Experimental Philosophy and the Origins of Empiricism

Posted on August 23, 2010 by Alberto Vanzo

Philosophers from the early modern period (from Descartes to Hume) are normally divided into Rationalists and Empiricists. Yet this distinction was developed by post-Kantian philosophers from the late 18th century. In this research project we are exploring the hypothesis that there is a far better way of approaching early modern philosophers.

Our central thesis is that the most common and the most important distinction in early modern philosophy is that between Experimental and Speculative Philosophy. This is a distinction that many of the actors actually used, and, we claim, it can explain all that the traditional distinction can explain and more besides.

Here is how John Dunton describes philosophy in his The Young-Students-Library (1692):

Philosophy may be consider’d under these two Heads, Natural and Moral: The first of which, by Reason of the strange Alterations that have been made in it; may be again Subdivided into

Speculative

and

Experimental

.

We must consider, the distinction we have made of

Speculative

and

Experimental

, and, as much as possible,  Exclude the first, for an indefatigable and laborious Search into Natural Experiments, they being only the Certain, Sure Method to gather a true Body of Philosophy, for the Antient Way of clapping up an entire building of Sciences, upon pure Contemplation, may make indeed an

Admirable Fabrick

, but the Materials are such as can promise no lasting one.

Dunton’s comment in a student text reflects the fact that this distinction was very widespread within natural philosophy. Indeed it is to be found in the writings of almost all of the leading British philosophers in the late seventeenth century, including Locke, Boyle and Newton, and many continental philosophers as well. Moreover, by the mid-18th century this distinction between experimental and speculative philosophy had found its way into other branches of philosophy, such as moral philosophy, aesthetics and the study of the understanding. The experimental-speculative distinction thus provided the fundamental terms of reference within which some of the most important developments of early modern philosophy took shape.

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