Empiricism and A Priori Reasoning Lecture

Yesterdays lecture on empiricism and A Priori reasoning was something quite interesting and not something that I was expecting. Some of the ideas that were discussed; for example, Descartes famous quote: "I think, therefore I am" and empiricist views, which rely on ideas that are rooted in direct experience, are both very contrasting views, but both ideas have valid points.

Empiricist views may seem like the sort of ideas that can be truly believed as they can actually be physically proven, but on the other hand most A Priori ideas are based on logic and there is no way in order to disprove them. For example, David Icke's "Reptilian Agenda" views cannot be totally rejected as there is no way of proving that we are not ruled by lizard overlords.

For our task we were asked to find one example of empirical argument and one of an A Priori argument. My example of an A Priori argument comes from The Times on Monday. There was an article detailing how a senior British military commander, referring to the city of Basra in Iraq, stated that "we will be leaving behind a city that is in a far better nick than it was when we arrived in 2003." Although much of the British public may believe that the armed forces have carried out a good job in Iraq, there is no empirical proof of this or, in fact, any way of measuring how much better the city has got. He also states in the same article how the deaths of 179 servicemen is a price to pay for success. Once again, there is no empirical proof of this. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article5741840.ece

An example of an empirical argument that I found was in yesterdays Sun. A piece by ex-pro Ian Wright, who drew up comparisons between Chelsea and Aston Villa. He came to the conclusion that since both teams were taken over by foreign buyers, Chelsea by Roman Abramovich and Villa by Randy Lerner, Aston Villa had performed better. The evidence he gave for his argument was plain to see. In the 4 years since American Lerner took over at Villa, the Midlands team have gone from finishing in 16th position, to 11th, to 6th and currently sit in 3rd place. On the other hand, since Abramovich has been at Chelsea, they have gone from winning the title in 2006, to dropping a place every season since. Wright states that this shows that Lerner understands the game more than Abromovich. Although there is no empirical evidence for this, there is still evidence that Aston Villa have performed better. http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/football/article2243267.ece