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Lexicon.

empiricism

noun [ɛmˈpɪɹəˌsɪzəm]
pronunciation CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, open source

Empiricism is the belief that we learn about the world through experience, chiefly by observing and experimenting, and more loosely a practical habit of trusting evidence over theory.

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Definitions

  1. In philosophy: the theory that all or most of our knowledge starts with what the senses report, and that claims about the world must in the end be checked against experience.
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  2. In science and research: the practice of basing conclusions on data gathered by observation, measurement and experiment rather than on pure theory.
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  3. In older use: practice, especially in medicine, that relies only on trial and past experience without knowledge of underlying principles, often with a hint of quackery.
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Examples

Usage

In everyday English empiricism is less common than the adjective empirical, but it carries the same idea: check first, then believe. Praising someone's empiricism means they rely on evidence, trials and results rather than on hunches or authority. In science writing the word describes the basic habit of research, which is to collect data from observation and experiment and to let those data decide between competing ideas. Used this way the word is neutral or approving.

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The word also has an older, less flattering sense. Webster (1913) lists, beside the philosophical meaning, medical practice founded on mere experience without science or knowledge of principles, glossed as charlatanry and quackery. It defines an empiric as one who relies on practical experience, or as an unlicensed pretender, and notes that Greek physicians who based their practice on experience called themselves empirics. A trace of this survives when an approach is called purely empirical, meaning trial and error.

source Editorial team; facts: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1913, open source

The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1909 describes empiricism as the theory that all human knowledge is derived exclusively from experience, and opposes it to intellectualism, rationalism and apriorism. According to that article, Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes prepared the ground, and John Locke, who died in 1704, gave the view its first systematic form by deriving simple ideas from sensation and compound ideas from reflection. George Berkeley and David Hume took it further, and in the nineteenth century positivists such as Auguste Comte and John Stuart Mill continued the line.

source Editorial team; facts: F. Siegfried, Empiricism, The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 5, Robert Appleton Company, New York 1909, open source

Common company for the noun includes adjectives such as British, logical, radical, naive and scientific, and verbs such as adopt, champion or abandon. Someone who holds the view is an empiricist; Webster (1913) still treats empiricist simply as another word for empiric. Empiricism is usually set against rationalism, its traditional rival on the question of where knowledge comes from, and should not be mixed up with empirics, an old plural for practitioners working from experience alone.

source Editorial team; facts: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1913, open source

Word forms

Regular English noun; the plural empiricisms is uncommon and names distinct schools or varieties of the doctrine.

word forms

przypadek forma
singular empiricism
plural empiricisms

Word forms: Editorial team

Collocations

Synonyms · Antonyms

Synonyms experimentalism, observation, sensationalism, positivism
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Antonyms rationalism, apriorism, intellectualism, nativism
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Etymology

The noun adds -ism to empiric. Webster (1913) traces empiric to Latin empiricus, borrowed from Greek, and compares French empirique; it defines empiricism first as the method or practice of an empiric. The Catholic Encyclopedia (1909) gives the Latin form empirismus and explains it as the standpoint of a system based on experience.
source Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1913, open source
also F. Siegfried, Empiricism, The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 5, Robert Appleton Company, New York 1909, open source

Related words

Related entries

Questions and answers

What does empiricism mean?

In philosophy empiricism is the view that knowledge comes mainly from experience, that is from what we see, hear and observe. In everyday and scientific use it means relying on evidence, observation and experiment rather than on theory or authority alone.

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How is empiricism different from rationalism?

For the empiricist, the senses supply the raw material of knowledge, and theories stand or fall by observation. The rationalist answers that reason alone can establish some truths, for example in mathematics, without any appeal to experience.

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Who are the best known empiricists?

The 1909 Catholic Encyclopedia credits John Locke with the first systematic version of the view, and treats George Berkeley and David Hume as his successors. It places Comte and Mill, the nineteenth century positivists, in the same line.

source F. Siegfried, Empiricism, The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 5, Robert Appleton Company, New York 1909, open source

Where does the word empiricism come from?

Its base is empiric, plus the ending -ism. Empiric reaches English through Latin empiricus from Greek, and first named a practitioner, often a physician, who worked from experience.

source Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1913, open source