| Research Abstract |
On this research projects, six papers have been published. All of them are reprinted in the research report. In the first paper, 'John Locke's philosophy of natural science', I point out that the stereotyped scheme of the modern epistemology, i.e.from the inner representations to the outer world, fails to grasp Locke's philosophical stance correctly. His stance can be understood only with the logico-linguistic scheme about the particulars and the universals. The second paper, 'The establishment of empirical knowledge --the given, the utility, the society', makes it clear that the grounds of empiricist knowledge claims are not only the sense-data but also the utility of knowledge and the authoritative endorsement of knowledge claims made by skilled professionals. In the third paper, 'An individual in experiencing --naturalism and the criticisms of sense-data theory', I maintain that naturalism today has some similarity to the classical empiricism and that so-called sense-data theory does not correctly represent the genuine empiricist philosophy. In the fourth paper, 'How long have philosophers been ignorant of the essence of experimental natural science? ', I point out that the stereotyped "inner-outer" scheme of epistemology has deprived philosophers of the access to a true understanding of experiments and observations in natural science. In the fifth paper, 'The Modern Concept of Man and Hume on Personal Identity', presented at the 24th Hume Conference at Monterey, California, 1997, I put forward a view that Hume's method of analysis of the concept of personal identity can be regarded an archetype of the sociology of knowledge and the social anthropology today. The sixth paper, 'Descartes and the British empiricism', describes the traits which differentiate empiricists, such as Robert Boyle and John Locke, from Cartesians.
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