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2 ideas
| 10404 | Extreme empiricists can hardly explain anything [Swoyer] |
| Full Idea: Extreme empiricists wind up unable to explain much of anything. | |
| From: Chris Swoyer (Properties [2000], 2.3) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the major problem for empiricism, but I am not sure why inference to the best explanation should not be part of a sensible empirical approach. Thinking laws are just 'descriptions of regularities' illustrates the difficulty. |
| 13001 | Our sensation of green is a confused idea, like objects blurred by movement [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: The sensory idea of green (made of blue and yellow) is a confused idea, like the swift rotation of a cog-wheel which makes us perceive an artificial transparency, and we are not able to discern the cause, the idea of the teeth on the wheel. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 4.06) | |
| A reaction: This is one of Leibniz's less well-known objections to empiricism. He always says that intellectual ideas are capable of a clarity which is never found in sensory experience. |