in philosophy, the attitude that beliefs are to be accepted and acted upon only if they first have been confirmed by actual experience. This broad definition accords with the derivation of the name from the Greek word empeiria, “experience.” More specifically, however, Empiricism comprises a pair of closely related, but still distinct, philosophical doctrines—one pertaining to concepts and the other to propositions.
The first of these doctrines, a theory of meaning, holds that words (e.g., the word substance) can be understood or the concepts requisite for any articulate thought possessed only if they are connected by their users with things that they have experienced or could experience (e.g., pieces of wood, or the gases in a gasoline engine). The second doctrine, a philosophical theory of knowledge, views beliefs, or at least some vital classes of beliefs (e.g., that Jane is kind), as depending ultimately and necessarily on experience for justification (Jane is seen performing acts of kindness).
It is not obvious, however, that either of these two doctrines strictly implies the other. Several recognized Empiricists have admitted that there are a priori propositions but have denied that there are a priori concepts. The reverse disconnection between the two forms of Empiricism, however, has no obvious exponents, since there are hardly any philosophers who totally deny a priori propositions and certainly none who would at the same time accept a priori concepts.
Stressing experience, Empiricism is thus opposed to the claims of authority, intuition, imaginative conjecture, and abstract, theoretical, or systematic reasoning as sources of reliable belief. Its most fundamental antithesis is with the latter (i.e., with Rationalism, also called intellectualism or apriorism). A Rationalist theory of meaning asserts that there are concepts not derived from or correlated with experienceable features of the world, such as “cause,” “identity,” or “perfect circle,” and that these concepts are a priori (Latin: “from the former”) in the traditional sense of being part of the mind’s innate or natural equipment—as opposed to being a posteriori (Latin: “from the latter”), or grounded in the experience of facts. On the other hand, a Rationalist theory of knowledge holds that there are beliefs that are a priori (i.e., that depend for their justification upon thought alone), such as the belief that everything must have a sufficient reason or that a process cannot exist by itself but must occur within some substance. Such beliefs can arise either from intellectual intuition, the direct apprehension of self-evident truth, or from purely deductive reasoning.
In both everyday attitudes and philosophical theories, the experiences referred to are principally those arising from stimulation of the sense organs, in particular those of sight and touch. Most philosophical Empiricists, however, have maintained that sensation is not the only provider of experience, admitting as empirical the awareness of mental states in introspection or reflection, such as feelings of pain or of fear, often metaphorically described as present to the “inner sense.” It is a controversial question whether still further types of experience, such as moral, aesthetic, or religious experience, ought to be acknowledged as empirical.
Two other viewpoints related to but not the same as Empiricism are the Pragmatism of the American philosopher and psychologist William James, an aspect of which was Radical Empiricism, and Logical Positivism, also called Logical Empiricism. Though these philosophies are, indeed, empirical, each has a distinctive focus that warrants its treatment as a separate movement. Pragmatism stresses the involvement of ideas in practical experience and action, whereas Logical Empiricism is more concerned with scientific experience.
When describing an everyday attitude, the word Empiricism sometimes conveys an unfavourable implication of ignorance of or indifference to relevant theory. Thus, to call a doctor an “Empiric” has been to call him a quack—a usage traceable to a sect of medical men who were opposed to the elaborate medical, and in some views metaphysical, theories of Galen, a prominent Greek physician of the 2nd century ad, theories which dominated medicine until the 17th century. The medical Empiricists opposed to Galen preferred to rely on treatments of observed clinical effectiveness, without inquiring into the mechanisms sought by therapeutic theory. But “Empiricism,” detached from this medical association, may also be used, more favourably, to describe a hard-headed refusal to be swayed by anything but the facts that the thinker has observed for himself, a blunt resistance to received opinion or precarious chains of abstract reasoning.
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