Tim Button
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199672172
- eISBN:
- 9780191758393
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199672172.003.0006
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
This chapter explores three versions of bracketed empiricism. The first involves the idea of a constructed world (as in Carnap’s Aufbau). The second involves the idea that there is a dichotomy ...
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This chapter explores three versions of bracketed empiricism. The first involves the idea of a constructed world (as in Carnap’s Aufbau). The second involves the idea that there is a dichotomy between sensation-words (used to describe sensations) and posit-words (used for posits in a theory that adequately captures ones sensations). The third involves the loose idea of a notional world. All three positions hold that empirical content is given solely in terms of bracketed experience. Consequently, all three positions effectively erect a veil of sensations between the subject and the world. All three must therefore accept that, by their own lights, any statement with empirical content is just more theory and so fails to constrain reference.Less
This chapter explores three versions of bracketed empiricism. The first involves the idea of a constructed world (as in Carnap’s Aufbau). The second involves the idea that there is a dichotomy between sensation-words (used to describe sensations) and posit-words (used for posits in a theory that adequately captures ones sensations). The third involves the loose idea of a notional world. All three positions hold that empirical content is given solely in terms of bracketed experience. Consequently, all three positions effectively erect a veil of sensations between the subject and the world. All three must therefore accept that, by their own lights, any statement with empirical content is just more theory and so fails to constrain reference.
