empiricism

World History

(noun)

A theory which states that knowledge comes only or primarily from sensory experience. It emphasizes evidence, especially as in the kind of evidence gathered through experimentation and by use of the scientific method.

Related Terms

  • Rye House Plot
  • chemical revolution
  • science of man
  • natural rights
  • Two Treatises of Government
  • Newtonianism
  • Encyclopédie
  • reductionism
  • metaphysics
  • cogito ergo sum
  • social contract theory
  • Baconian metho
  • scientific metho
  • Copernican Revolutio
  • scientific revolution
  • Copernican Revolution
  • British Royal Society
  • Galileo
  • scientific method
  • Baconian method
  • Hooke
  • Newton
  • Boyle
  • Descartes
  • teleology

(noun)

A theory that states that knowledge comes only or primarily from sensory experience. It is a fundamental part 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.

Related Terms

  • Rye House Plot
  • chemical revolution
  • science of man
  • natural rights
  • Two Treatises of Government
  • Newtonianism
  • Encyclopédie
  • reductionism
  • metaphysics
  • cogito ergo sum
  • social contract theory
  • Baconian metho
  • scientific metho
  • Copernican Revolutio
  • scientific revolution
  • Copernican Revolution
  • British Royal Society
  • Galileo
  • scientific method
  • Baconian method
  • Hooke
  • Newton
  • Boyle
  • Descartes
  • teleology

(noun)

A theory that states that knowledge comes only or primarily from sensory experience. One of several views of epistemology, the study of human knowledge, along with rationalism and skepticism, it emphasizes the role of experience and evidence, especially sensory experience, in the formation of ideas, over the notion of innate ideas or traditions.

Related Terms

  • Rye House Plot
  • chemical revolution
  • science of man
  • natural rights
  • Two Treatises of Government
  • Newtonianism
  • Encyclopédie
  • reductionism
  • metaphysics
  • cogito ergo sum
  • social contract theory
  • Baconian metho
  • scientific metho
  • Copernican Revolutio
  • scientific revolution
  • Copernican Revolution
  • British Royal Society
  • Galileo
  • scientific method
  • Baconian method
  • Hooke
  • Newton
  • Boyle
  • Descartes
  • teleology
Art History

(noun)

A pursuit of knowledge purely through experience, especially by means of observation and sometimes by experimentation.

Related Terms

  • salon

Examples of empiricism in the following topics:

  • Empirical Formulas

    • Empirical formulas describe the simplest whole-number ratio of the elements in a compound.
    • Empirical formulas are the simplest form of notation.
    • Empirical formulas can be determined using mass composition data.
  • Lab: Probability Topics

    • Record the results in the "Without Replacement" column section of the "Empirical Results" table.
    • Use the data from the "Empirical Results" table to calculate the empirical probability questions.
    • Convert P(no yellows) to decimal format for both Theoretical "With Replacement" and for Empirical "With Replacement".
    • Empirical "With Replacement": P(no yellows) = c.
  • Reasons to avoid international markets

    • Kaynak, "An Empirical Investigation of the Differences Between Initiating and Continuing Exporters," European Journal of Marketers, Vol. 26, No.3, 1992. )
  • Molecular Formulas

  • Pragmatism

    • Peirce was concerned with inference to explanatory hypotheses as outside the usual foundational alternative between deductivist rationalism and inductivist empiricism—though he himself was a mathematical logician and a founder of statistics.
  • Rationalism

    • This is commonly called continental rationalism, because it was predominant in the continental schools of Europe, whereas in Britain empiricism, or a theory that knowledge comes only or primarily from a sensory experience, dominated.
    • Although rationalism and empiricism are traditionally seen as opposing each other, the distinction between rationalists and empiricists was drawn at a later period and would not have been recognized by philosophers involved in Enlightenment debates.
    • On the other hand, Leibniz admitted in his book Monadology that "we are all mere Empirics in three fourths of our actions."
    • Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) rejected the dogmas of both rationalism and empiricism and tried to reconcile rationalism and religious belief, individual freedom and political authority, as well as map out a view of the public sphere through private and public reason.
  • Interest Rates and the Business Cycle

    • Empirical evidence indicates that market interest rates rise during a business cycle and fall during recessions.
  • Which Methodology is "Correct?"

    • Modern economic theory has a long tradition of following a "modernist" methodology characterized by a strong faith in empiricism and rationalism.
  • Reasons for entering international markets

    • Kaynak, "An Empirical Investigation of the Differences Between Initiating and Continuing Exporters," European Journal of Marketers, Vol. 26, No.3, 1992. ) But although many firms view in markets with trepidation, others still make the decision to go international.
  • Sociology and Science

    • Early sociological studies were thought to be similar to the natural sciences due to their use of empiricism and the scientific method.
    • The effect of employing the scientific method and stressing empiricism was the distinction of sociology from theology, philosophy, and metaphysics.
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