lead to detailed empirical predictions are superior to other forms of knowledge, then empirical knowledge is superior to other forms of knowledge.

What you really seem to want to do, then, is argue from the nature of empirical knowledge itself to the conclusion that it is better than other methods of empirical knowledge. But that requires rational argument to back up the italicized statement above, not (just) an inductive generalization. And then we come back to the problem that it is impossible to find suitable premises for such an argument which can themselves be known empirically.

(For reference, the generalization we're talking about here is that "a bunch of empirical knowledge turns out to be valuable/effective/legitimate and all the supposed non-empirical knowledge I've seen turns out not to be valuable/effective/legitimate".)

[lmm]

> But that requires rational argument to back up the italicized statement above, not (just) an inductive generalization.

Why? Everyone evaluates ordinary, everyday knowledge in terms of its empirical predictions, so everyone seems to accept the italicised statement in practice, even if they'd argue for some sophisticated alternative in the abstract.