EMPIRICISM by RONY K.JOHNS(0924609)

EMPIRICISM

Empiricism is a theory which holds that the origin of all knowledge is sense experience. The term also refers to the method of observation and experiment used in the natural sciences. Often, empiricism is contrasted with rationalism, a theory which holds that the mind may apprehend some truths directly, without requiring the medium of the senses. Empiricists tend to emphasize the tentative and probabilistic nature of knowledge, while rationalists tend to be dogmatic and assert they have found a method to discover absolutely certain knowledge. Empiricists see philosophical skepticism as limiting what the human mind can hope to accomplish and as a guide to those areas of inquiry we can usefully apply our talents towards. For most empiricists, experience includes inner experience-reflection upon the mind and its operations-as well as sense perception.

Primarily, and in its psychological application, the term signifies the theory that the phenomena of consciousness are simply the product of sensuous experience, i.e. of sensations variously associated and arranged. It is thus distinguished from Nativism or Innatism. Secondarily, and in its  epistemological usage, it designates the theory that all human knowledge is derived exclusively from experience, the latter term meaning, either explicitly or implicitly, external sense-percepts and internal representations and inferences exclusive of any super organic immaterial intellectual factor. In this connection it is opposed to Intellectualism, Rationalism, and Apriorism. The two usages evidently designate but two inseparable aspects of one and the same theory the epistemological being the application of the psychological to the problem of knowledge

. In the traditional view of empiricism it is believed that the mind of the observer plays no role whatsoever in forming knowledge, and that it somehow comes about as more and more 'facts' are discovered. Following the work of Kant and others, this view was modified to allow some role to be given to the mind in forming knowledge, though the problem has always been how to relate the two adequately. In positivism this is solved by the idea of inductivism; the ability to infer general knowledge from particular sensory data. Empiricism of various forms is the dominant epistemology in archaeology; empirical data, achieved mainly through controlled observation, provide the basis of knowledge and are generally kept separate from the distortions of subjectivity and any interpretations made.

 According to the empiricist, all ideas are derived from experience; therefore, knowledge of the physical world can be nothing more than a generalization from particular instances and can never reach more than a high degree of probability. Most empiricists recognize the existence of at least some a priori truths, e.g., those of mathematics and logic. John Stuart Mill was the first to treat even these as generalizations from experience. In the philosophy of science, empiricism refers to an emphasis on those aspects of scientific knowledge that are closely related to experience, especially as formed through deliberate experimental arrangements.