ABSTRACT
Natural philosophers have hitherto sought to understand ‘mean-
ings’; the task is to change them. (CDCM: 288)
Empiricism assumes we can know some particular facts independ-
ently of others; we can collect such evidential facts and make non-
deductive inferences to general truths; and, finally, we can develop
theories that enable us to explain these general truths. Traditional
empiricism also assumes that our knowledge hooks into reality via the
given and, thus, that all our general ‘abstract’ knowledge is ultimately
in the service of our interaction with the given. Science, the repository
of our most general and most abstract knowledge, is treated as merely
instrumental. Science develops ever more sophisticated methods to
anticipate and plan for encounters with the given, but the given
retains ontological priority over any posits science may propose.
