ONT Re: Inquiry Into Isms -- Jewels Of Denial
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| Empiricism.
|
| 1. A proposition about the sources of knowledge:
| that the sole source of knowledge is experience;
| or that either no knowledge at all or no knowledge
| with existential reference is possible independently
| of experience. Experience (q.v.) may be understood
| as either all conscious content, data of the senses
| only, or other designated content. Such empiricism
| may take the form of denial that any knowledge or
| at least knowledge about existents can be obtained
| 'a priori' (q.v.); that is, denial that there are
| universal and necessary truths; denial that there
| is knowledge which holds regardless of past, present,
| or future experience; denial that there is instinctive,
| innate, or inborn knowledge; denial that the test of truth
| is clarity to natural reason or self-evidence; denial that
| one can gain certain knowledge by finding something the
| opposite of which is inconceivable; denial that there
| are any necessary presuppositions of all knowledge or
| of anything known certainly; denial that any truths
| can be established by the fact that to deny them
| implies their reaffirmation; or denial that
| conventional or arbitrary definitions or
| assumptions yield knowledge.
|
| Morris T. Keeton, in Runes, DOP, pages 89-90.
|
| Dagobert Runes (ed.), 'Dictionary of Philosophy',
| Littlefield, Adams, & Company, Totowa, NJ, 1972.
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