[kogus]

TL;DR: We have no idea if they were real, and if they were what caused them, and it's ok to be unsure and inconclusive sometimes.

[Hayvok]

Clarification: We have no idea if the hallucinogenic effects of the place were real, if they were mere theater, or something else altogether.

That a succession of women served as Oracles in the Temple of Apollo (for hundreds of years) is well supported.

[peatmoss]

I'm not sure I read the same thing. I think this misses the late point, that if empiricism can have weakness, what is its alternative?

[phdelightful]

Maybe the positivists’ antipositivism should just be “not everything demands an empirical explanation in order for us to continue functioning well in day-to-day life, and that’s just fine.”

[kergonath]

> what is its alternative?

Accepting that we won’t know everything (but also accept that there are things we don’t know yet and that will be known in the future, and that it’s ok to change your mind in the face of new evidence).

Actually, it’s not really an alternative to empiricism, but I don’t thing that empiricism has this particular weakness.

[martimarkov]

That’s such a good summary. I should have started with reading the comments