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SUMMARY:The myth of the naïve empiricist - Michael Bycroft (University of
  Warwick)
DTSTART:20251112T130000Z
DTEND:20251112T143000Z
UID:TALK238351@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Matt Farr
DESCRIPTION:The naïve empiricist is a stock figure in the humanities. Acc
 ording to legend\, the naïve empiricist believes that knowledge is a dire
 ct result of experience\, unmediated by theories\, interests\, instruments
 \, or human labour. That this is indeed a legend – that it bears little 
 resemblance to what the historical empiricists actually wrote – is known
  to scholars of Francis Bacon\, Auguste Comte\, Ernst Mach\, Rudolf Carnap
 \, and the like. There has been much revisionist literature on these and o
 ther empiricists in recent decades. But there has been no attempt to weave
  together the revisionist studies into a single story about European empir
 icism over the last four centuries. I argue that we can tell such a story 
 by turning the legend on its head. The history of empiricism is the histor
 y of efforts to show just how indirect is the relationship between experie
 nce and knowledge. This has implications for a range of projects in the hu
 manities that have taken the myth of the naïve empiricist for granted.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 2\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
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