Empiricism

Synonyms

Analytic/synthetic; Constructivism; Perceptions; Propositional perception; Reductionism; Scientific revolution; Seeing as/seeing that

Empiricism is a part philosophical and part psychological doctrine about the origin (psychology) and evaluation (philosophy) of ideas and concepts. At an everyday level, empiricism maintains that “there is nothing in the mind but that comes from the senses; and ideas or propositions are true in as much as they conforcprm to the evidence of the senses.” At a more sophisticated level, empiricism is an epistemological doctrine about the formulation and truth testing of claims, propositions, hypotheses, and theories in all branches of inquiry – mathematics, psychology, social science, history, and so on.

Empiricism has for centuries been an influential doctrine about knowledge-seeking inquiry into the natural world; it has long been an influential philosophy of science since Aristotle’s refutation of Platonic rationalism. Understandably, over its...