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.

Empiricism and Science

Empiricism was a precursor of logical positivism, also known as logical empiricism. Empirical methods have dominated science until the present day. It laid the groundwork for the scientific method, which is the traditional view of theory and progress in science. However, recent theories in the past couple of decades such as quantum mechanics, constructivism, and Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions have created some slight challenges to empiricism as the exclusive way in which science works and should work. On the other hand, some argue that theories such as quantum mechanics provide a perfect example of the solidity of empiricism: the ability to discover even counter-intuitive scientific laws, and the ability to rework our theories to accept these laws.

Related Topics:
Logical positivism - Quantum mechanics - Constructivism - Kuhn

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