Empiricism meaning

The word “empiricism” has a dual etymology. The first one comes from the Greek word that translates to “experientia,” meaning experience. The second one comes from Greek and Roman usage of the word “empiric,” which is used in reference to a physician using the skills one derives from their practical experience rather than from theory. Science uses the empirical approach, which started gaining popularity in the 17th and 18th centuries. The idea that knowledge should be obtained empirically, that is, through experience paved the way for methods of inquiry that used experiments and careful observation to collect facts and evidence. The scientific inquiry is done at two levels: • Theory and the foundation of a hypothesis • Use real empirical methods for inquiry – experiments, objective observations, replication, and practicing control in experiments Psychology was a little late in its employment of scientific methods; however, efforts have been made which will be discussed in detail below. Got a question on this topic? While empiricism gained immense popularity in other scientific fields such as physics, chemistry and others, the field of psychology as a science had taken a backseat until Rene Descartes wrote about the topic of consciousness, which he said, set humans apart from other animals. Following his writings were the other influential works of Spinzoa and Leibnitz; however, there is no evidence of the existence of unified, scientific psychology during these times. Psyc...

Hypothetical ExampleAn uncontacted society on a small island develops a theory in the year 1310 that other islands may also be populated with other societies. This is based on a rational argument such as "our island has people so it is possible that other islands have people." This becomes an accepted theory within the society but empiricists on the island aren't happy because the theory hasn't been confirmed with observation or measurement. In the year, 1780 ships are spotted in the horizon several times and empiricists begin to accept the theory. By 1880, garbage from other societies such as fishing nets first arrive on the shores of the island and empiricists on the island accept the theory as fact due to the mounting evidence they have collected and studied.

Feminist epistemology and philosophy of science studies the ways in which gender does and ought to influence our conceptions of knowledge, knowers, and practices of inquiry and justification. It identifies how dominant conceptions and practices of knowledge attribution, acquisition, and justification disadvantage women and other subordinated groups, and strives to reform them to serve the interests of these groups. Various feminist epistemologists and philosophers of science argue that dominant knowledge practices disadvantage women by (1) excluding them from inquiry, (2) denying them epistemic authority, (3) denigrating “feminine” cognitive styles, (4) producing theories of women that represent them as inferior, or significant only in the ways they serve male interests, (5) producing theories of social phenomena that render women’s activities and interests, or gendered power relations, invisible, and (6) producing knowledge that is not useful for people in subordinate positions, or that reinforces gender and other social hierarchies. Feminist epistemologists trace these failures to flawed conceptions of knowledge, knowers, objectivity, and scientific methodology. They offer diverse accounts of how to overcome these failures. They also aim to (1) explain why the entry of women and feminist scholars into different academic disciplines has generated new questions, theories, methods, and findings, (2) show how gender and feminist values and perspectives have played a causal r...

• aesthete • aesthetic • aesthetically • anthropocentric • anthropocentrism • esthete • esthetically • existential • existentialism • existentialist • nihilistic • non-deterministic • non-philosophical • notional • ontological • solipsistically • spatio-temporal • spatiotemporally • superorganic • supersensible Examples from literature • As the result of all this study, research and empiricism, a great mass of alleged facts about physical characteristics has been accumulated. • Empiricism thus gives no real account of the scientific rational order of the world. • I've never tried it on humans: for I've never laid down any basis of knowledge, and I've always detested empiricism. • Is experience to be dismissed as empiricism, with a sneer, because the wider rule is lacking? • It was a conclusion of pure empiricism, and I, too, as you shall see, demonstrated it empirically.

: a philosophical movement that denies the existence of any ultimate differences in the sciences, strives for unified science through a synthesis of scientific methodologies, comprises in addition to logical positivists thinkers with similar objectives, and is distinguished from earlier empiricism mainly by emphasis upon the analysis of language called also unity of science movement