Empiricism at Bay?

Abstract

At the risk of being regarded a’ square’ and ‘reactionary’ I wish to defend, explicate, reformulate and’ salvage’ whatever seems valuable to me in the empiricist tradition in the philosophy of science. I am fully aware of the almost hostile vogue of ‘beating-up’ on the empiricists, a fashion that is still in full swing. My only consolation is the remark of a well-known British philosopher. When he visited us at the University of Minnesota a few years ago, he said to me: “Don’t worry Feigl, if you don’t catch the bus of philosophy the first time, just wait a while, it’ll come ‘round again!”. Since I was lucky enough to catch the bus of philosophical fashion some forty years ago, I hope to be lucky once again during the rest of my ‘natural life’.