My Thoughts on Empiricism
I’m recently learning about philosophy and so fascinated by how wide the world of philosophy is. I have only dipped one of my toes into this great ocean and am trying to give a piece of my mind about what I thought so far.
To say something empirically true is that the reality exist outside the observer’s mind and accessible by other through sensory observation. A pain is true for a patient since the reality of pain is suffered only by the patient though they cannot present the pain itself to others. Thus the pain itself is not something empiric, but the wound that induces the pain is empiric.
A reality is empiric if it’s stood independently free from the possible observers. Being empiric doesn’t necessarily mean the reality itself is objective, because empirical independence doesn’t have to adhere to the inference of the observer. Something is said to be objective if the existence of something is measurable in any way and shall apply universally to all observers. Subjectiveness meant that the existence of a thing may be perceived differently dependent to each observer.
The whole science concept is there to study the empirical world. Those that exist beyond the scope of empiricism is out of the science questions. Empiricism is a belief that everything that exists in this universe has to share one common reality. The consequence of this belief is that everything is and should be knowable through science. Whenever our knowledge hits the edges of the empirical world, it doesn’t mean that particular thing is unknowable but we merely are yet to have the capacity to recognize that object.
Such unrelenting attitude will lead the believers to do indefinite search of all knowledge, regardless of how the search would become. On the other hand, it will also lead the believer to resist the idea of transcendentalism that believes in the existence of the higher beings that are both independent from us and govern the empirical world altogether.
Both beliefs may lead people to polarization or secularization, yet each beliefs are not there to falsify one another as they are unable to define which is the truest of them all. On the other hand, the knowledge of both may satisfy those who are unsatisfied merely by the knowledge provided by one of them. In the early age of science, Galileo was sentenced to death for not willing to totally submit to the present belief of total transcendentalism. Yet science thrived long enough through ages to the time when each exists not to falsify each other but stand independently in the heart and mind of the believers. If science studies the world as is, then religions study how the world should be. Science does not provide humanity with answers like what is good or bad, only religions and local wisdoms may provide us with that.
The world where I live is where people collide against each other with their beliefs at their back. They have failed to see that beliefs are not meant to falsify each other but our reasons to recognize that people may choose to live in the reality of what they believe. As a religious person, I believe in the existence of transcendental reality and at the same time believe the empiricallity of this universe that begs our effort to learn more. You are free to choose what to believe in.
Both empiricalism and transcendentalism though appear on the opposing sides do not necessarily puts you in one or the other, nor it place you in the spectrum between them. Both may exist individually in each of us.
Insya Allah.
