The Empirical Stance [Hardcover]

Professor Bas C. van Fraassen (Author)

Book Description

Series: The Terry Lectures Series | Publication Date: April 1, 2002

What is empiricism and what could it be? Bas van Fraassen, contributor to philosophical logic and the philosophy of science, here undertakes a consideration of these questions and offers a programme for renewal of the empiricist tradition. The empiricist tradition is not and could not be defined by common doctrines, but embodies a certain stance in philosophy, van Fraassen says. This stance is displayed first of all in a searing, recurrent critique of metaphysics, and second in a focus on experience that requires a voluntarist view of belief and opinion. Van Fraassen focuses on the philosophical problems of scientific and conceptual revolutions and on the not unrelated ruptures between religious and secular ways of seeing or conceiving of ourselves. He explores what it is to be or not be secular and points the way toward a new relationship between secularism and science within philosophy.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This work argues powerfully for a radical redirection of much contemporary thinking in epistemology and other important topics. It should force all of us to rethink the nature of analytic philosophy." Paul Teller, author of An Interpretive Introduction to Quantum Field Theory

From the Publisher

The Terry Lectures Series --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (April 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300088744
• ISBN-13: 978-0300088748
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,897,590 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a robust, honest, interesting philosopher, September 14, 2009

By 

Jerry L. Martin (Bucks County PA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Empirical Stance (The Terry Lectures Series) (Paperback)

Van Fraasen rejects both the old empiricism (sense data, Hume's impressions and ideas, etc.) and all forms of metaphysics (he singles out materialism particularly). For him, empirical objects are things like tables and people and stars. Science, not metaphysics, gives the best explanation of them, but it is a science that is not closed (ala materialism) with regard to what kinds of experience count. Although he does not elaborate, he seemed to include religious experience and is known to be a theist.

But it is not his particular set of philosophical views that makes this book excellent. It is the author's honest, robust, smart, open-minded thinking that makes it so good a read. He is simply good philosophical company and, for this, I recommend it highly.