empiricism
Etymology Noun
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Etymology Noun
empiricism
- (philosophy) A doctrine which holds that the only or, at least, the most reliable source of human knowledge is experience, especially perception by means of the physical senses. (Often contrasted with rationalism.) [from 18th c.]
- A pursuit of knowledge purely through experience, especially by means of observation and sometimes by experimentation. [from 19th c.]
- 1885, Gerard F. Cobb, "Musical Psychics," Proceedings of the Musical Association, 11th Session, p. 119:
- Our whole life in some of its highest and most important aspects is simply empiricism. Empiricism is only another word for experience.
- 1951, Albert Einstein, letter to Maurice Solovine (Jan. 1), in Letters to Solovine:
- I have found no better expression than "religious" for confidence in the rational nature of reality.... Whenever this feeling is absent, science degenerates into uninspired empiricism.
- 1885, Gerard F. Cobb, "Musical Psychics," Proceedings of the Musical Association, 11th Session, p. 119:
- (social sciences, political science, sociology) used to describe research based on methodology shaped from empirical philosophy (see above), e.g. surveys, statistics, etc.
- (medicine, now, chiefly, historical) Medicine as practised by an empiric, founded on mere experience, without the aid of science or a knowledge of principles; folk medicine, quackery. [from 17th c.]
- 1796, Mary Wollstonecraft, Letters Written in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, Oxford, published 2009, page 105:
- Empiricism is not peculiar to Denmark; and I know of no way of rooting it out, though it be a remnant of exploded witchcraft, till the acquiring a general knowledge of the component parts of the human frame, become a part of public education.
- 1990, Alison Klairmont Lingo, "Review of Professional and Popular Medicine in France, 1770-1830 by Matthew Ramsey," Journal of Social History, vol. 23, no. 3 (Spring), p. 607:
- Even at the height of its popularity, medical empiricism was the creature of a most unforgiving free market economy. Successful practitioners seduced crowds as well as public officials.
- (medical practice founded on experience) charlatanry, quackery
- German: Empirie, Empirismus
- French: empirisme
- German: Empirismus
- Portuguese: empirismo
- Russian: эмпиризм
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