Empiricism is an epistemological view in philosophy which holds that true knowledge or justification comes either only or primarily from sensory experience and empirical evidence. It is one of several competing views within epistemology, along with rationalism and skepticism. Empiricists argue that empiricism is a more reliable method of finding the truth than relying purely on logical reasoning, because humans have cognitive biases and limitations which lead to errors of judgement.
Empiricism emphasizes the central role of empirical evidence in the formation of ideas, rather than innate ideas or traditions. Empiricists may argue that traditions (or customs) arise due to relations of previous sensory experiences. Historically, empiricism was associated with the "blank slate" concept (tabula rasa), according to which the human mind is "blank" at birth and develops its thoughts only through later experience.
Empiricism in the philosophy of science emphasizes evidence, especially as discovered in experiments. It is a fundamental part of the scientific method that all hypotheses and theories must be tested against observations of the natural world rather than resting solely on a priori reasoning, intuition, or revelation. Empiricism, often used by natural scientists, holds that "knowledge is based on experience" and that "knowledge is tentative and probabilistic, subject to continued revision and falsification".Shelley, M. (2006). Empiricism. In F. English (Ed.), Encyclopedia of educational leadership and administration. (pp. 338–39). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc. Empirical research, including experiments and validated measurement tools, guides the scientific method.
Etymology
The English term empirical derives from the Ancient Greek word ἐμπειρία, empeiria, which is cognate with and translates to the Latin experientia, from which the words experience and experiment are derived.
Background
A central concept in science and the scientific method is that conclusions must be empirically based on the evidence of the senses. Both natural and social sciences use working hypotheses that are testable by observation and experiment. The term semi-empirical is sometimes used to describe theoretical methods that make use of basic axioms, established scientific laws, and previous experimental results to engage in reasoned model building and theoretical inquiry.
Philosophical empiricists hold no knowledge to be properly inferred or deduced unless it is derived from one's sense-based experience.Markie, P. (2004), "Rationalism vs. Empiricism" in Edward D. Zalta (ed.), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Eprint. In epistemology (theory of knowledge) empiricism is typically contrasted with rationalism, which holds that knowledge may be derived from reason independently of the senses, and in the philosophy of mind it is often contrasted with innatism, which holds that some knowledge and ideas are already present in the mind at birth. However, many Enlightenment rationalists and empiricists still made concessions to each other. For example, the empiricist John Locke admitted that some knowledge (e.g. knowledge of God's existence) could be arrived at through intuition and reasoning alone. Similarly, Robert Boyle, a prominent advocate of the experimental method, held that we also have innate ideas. At the same time, the main continental rationalists (Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz) were also advocates of the empirical "scientific method".Buckle, Stephen (1999), "British Sceptical Realism. A Fresh Look at the British Tradition", European Journal of Philosophy, 7, pp. 1–2.Peter Anstey, "ESP is best ", Early Modern Experimental Philosophy, 2010.
History Early empiricism
Between 600 and 200 BCE, the Vaisheshika school of Hindu philosophy, founded by the ancient Indian philosopher Kanada, accepted perception and inference as the only two reliable sources of knowledge.DPS Bhawuk (2011), Spirituality and Indian Psychology (Editor: Anthony J. Marsella), Springer, , p. 172.Eliott Deutsche (2000), in Philosophy of Religion: Indian Philosophy Vol 4 (Editor: Roy Perrett), Routledge, , pp. 245-248.John A. Grimes, A Concise Dictionary of Indian Philosophy: Sanskrit Terms Defined in English, State University of New York Press, , p. 238. This is enumerated in his work Vaiśeṣika Sūtra. The Charvaka school held similar beliefs, asserting that perception is the only reliable source of knowledge while inference obtains knowledge with uncertainty.
The earliest Western proto-empiricists were the empiric school of ancient Greek medical practitioners, founded in 330 BCE. Its members rejected the doctrines of the dogmatic school, preferring to rely on the observation of phantasiai (i.e., phenomena, the appearances).Sini, Carlo (2004), "Empirismo", in Gianni Vattimo et al. (eds.), Enciclopedia Garzanti della Filosofia. The Empiric school was closely allied with the Pyrrhonist school of philosophy, which made the philosophical case for their proto-empiricism.
The notion of tabula rasa ("clean slate" or "blank tablet") connotes a view of the mind as an originally blank or empty recorder (Locke used the words "white paper") on which experience leaves marks. This denies that humans have innate ideas. The notion dates back to Aristotle, :
Aristotle's explanation of how this was possible was not strictly empiricist in a modern sense, but rather based on his theory of potentiality and actuality, and experience of sense perceptions still requires the help of the active nous. These notions contrasted with Platonic notions of the human mind as an entity that pre-existed somewhere in the heavens, before being sent down to join a body on Earth (see Plato's Phaedo and Apology, as well as others). Aristotle was considered to give a more important position to sense perception than Plato, and commentators in the Middle Ages summarized one of his positions as "nihil in intellectu nisi prius fuerit in sensu" (Latin for "nothing in the intellect without first being in the senses").
This idea was later developed in ancient philosophy by the Stoic school, from about 330 BCE. Stoic epistemology generally emphasizes that the mind starts blank, but acquires knowledge as the outside world is impressed upon it. The doxographer Aetius summarizes this view as "When a man is born, the Stoics say, he has the commanding part of his soul like a sheet of paper ready for writing upon."Diels-Kranz 4.11 translated by
Islamic Golden Age and Pre-Renaissance (5th to 15th centuries CE)
During the Middle Ages (from the 5th to the 15th century CE) Aristotle's theory of tabula rasa was developed by Islamic philosophers starting with Al Farabi (), developing into an elaborate theory by Avicenna (c. 980 – 1037 CE) and demonstrated as a thought experiment by Ibn Tufail. For Avicenna (Ibn Sina), for example, the tabula rasa is a pure potentiality that is actualized through education, and knowledge is attained through "empirical familiarity with objects in this world from which one abstracts universal concepts" developed through a "syllogistic method of reasoning in which observations lead to propositional statements which when compounded lead to further abstract concepts". The intellect itself develops from a material intellect (al-'aql al-hayulani), which is a potentiality "that can acquire knowledge to the active intellect (al-'aql al-fa'il), the state of the human intellect in conjunction with the perfect source of knowledge".Sajjad H. Rizvi (2006), Avicenna/Ibn Sina (c. 980–1037), Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. So the immaterial "active intellect", separate from any individual person, is still essential for understanding to occur.
In the 12th century CE, the Andalusian Muslim philosopher and novelist Abu Bakr Ibn Tufail (known as "Abubacer" or "Ebu Tophail" in the West) included the theory of tabula rasa as a thought experiment in his Arabic philosophical novel, Hayy ibn Yaqdhan in which he depicted the development of the mind of a feral child "from a tabula rasa to that of an adult, in complete isolation from society" on a desert island, through experience alone. The Latin translation of his philosophical novel, entitled Philosophus Autodidactus, published by Edward Pococke the Younger in 1671, had an influence on John Locke's formulation of tabula rasa in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.G. A. Russell (1994), The 'Arabick' Interest of the Natural Philosophers in Seventeenth-Century England, pp. 224–62, Brill Publishers, .
A similar Islamic theological novel, Theologus Autodidactus, was written by the Arab theologian and physician Ibn al-Nafis in the 13th century. It also dealt with the theme of empiricism through the story of a feral child on a desert island, but departed from its predecessor by depicting the development of the protagonist's mind through contact with society rather than in isolation from society.Dr. Abu Shadi Al-Roubi (1982), "Ibn Al-Nafis as a philosopher", Symposium on Ibn al-Nafis, Second International Conference on Islamic Medicine: Islamic Medical Organization, Kuwait (cf. Ibn al-Nafis As a Philosopher , Encyclopedia of Islamic World).
During the 13th century Thomas Aquinas adopted into scholasticism the Aristotelian position that the senses are essential to the mind. Bonaventure (1221–1274), one of Aquinas' strongest intellectual opponents, offered some of the strongest arguments in favour of the Platonic idea of the mind.
Renaissance Italy
In the late renaissance various writers began to question the medieval and classical understanding of knowledge acquisition in a more fundamental way. In political and historical writing Niccolò Machiavelli and his friend Francesco Guicciardini initiated a new realistic style of writing. Machiavelli in particular was scornful of writers on politics who judged everything in comparison to mental ideals and demanded that people should study the "effectual truth" instead. Their contemporary, Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) said, "If you find from your own experience that something is a fact and it contradicts what some authority has written down, then you must abandon the authority and base your reasoning on your own findings.""Seeing the Body: The Divergence of Ancient Chineseand Western Medical Illustration", Camillia Matuk, Journal of Biocommunication, Vol. 32, No. 1, 2006, .
Significantly, an empirical metaphysical system was developed by the Italian philosopher Bernardino Telesio which had an enormous impact on the development of later Italian thinkers, including Telesio's students Antonio Persio and Sertorio Quattromani, his contemporaries Thomas Campanella and Giordano Bruno, and later British philosophers such as Francis Bacon, who regarded Telesio as "the first of the moderns". Boenke, Michaela, "Bernardino Telesio", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2018/entries/telesio/. Telesio's influence can also be seen on the French philosophers René Descartes and Pierre Gassendi.