[lisper]

> the first mention of empiricism was about classifying alchemy as a type of empiricism

Yeah, but that wasn't me, that was scoofy.

> this doesn't prove anything about sensory experience being the primary means for knowledge.

It does until someone comes up with a better idea.

> he still thinks that logical truths arrived at through experience-independent reasoning are the primary source of knowledge.

Well, yeah, but he's just obviously wrong.

[knightoffaith]

1. I observe that people do not base their actions on sensory experience do stupid things.

2. Therefore, true knowledge or justification comes only from sensory experience and empirical evidence.

All that I'm saying is that (2) does not logically follow from (1), no more than "Socrates is mortal" follows from "All men are mortal". There's something missing here, an additional premise, (like "Socrates is a man" in the Socrates example).

[lisper]

> true knowledge or justification comes only from sensory experience and empirical evidence

That's a straw man. It's not "only", it's "primarily". Sensory experience is necessary, not sufficient.

[knightoffaith]

Fine, fine, replace only with primarily, and reread the comment, that's not a crucial point.

[lisper]

OK, but if you make that change then 2 does follow from 1.

[knightoffaith]

OK, let's be completely, utterly, crystal clear about this.

1. I observe that people who do not base their actions on sensory experience do stupid things.

2. Therefore, true knowledge or justification comes primarily from sensory experience and empirical evidence.

You're telling me that 2 is a logical implication of 1? You're perfectly happy with the way I've framed this---there are no hidden premises or anything like that? 2 is a direct, logical implication of 1?

[lisper]

I am not "perfectly happy" with it, no. For starters, I don't think there actually are people who do not base their actions on sensory experiences. Evolution mitigates against that pretty strongly.

I would say that if someone doesn't base their actions on sensory experience (a very big if) then they will be totally unable to navigate reality. They will almost certainly injure themselves, possibly others, and likely even kill themselves and maybe take others down with them. It's so obvious and the consequences so severe that it would be unethical to actually conduct this experiment.

Also, 2 is not a logical implication of 1. One can never rule out the possibility that, say, all human behavior is controlled by evil demons. What I would say is that my version of 1 is very compelling evidence for 2, and one of the things that makes it compelling is that it is so obviously true that a sane person would never even contemplate it as anything other than a thought experiment.

BTW, would you have any interest in being a guest on a podcast?