Philosophical Methods: From Empiricism to Hermeneutics

Empirico-Rational Method

The empirico-rational method utilizes both the senses and reason. The first level of data is provided by the senses, acknowledging that reality is multiple and changing. Reasoning allows us to perceive, extract, and understand the underlying principles of reality.

The second level of reality concerns the essence of things—what they are and why they exist. This method, known as empirico-rational, begins with physical experience and movement, culminating in the understanding of being.

Empirical Method: Experience and Reason

Experience serves as the source, while reason acts as the edge and criterion. Reason is the appropriate source for developing formal sciences like logic and mathematics, resulting in truths of reason, which do not necessarily augment knowledge.

Non-formal sciences (natural and social sciences) rely on experience, providing truths of fact, which also do not augment knowledge.

Rationalist Method: Prioritizing Reason Over Senses

• The first elements we encounter are feelings derived from the exterior, but the intellect itself processes them.
• Among these ideas, the most clear and obvious ones originate from reason.

Kant's Transcendental Method

Created by Immanuel Kant, the transcendental method does not seek the origin of our knowledge, as empiricism and rationalism do, but rather attempts to boost the capacity of reason through three fundamental questions:

• What can I know? (The question of my ability to learn.)
• What should I do? (The question of how I orient my actions.)
• What may I expect? (The question of the future and what works well.)

Human knowledge has two sources: the faculty of consciousness and intellectual faculties.

Analytic-Linguistic Method

Known as the philosophy of language analysis, this method posits that most philosophical problems arise because expressions are vague or obscure, creating confusion. Therefore, the task of philosophy is to analyze and clarify language.

Hermeneutic Method: Interpretation

Hermeneutics is the art of interpreting and understanding the meanings of texts—religious, legal, literary, scientific, and philosophical. All human conditions and historical events require interpretation to make sense.

• It demonstrates that the modern scientific method is insufficient for understanding history.
• It seeks to answer the question: How is understanding possible?
• Non-normative Hermeneutics: Believes philosophy should be satisfied with discovering the elements that make understanding possible (tradition, history, language, context).
• Normative Hermeneutics: Attempts to discover the elements of understanding while criticizing "false understandings," believing that progress in interpretation is possible.