The Necessity of Empirical Knowledge

There are things which are known without regard to sense experience. The truths of geometry are self-evident, as are the conclusions of deductive arguments like the old 'Socrates is mortal.'

But such truths cannot yield other truths. This sort of reasoning cannot lead to anything else than is already known. The truths are ultimately tautologies. 'A is A' and 'A is not not A' do not tell me anything new. Nothing else than what is contained in the subject. And even truths of mathematics like 7+5=12 requires something other than is in the notions 5, 7, and 12 (once we have these notions, however, the truth of mathematics require no further experience for their truth).

Experience is what gives us new information. Experience is the content of our concepts. Analytic concepts which require no new experience to know are themselves derived from experience at some point. They are the products of the condensation and distilling of experiences, by our own activity, whether we are aware of it or not.

Our concepts are given the impression of universality because of external conditions which are stronger than individual will. Our species life is what gives commonality amongst other humans and with animals to different extents due to our common biological descent.

The other reason for the seeming immutability of our conceptions, and equally as hard for most humans to comprehend, is that the nature of consciousness imposes conditions on our knowledge. To understand the world, the purpose of which is self-preservation, it is entirely unnecessary to be aware of or remember everything. Only what is advantageous to maintaining difference with the environment to continue bodily motion is sufficient for life. This selectivity, due to our limited budget of energy expenditure, is responsible for our notions of space, time, and causality, which are the basis for scientific or objective knowledge [As is the existence of rest mass].

Reality is radically pluralistic, even as it is 'one' reality. One only knows something in relation to something else. Everything comes together and apart; invades each other's personal space. We attempt to impose unity or a false pluralism where similar things come grouped together under a set of arbitrary rules. Any thought we have is accompanied by a physical action, not by some mechanical relationship, but in that they are different aspects of the same thing. They are material, they are sensual.