There are arguments against the empiricist way of thinking about thinking and its model of how human thinking and knowing work. Empiricism is a way of seeing ourselves and our minds that sounds logical, but it has its problems.

   

                                                             (credit: Wikimedia Commons) 

Opponents of empiricism and Science have long asked, “When a human sees things in the real world and spots patterns in the events going on there, then makes statements about what she is spotting, what is doing the spotting? The human mind, and the sense data–processing programs it must already contain to be able to do the tricks empiricists describe, obviously came before any sense data processing could be done. What is this equipment, and how does it work?” Philosophers of Science have trouble explaining what this mind that does the knowing is, and thus what Science, the most rigorous form of knowing, is and is trying to do.

Consider what Science is aiming to achieve. What scientists want to discover, come to understand, and then use in creative ways in the real world are what are usually called the “laws of nature”. Scientists do more than simply observe the events in physical reality. They also strive to understand how these events come about and then to express what they understand in general statements about these events, in mathematical formulas, in chemical formulas, in rigorously logical sentences in one of the world’s many languages, or in some other symbol system used by people for conveying their thoughts to other humans. A “natural law” statement must describe one of the ways in which reality works, and, to be considered scientific, the statement must be set down in such a way that it can be tested in the real world.

If claims about a newly discovered real-world truth are going to be worth considering, scientists must be able to test those claims in some material way. Thus, any natural law statement, to be of any practical use whatever and to stand any chance of enduring, must first be expressed in some language or other symbol system that humans use to communicate ideas to other humans. A theory or model that can be expressed only inside the head of its inventor will die with her or him.