Empiricism, Stances, And The Problem Of Voluntarism

Authors

Peter Baumann, Swarthmore CollegeFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1-2011

Published In

Synthese

Abstract

Classical empiricism leads to notorious problems having to do with the (at least prima facie) lack of an acceptable empiricist justification of empiricism itself. Bas van Fraassen claims that his idea of the "empirical stance" can deal with such problems. I argue, however, that this view entails a very problematic form of voluntarism which comes with the threat of latent irrationality and normative inadequacy. However, there is also a certain element of truth in such a voluntarism. The main difficulty consists in finding an acceptable form of voluntarism.

Comments

This work is a preprint and is freely available courtesy of the author.

The final publication version can be freely accessed courtesy of Springer Nature's SharedIt service.

Recommended Citation

Peter Baumann. (2011). "Empiricism, Stances, And The Problem Of Voluntarism". Synthese. Volume 178, Issue 1. 27-36. DOI: 10.1007/s11229-009-9519-7
https://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-philosophy/13