Realist Methodology and the Articulation of Modes of Production (ص 54)
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- Realist Methodology and the Articulation of Modes of Production (ص 54)
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which referred to unobservable entities. e.g. atoms. magnetic
fields, electric currents, etc. This brings us to a point of
departure with the empiricist problematic, either we can
interpret unobservables as "logical constructs" which
economically facilitate the organisation of the empirical
Phenomena of the world or we can conceptualise these
unobservables as being "existentially real". If we accept the
second thesis, then it follows that the whole of empiricist
atomistic ontology is grounded on a misplaced concreteness. I
shall argue in the following section that this is one of the
crucial, but completely understandable. errors of empiricism.
Last, if we look at the empiricist concept of causality viz.
regularity determinism. This concept of cause is grounded in
the atomistic ontology of empiricism in which a_ constant
conjunction of empirical events 1s necessary, if not
sufficient, evidence for the establishment of causal laws.
Now, if the empiricist account of ontology is itself
undermined then its concept of regularity determinism, which
is articulated on the ground of this ontology, may be found
to be wanting. Regularity determinism is only coherent if the
world is constituted of atomistic empirical events and if
these discrete phenomena constitute the particulars of the
world per se. If there are deeper ontological levels which
substantiate the world as more extensive than the empirical
then the Humean account of causality will have to be re-
thought on the basis of a new concept of ontology.
In summary, the coherence of the empiricist and positivist
40 - تاريخ
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- المنشئ
- Alex Pollock
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