Whats the difference between empiricism & mechanistic materialism: Philosophy Forums

Whats the difference between empiricism & mechanistic materialism

hank
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Posted 08/15/09 - 03:21 PM: Subject: What is the difference between empiricism and mechanistic materia	#1
What is the difference between empiricism and mechanistic materialism? The both seem similar derived from Francis Bacon and Newtonian mechanics. I suppose French materialism was more atheist. Who were some mechanistic materialists?

cosscos
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Posted 08/15/09 - 08:21 PM:	#2
Lenin's 'Materialism and Empirio-criticism' might be help.

sebojones
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Posted 08/16/09 - 12:17 PM:	#3
Hume's empiricism is more sceptical of laws derived from observastion. Hard-core empiricism implies a rejection of the scientific/ mechanistic assertions of Bacon and Newton because you don't actually see the assertions. For instance, Hume rejected causality because we can't see the causal connection, just a repeated correlative result from precedent conditions. Metaphysically speaking, though, both have a kind of commonsense view as opposed to a Kantian dualism; that is, they say that what you is what there is.

former
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Posted 08/16/09 - 01:01 PM:	#4
Empiricism is an approach to science and epistemology while materialism is a much wider view. I'm an empiricist if I emphasize the role of data more than everything else in my study and I'm a materialist if I believe only in matter and not in ideology. They are very different things. Of course there are more meaning for those words. For example I might say someone is a materialist if he concern himself only with the pleasures of the flesh, food, money, sex, xbox, etc. Maybe someone else can explain it more eloquently? Edited by hyena in petticoat on 08/19/09 - 12:51 AM. Reason: Illiteracy.

cosscos
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Posted 08/16/09 - 04:58 PM:	#5
If someone think the spirit or the consciousness has properties like the electron of elements, then he is qualified to be called materialist. I believe so.

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