Is the empirical approach to the acquisition of knowledge a valid one?
Yes, if and only if you also accept the conceptual connection to the rational side of the mind. It is when you embrace Empiricism and reject Rationalism, or vice verse, that you limit yourself. That either/or mistake has caused many problems in the world, such as the Humean idea that we cannot know “causes” because we can’t actually see what happens to a billiard ball when another ball bumps it; we can only deduce that one ball made the other one move! (So there is a very important philosopher to study because Humean Empiricism is responsible for, among many other things, modern Humanism that says man is not responsible for his actions–because we cannot see a direct and clear link between a man’s actions as the cause of what follows, AND that we cannot rule out that he himself was caused to do what he did by previous actions of others and of the influences of the environment.) Kant is famous for his attempt to ‘fuse’ the two philosophies with his ‘transcendentalism’. He became one of
