QUANTUM METAPHYSICS - E-thesis

secondary value when compared to knowledge obtained via reason. For its part, the mainstream
of British Empiricism believed, like Galilei, that information about the world could not be
obtained by logical analysis alone, and that observation and experience were the source of all
knowledge: scientific statements resulted from the generalisation of experiences through the
process of induction. It was not entirely necessary for Empiricism to be connected to Materialism
or for Rationalism to be connected to Dualism. Stepping over the obvious counterparts of the
ontological and epistemological approaches, the mainstream of British Empiricism rejected
Materialism and adopted Cartesian dualism. 321
Descartes had no doubts about the absolute perfection of natural laws. They reflected the
immutability of God’s construction of universe, and therefore consequence could always be
deduced from a cause in a rational manner. Locke and Berkeley paid attention to the fact that
laws could not be obtained without experience. These empiricists realized that humans could not
be certain that their ideas really corresponded to objects in the external world. In the act of
representation, primary and secondary qualities were separated from one another and it was
doubtful whether people could ever truly consider the sense-impressions and the workings of the
human mind from an external viewpoint. A real challenge to Logical Rationalism was mounted
however by David Hume (1711-1776), who respected logic and was dissatisfied with the
“abstruse speculations” that for rationalists passed for philosophy.
Hume did not consider reasonable the earlier practice of appealing to God as guarantor of the
perfection and constancy of natural laws. From his empirical and nominalistic starting points
Hume concluded that there are no substances or selves and there is no evidence to believe in
the existence of outside world or causal relationship. When pondering the problem of the human
mind, Hume abandoned the fruitless reflection concerning the essence of the soul. He found no
more evidence to believe in the existence of mental substance, which Berkeley took to be
indisputable reality, than for the existence of physical substance and outside world. 322 The
certainty of natural sciences was also completely without basis as there was no logical reason
why previously observed regularities should continue in the same manner. On the basis of
empirical observations, people could never verify claims about the unquestionable certainty of
natural facts, and it was not possible for them to prove that natural laws and any resulting
320 Jones 1969, 156-162.
321 Niiniluoto 1980, 45-46. Trusted 1991, 80-82.
322 Hume concluded that the soul was nothing more than a series of changing states of mind which succeeded one
another in an endless forward-sweeping stream. Aspelin 1995, 373-375.
122