Between Empiricism and Rationalism: A Layer of Perception Modeling Fuzzy Sets as Intermediary in Philosophy of Science

摘要

In philosophy of science we find two epistemological traditions: rationalism and empiricism. Rationalists believe that the criterion of knowledge is not sensory but intellectual and deductive whereas from the empiricist point of view the source of our knowledge is sense experience. Bridging this gap between these theories of knowledge has been a problem in philosophical approaches, both past and present. This philosophical paper focuses on using fuzzy sets and systems (FSS), computing with words (CW), and the computational theory of perceptions (CTP) as methodologies to help bridge the gap between systems and phenomena in the real world and scientific theories. It presents a proposal in which fuzzy methods are used to extend the so-called structuralist view of scientific theories in order to represent the relation of empiricism and theoretical structures in science.