EMPIRICISM

INTRODUCTION

Definitions: “Empiricism is the

theory that the origin of all knowledge is sense experience.”

Source: Psillos, Stathis;

Curd, Martin (2010). The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Science. London: Routledge. pp. 129–138.

The term "empiricism" has a dual etymology, stemming both from the Greek word for "experience" and from the more specific classical Greek and Roman usage of "empiric", referring to a physician whose skill derives from practical experience as opposed to instruction in theory 

 The term “Empirical” also refers to the method of observation and experiment used in the natural and social sciences.

 It is a fundamental requirement of the scientific method that all hypotheses and theories must be tested against observations of the natural world, rather than resting solely on a priori reasoning, intuition or revelation.

 A posteriori (Latin: “from the latter”) - concepts can be applied only

on the basis of experience

 A priori (Latin: “from the former”) - concepts can be applied independently of experience

EXPERIENCE AND EVIDENCE(SENSORY PERCEPTION)

ONLY KNOWLEDGE HUMANS CAN HAVE

To build a more complex body of knowledge

INDUCTION OR INDUCTIVE REASONING  Inductive reasoning is a logical process in which

multiple premises, all believed true or found true most of the time, are combined to obtain a specific conclusion.

HISTORY OF EMPIRICISM

"tabula rasa" (or "clean slate")  - developed as early as the 11th Century by the Persian philosopher Avicenna.

“Knowledge is attained through empirical familiarity with objects in this world”

Abubacer (or Ibn Tufail)

He demonstrated the theory of tabula rasa as a thought experiment in which the mind of a feral child develops from a clean slate to that of an adult

Sir Francis Bacon

Bacon is

considered an early Empiricist, through his popularization of an inductive methodology for scientific inquiry or scientific method.

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding(1690)

- John Locke

“Mind is a tabula rasa on which experiences leave their marks.”

The book denied that humans have innate ideas or that anything is knowable without reference to experience.

Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710)

- George Berkeley “Things only exist

either as a result of their being perceived, or by virtue of the fact that they are an entity doing the perceiving.”

Scottish philosopher David Hume

“Human knowledge can be divided into two categories: relations of ideas and matters of fact, and that ideas are derived from our "impressions" or sensations.”

Hume said that even the most basic beliefs about the natural world, or even in the existence of the self, cannot be conclusively established by reason, but we accept them anyway because of their basis in instinct and custom.

John Stuart Mill Inductive

reasoning is necessary for all meaningful knowledge (including mathematics), and that matter is merely the "permanent possibility of sensation" 

In the late 19th Century and early 20th Century, several forms of Pragmatism arose, which attempted to integrate the apparently mutually-exclusive insights of Empiricism (experience-based thinking) and Rationalism (concept-based thinking).

 Logical Empiricism (or Logical Positivism), an early 20th Century attempt to synthesize the essential ideas of British Empiricism (a strong emphasis on sensory experience as the basis for knowledge) with certain insights from mathematical logic that had been developed by Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein.