A Synthetic Method for the Study of Empirical Ontology

Abstract

In European philosophy there have been two definite but seperate traditions. One was the tradition of the ontology of idealism, as for instance with Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz; and another was the tradition of the epistemology of empiricism, as with Locke, Berkeley and Hume. Both ontology and epistemology are speculative fields, however, and there is no justification for such narrow and exclusive associations. Idealism is not peculiar to ontology nor empiricism to epistemology. There could be for instance an epistemology of idealism and a metaphysics of empiricism. As a matter a fact epistemology has sometimes been studied in relation to idealism, as the tradition of Schelling, Fichte and Hegel exemplifies; but nobody has thought to construct a system of ontology consistent with empiricism. Yet it must remain true that eventually an ontology is known by the method it uses.