Empiricism

Empiricism (greek εμπειρισμός, from empirical, latin experientia - the experience), is the philosophical doctrine that all human knowledge comes at first from senses and experience. Empiricism denies that humans have innate ideas or that anything is knowable prior to any experience.

Criticisms

Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

One of the most famous challenges against empiricism is Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), which built upon Norwood Russell Hanson's Patterns of Discovery (1958). In this, he argues that theory change is actually developed through paradigm shifts, where a new idea is offered that doesn't follow on existing theories but instead offers a unique, creative solution to existing problems. Scientific thinking, in Kuhn's view, goes through revolutions, instead of gradual theory development through testing and experimentation. After the revolution occurs, scientists can see things they weren't able to see before in the former framework. Kuhn also questioned whether scientific experimentation is truly unbiased and neutral since the experimenter had previous theories and preconceptions which could affect what experiments are chosen and the way in which the results are interpreted. Kuhn also questioned whether we can trust the reliability of our senses, and cited the famous illusions printed in Hanson's 1958 book.

Related Topics:
Kuhn's - Norwood Russell Hanson - Patterns of Discovery

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Constructivism

Knowledge and reality is actively constructed by the individual, not passively received from the environment. There are many forms of constructivism, such as social constructivism and cultural constructivism.

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Quantum mechanics

Addresses the question whether experience can be used to determine an ontological reality. For example, the Many-worlds interpretation, one of the answers to the EPR paradox, argues that there are multiple versions of every observed object in every possible observable state, existing in a state of Quantum superposition. If every observable entity within our reality has a counterpart in an alternate state, then our experience of these entities does not indicate any ontological reality.

Related Topics:
Ontological - Many-worlds interpretation - EPR paradox - Quantum superposition

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