I’ll start by quoting The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48, where that dictionary draws upon the 1913 edition of Webster’s dictionary for the particular terms of interest in this essay. (The reader is well-advised to pay attention to the definitions and maybe even contemplate their deeper meanings and implications because I’ll be moving fast in this essay outlining a future discussion which will be much more complete and part of a still more complete and complex work, God willing.)
Empirical: Pertaining to, or founded upon, experiment or experience; depending upon the observation of phenomena; versed in experiments.
In philosophical language, the term empirical means simply what belongs to or is the product of experience or observation. –Sir W. Hamilton.
The village carpenter . . . lays out his work by empirical rules learnt in his apprenticeship. –H. Spencer.
Both of the quotes following the definition are also drawn from the 1913 Webster. That dictionary gives a second definition concentrating upon what `empirical’ is not:
Empirical: Depending upon experience or observation alone, without due regard to science and theory; — said especially of medical practice, remedies, etc.; wanting in science and deep insight; as, empiric skill, remedies.
Taken together, so that we can catch a better view of these definitions in light of the context of general human understandings of being as of 1913, we can see a true problem. One of the cliches of modern scientific thought is, “There are no facts without theories.” Following that path a little: “There are no rational, human experiences without theories.” Of course, theories in this sense began (at least mostly) with the early Greek philosophers—whose work overlapped with mathematics and physics. Think of theory in a general sense, including the creation myths of pre-literate tribal peoples and the more sophisticated myths of the higher pagans; including a smorgasbord of `old wives’ tales’, fisherman’s tales, tales of totemic hunters; including rules of thumb of justice and social order, and so forth. Thus, there seems to be some sort of a mistake or gap in earlier understandings of what `empirical’ could be, in 1913 understandings. Our dogs and cats aren’t frightened by comets flashing across the sky as were our superstitious ancestors. Nor are those animals frightened by a comet coming directly at us, or in a glancing manner, as we modern, scientific humans are. Of course, even animals far less intelligent than dogs or cats will be frightened when the comet is blindingly bright.
Here’s a link to an entry at a serious technological blog: Cats and Vision: is vision acquired or innate?. Cats raised in an environment where they see only horizontal (vertical) lines during crucial periods of brain development will not be able to see vertical (horizontal) lines for the rest of their lives. It seems likely that even the basic (innate or intuitive) elements of our perceptions aren’t direct but rather formed by interaction with what is in our environments.
I’ll relate some recent personal experiences here. I recently had two lens replacements because of an unusual situation. By the age of 62—2017, I had normal slow-developing cataracts and then, sometime between 2017/09 and 2018/09, a third cataract began to develop rapidly. That third cataract developed so that it picked up the false image from a defect in my cornea (astigmatism) and threw it someplace on my retina apart from the location which was in my lens prescription. My brain was confused and I was seeing a weird world in which objects were compressed when seen through my left eye but normal when seen through my right eye. So I had two `premature’ but highly successful surgeries to correct the situation. Six weeks after the second surgery and three weeks after getting new eyeglasses, my vision of the world around me is stabilizing. I no longer see shadows as real objects, perhaps very strange objects. I see the tops of pew-backs in my church as being parallel to each other. The eye-surgeon had warned me it was possible my brain would shut down the eye giving it information it couldn’t make good sense of. It didn’t shut the eye down but it was reeling like a punch-drunk boxer.
See A Mathematical Model Unlocks the Secrets of Vision for an interesting discussion of:
the great mystery of human vision: Vivid pictures of the world appear before our mind’s eye, yet the brain’s visual system receives very little information from the world itself. Much of what we “see” we conjure in our heads.
“A lot of the things you think you see you’re actually making up,” said Lai-Sang Young, a mathematician at New York University. “You don’t actually see them.”
Yet the brain must be doing a pretty good job of inventing the visual world, since we don’t routinely bump into doors.
It would seem that the `empirical’, world or aspects, isn’t what it was thought to be by the editors of the 1913 Webster nor by David Hume nor Aristotle nor any of the authors of the Bible nor by any past thinker I’m aware of.
If the reader follows some path of thought similar to mine, he might wonder if `empirical’ is truly a useful concept—such skepticism is a necessary attitude in these sorts of situations even if that reader is convinced of the need and importance of experience, including bodily perceptions, in our efforts to understand some of the various aspects of our world—I’ll label as `practical’ or `scientific’ those aspects and the thoughts they lead to. I am so convinced. I’m also convinced that our higher or more abstract thoughts originate in those, mostly reliable, bodily perceptions. They originate by way of processes I’ll be trying to at least sketch out in this series of essays, which essays I plan to flesh out and put into book form.
There is another, more specific error embedded in this way of thinking, an error which is unconscious and dangerous in the thoughts of Kant and many who followed him even while opposing him in many ways. We imagine schemes of human knowledge which are really for human comfort and convenience and which, I claim, don’t correspond that well to the actual being of our world. It’s a fully conscious error on my part, one I make to ease the path for my modern mind and the modern minds of my readers or any who might hear of some of my ideas by various second- or third-hand routes. This deliberate mis-categorization of knowledge corresponds to some fundamental errors in the ways in which we learn in formal schooling and, most likely, in our various cultural and social activities. A small amount of deep thinking after recognition of the interaction of eye and mind in even seeing the tree outside my window points to the unity of knowledge, of various sorts of knowledge including even revelation. If I’m right, the reader might take comfort in this: it took me years of reading and contemplation and more reading and some serious studying of various subjects to absorb this insight and make it truly mine.
The fundamental error which leads to a misunderstanding of knowledge begins with a misunderstanding of the being which is the object of knowledge. One important and pedagogically useful form of this error is simply:
Being is of two types, one material and one immaterial. The two types of being cannot mix though they can, under some circumstances, be in such communion as to form a human being. The material part of human being is flesh and blood, while the immaterial includes something we can’t describe except by way of comparison to our beliefs about the nature of divine Being.
Yet, we must ask: If man is entirely a product of biological evolution and if his thinking is done, consciously or innately, in his physical brain, how has he been able to even conceive of such concepts as `infinity’? The answer for now is simple: we learn of infinity by interacting with God—though many great thinkers haven’t been able to believe this is what they are doing when contemplating truly abstract, truly deep matters. This blindness is made possible since most of our dealings with God are through what the Medievals labeled His `effects in Creation’. Another term, more useful and more powerful, is `acts-of-being’, His acts of creating and of sustaining and shaping what He has created. This leads to my draft conclusion:
There are but two types of being: the necessary Being of God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—and the contingent being that God has created.