RE: "Empirical Observation" - Redundant?

["Vic Forte" <vic@vicf.com>]

Actually I have a couple of problems with some of this.

"the objectivity of the real requires always construction by
the mind."

True. This coincides with how I experience things.

"It
> requires only the denial that the presentation of sense-data can by itself
> constitute valid knowledge."

His thesis appears to contain the same degree of circumlocution that he
attributes to pure empiricism. His criteria for "valid" are postulated a
priori. He then argues backwards that pure empiricism does not constitute
"valid" knowledge.

"In immediacy, there is no
> separation of subject and object.  The givenness of immediate
> data is, thus,
> not the givenness of reality,"

This sounds like a total non-sequitur. It does not seem to me that reality
depends upon the separation of subject and object. Indeed, I know of a
branch of Eastern Philosophy called "Adwaita" which postulates just the
opposite, namely that that reality can *only* be known through overcoming
the duality of subject and object. I believe this to be the highest form of
"systems thinking".

The separation of "Self" and "Other", it seems to me, is also the most
fundamental form of "sub optimisation".