Empiricism
Ancient and modern traditions
Empiricism treats experience as constitutive of the origin or justification of knowledge in a domain.
Historical context
The contrast with rationalism is used to read early modern debates, though textbook classifications simplify positions that varied by author and domain.
Overview
A claim about how the world works can be organised deductively and still require observation to justify its premises. The empiricist thesis concerns that source of justification or, in some versions, the origin of our concepts.
Main claims
Experience plays an indispensable role in the domain to which the thesis applies.
Experience and knowledge
The empiricist thesis makes experience the source of knowledge in its domain.
Interpretation for comparison · Rationalism vs. Empiricism · Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Debates and nuances
The thesis can apply to a specific domain and admit inference and abstraction.
This entry provides educational context.