James: Empiricism

„Now, ordinary empiricism, in spite of the fact that conjunctive and disjunctive relations present themselves as being fully co-ordinate parts of experience, has always shown a tendency to do away with the connections of things, and to insist most on the disjunctions. Berkeley’s nominalism, Hume’s statement that whatever things we distinguish are as ‚loose and separate‘ as if they had ’no manner of connection.‘ James Mill’s denial that similars have anything ‚really‘ in common, the resolution of the causal tie into habitual sequence, John Mill’s account of both physical things and selves as composed of discontinuous possibilities, and the general pulverization of all Experience by association and the mind-dust theory, are examples of what I mean.“ (p. 38) #James #empiricism #experience #Berkeley #Hume #Mill