Talk:Empiricism

what about immanuel kant?
sorry i've not got time to do this myself - i'd like to make the suggestion though as i've read on the kant page that he attempted to reconcile rationalism and empiricism 210.9.142.7 (talk) 01:47, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

And what is "Empticism" ? Does it have something common with "Empiricism" ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.77.141.61 (talk) 15:47, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Dubious: What is this?
The first para of the intro contains the following frog (quack, quack):
 * (except in so far as these might be inferred from empirical reasoning, as in the case of genetic predisposition).

This is an anachronism, and an apologetic scrawl from some modern adherent not accepting the illogic of the original version of empiricism. John Locke, 29 August 1632–28 October 1704 had no genetical knowledge at all. I'll mark it as [dubious - discuss]. The scrawl should be fixed by either pinpoint some modern fixups (citet), or failing that, be removed. Rursus dixit. ( m bork3 !) 18:50, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

merge from Empirical
I don't see why Empirical has a dedicated (and rather poor) article. Such an adjective should be redirected here, with content being merged. As a stand alone, "empirical" seems good for wiktionary, but not wikipedia. Thoughts? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 20:15, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The problem is that empiricism fall under the studies of philosophy and empirical is a science. To me the "As a stand alone" argument means an article needs expansion, possibly from an expert, and relevant tags. I looked at some references of the two and I would have to do a lot of digging to even assist with such an undertaking. Given the purported difference in the two meanings (from the fields that use them) I would suggest an expert tag, to hopefully attract attention, plus whatever other avenues afforded to accomplish this end. I would have to research more but at this time I feel that the differences in the fields that use the two words brings questions of how they could be successfully merged? Since there is no emergency or acute time frame limits my suggestions, unless the author of the merge request has applicable knowledge and a plan, would include removing the merge requests (after the placement of the tags) and revisiting the issue at some later date. I might have some time in the near future to explore references. Otr500 (talk) 00:12, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I think Empirical, Empirical method, Empirical research should be merged into one article, while Empirical and Empiricism don't have to. The said three articles contain too much unnecessary overlapping contents. I think they should be merged into Empirical method.Kuphrer (talk) 17:34, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Terrible idea. "Empirical" and "empiricism" are not related in the sense that, say, "epistemological" and "epistemology" are, and combining the two articles would give readers the extremely mistaken idea that they are. "Empirical" most commonly refers to evidentiary procedures used by scientists, not the ideas of Hume and such--which is what "empiricism" is. I vote for a swift removal of the merge banners.--Atlantictire (talk) 07:46, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you for weighing in. Almost two months ago I addressed the issue as not being compatible for a merge. The time has expired and consensus is not to merge. Removing the banners is one way but I believe there is a proper way to close such a request and enclose it in a box. This will be evidence that the issue was resolved per policy. I am not yet familiar with properly closing such a discussion so would someone please close the "merge request" as per consensus not to merge. Otr500 (talk) 12:49, 2 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Atlantictire above states that the term "empirical," ". . .most commonly refers to evidentiary procedures used by scientists, not the ideas of Hume and such--which is what "empiricism" is." This is a clear double standard as far as the suffix "-al" is concerned.  The evidentiary procedures used by scientists are part of the philosophy of science itself (Popper in particular), and can be directly traced all the way back to David Hume.  We cannot pretend to be ignorant of this relationship.  To assert otherwise is a deliberate obfuscation of the history of philosophy of science. Obiwanjacoby (talk) 22:40, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Help! Can i be the only one who believes this?! I mean its proof ....Right?
I need some backup in english terms so that it can resinate with those with whom i have had an ongoing discussion about this with for the past...oh....DECADE! I NEED YOU R HELP IN GIVING GENERAL THOUGHTS FOR THEM TO ONDER THAT CONTRIDICTS THE EARLY BIBLE PREACHINGS..I AM A FIRM BELIEVER IN THE "BIBLE" BUT I DO NOT TAKE IT LITERALLY, FURTHERMORE, I THINK THOSE WHO DO ARE JUST PLAIN IGNORANT. NOT BY CHOICE(IGNORANT) BU BY HAVING "FAITH" IN THE GOOD BOOK AND NOT IN WHATS BEEN PROVEN...I FEEL LIKE A JACKASS WHEN TRYING TO PROVE OVER AND OB=VER AGAIN THE OBVOIUS DISTINCTIONS BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION WHICH I SEE TO BE ONE-SIDED....CAN U HELP?! THNAKS FOR ANY INPUT U HAVE!! 66.117.245.97 (talk) 14:43, 23 May 2011 (UTC)JKING

Empiricism IS
The first line of the article is "In philosophy, empiricism is a theory of knowledge which opposes other theories of knowledge..."

I think it's a good idea to define things by what they ARE, not what they are NOT. Empiricism is much more than a theory to oppose other theory. You can say that against almost anything. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.108.101.70 (talk) 17:26, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

There are serious issues with the following statement: "Empiricism should not be mixed up with empirical research because different epistemologies should be considered competing views on how best to do studies, and there is near consensus among researchers that studies should be empirical." This fails to make a case for why empirical research is (somehow) not influenced by empiricism, apart from its own question-begging statement. Why "should" it? Why "shouldn't" it? If "different epistemologies should be considered competing views on how best to do studies," then why are they limited to an empiricism-only mandate by mere "consensus" immediately thereafter in the same statement??? Also, "near consensus among researchers" is not only an argument from authority, but a deliberately vague one at that per NPOV standards. Thus, I have placed a weasel tag around it to garner notice prior to full deletion. Thank you. Obiwanjacoby (talk) 05:35, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Under the further heading "Scientific Usage" is another bizarre statement: "A central concept in science and the scientific method is that all evidence must be empirical, or empirically based, that is, dependent on evidence that is observable by the senses. It is differentiated from the philosophic usage of empiricism by the use of the adjective "empirical" or the adverb "empirically"."  This is a dodgy semantics argument in that the adjective form or adverb form of empiricism does NOT necessarily change the inherent meaning of empiricism itself. The scientific method itself falls under philosophy of science (Popper), and thus IS directly influenced by the philosophy of empiricism. Therefore, this statement also violates a precedent in the history of philosophy itself. Obiwanjacoby (talk) 05:55, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Counter Arguments?
Why isn't there any counter arguments offered in the article? I know that they are out there. It would be most helpful to those desiring to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the subject matter. Quintessential1 (talk) 15:30, 16 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I guess someone needs to work on it one day. If you have time...?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:38, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
 * You're going to have a hard time with the fundamentalists on Wikipedia who insist that any tiny amount of criticism against empiricism constitutes a mortal threat and giving "undue weight" MarshallKe (talk) 19:06, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

analythic-synthetic distinction
Under logical empiricism it says that analytic statements are equal to a priori statements and synthetic to a posteriori. But these are different concepts. On the analytic-synthetic page it is explained that the combination of the two results in four different cases. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.139.116.198 (talk) 09:26, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Misuse of sources
This article has been edited by a user who is known to have misused sources to unduly promote certain views (see WP:Jagged 85 cleanup). Examination of the sources used by this editor often reveals that the sources have been selectively interpreted or blatantly misrepresented, going beyond any reasonable interpretation of the authors' intent.

Please help by viewing the entry for this article shown at the page, and check the edits to ensure that any claims are valid, and that any references do in fact verify what is claimed.

I searched the page history, and found 25 edits by Jagged 85 (for example, see this edits). Tobby72 (talk) 00:36, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

FROM SENSORY EXPERIENCE OR FROM PERCEPTION?
In the opening definition of empiricism it is said, "knowledge comes only or primarily from sensory experience."
 * Should not that be changed to "perception"? Is it not that for pure empiricism, there is no assumption about the validity of sense, only of perception.  For example, would not Berkley have said that while you could not be sure that you sensed a rock when you kicked it, you could be sure of your perception?  For Berkley only ideas exist.  In other words, there could be a little room with a little man in it wearing a virtual reality head set.  The head set is connected by wireless to TV cameras in what we think of as the real world.  This little man could be sure that he has certain perceptions, but not that they came from sense organs or were "sensations."  Isn't perception a better word to use in this definition than "sensation" or "sensory experience"? (68.94.209.147 (talk) 01:31, 19 June 2012 (UTC))

William James quote interpretation
In Wikipedia: by which he meant to rule out the perception that there can be any value added by seeking supernatural explanations for natural phenomena

I propose the word "supernatural" be replaced with the word "rationalist". My argument: the context.

In William James: ''I understand the question and I will give my answer. I am interested in another doctrine in philosophy to which I give the name of radical empiricism, and it seems to me that the establishment of the pragmatist theory of truth is a step of first-rate importance in making radical empiricism prevail. Radical empiricism consists first of a postulate, next of a statement of fact, and finally of a generalized conclusion.

''The postulate is that the only things that shall be debatable among philosophers shall be things definable in terms drawn from experience. [Things of an unexperienceable nature may exist ad libitum, but they form no part of the material for philosophic debate.]

The statement of fact is that the relations between things, conjunctive as well as disjunctive, are just as much matters of direct particular experience, neither more so nor less so, than the things themselves.

''The generalized conclusion is that therefore the parts of experience hold together from next to next by relations that are themselves parts of experience. The directly apprehended universe needs, in short, no extraneous trans-empirical connective support, but possesses in its own right a concatenated or continuous structure.''

''The great obstacle to radical empiricism in the contemporary mind is the rooted rationalist belief that experience as immediately given is all disjunction and no conjunction, and that to make one world out of this separateness, a higher unifying agency must be there. In the prevalent idealism this agency is represented as the absolute all-witness which 'relates' things together by throwing 'categories' over them like a net. The most peculiar and unique, perhaps, of all these categories is supposed to be the truth- relation, which connects parts of reality in pairs, making of one of them a knower, and of the other a thing known, yet which is itself contentless experientially, neither describable, explicable, nor reduceable to lower terms, and denotable only by uttering the name 'truth.'''

Furthermore, the one thing William James repeats again and again, not only in other works but even in the paragraphs preceding those which I have quoted, is that under his philosophy supernatural explanations can very possibly add value. This is actually how his radical empiricism differs from empiricism: it does not deny the objective truth of workable ideas whose workability is empirically known but whose objective truth is not (known empirically). He is criticizing rationalism, specifically the rationalism still held to by empiricists who do not hold to his radical empiricism (i.e. those empiricists who would argue that mathematics is true even though it is not empirically known). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.47.235.76 (talk) 02:39, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Hume: matters of fact
"The sun rises in the East" does not seem to be a good example of Hume's "matters of fact" as I understood them. It can be regarded as a mere tautology, in the rhetorical sense, since "East" is usually defined to be the direction in which the sun rises. I am no scholar of philosophy; did Hume really intended tautologies as "matters of fact"?

Is the "East" example in fact from Hume, or is it from some other philosphical text, or did the writer invent it? If not the first choice, someone who has more philosophical experience than I have should insert something else. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.211.133.128 (talk) 16:12, 28 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Is it a Tautology? I don't think it is. East is defined by its relation to magnetic North/South and not by the direction the sun rises.
 * 2.124.24.138 (talk) 13:36, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Split Article: British Empiricism
I think that it makes sense to put British Empiricism as it's own page à la British Idealism, since while it is obviously part of Empiricism as a whole it is it's own subject as well. Content then would be easily added. If someone who is more experienced with wikipedia could do it, providing it is justified of course I think it would be for the better. Unillogical (talk) 21:14, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Sextus; Stoics
Against the professors was written by Sextus Empiricus, not Sextus of Gonorrhea or whatever, and Empiricus certainly wasn't a stoic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.157.192.224 (talk) 22:36, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

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make pages: Theoretical empiricism/Notional empiricism vs Metalogicism

 * Theoretical empiricism/Notional empiricism: you have to know the specific theory in order to judge it (knowing the specifics is necessary).
 * Metalogicism: you don't have to know each theory, only its metalogical foundations (knowing the specifics isn't necessary). That is problematic, because metalogic itself isn't thorough, and no absolute foundations exist for hypertheories to be based generically on. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2a02:2149:8414:9e00:689e:dd96:9988:37b7 (talk) 21:23, 7 October 2018‎ (UTC)
 * Yes. Non-experiencing is still under the scope of empiricism.


 * In philosophy non-experiencing like experiencing, are hyponyms of empiricism. Metalogicism is a different criterion. Everything has to be proven metalogically, or at least one should try by composing many treatises. Be a metalogicist atheist, a philosophical metalogician. If you claim "I don't see god" you are as empiricist as a theist who claims he/she saw god. Focus on metalogical proofs. Become a PhD. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:2149:8239:9500:9C36:B3D:4149:25A2 (talk) 04:15, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

summary in lead
I added a line of summary to the lede: '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 experience.' The lead should summarize the topic so well that it can stand on its own as a concise summary. See WP:LEDE. The line was removed because it's not cited, but it's a summary of what's in the body and doesn't need its own citation. I restored it and am happy to talk about it here. Jonathan Tweet (talk) 14:13, 11 February 2020 (UTC)


 * "Blank slate" is not elsewhere mentioned in the article. Besides, this seems to put a secondary issue into the summary.Teishin (talk) 23:29, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

Only two real main headings
It struck me as weird that there are only two main headings, Etymology (legitimate) and History (everything else). Couldn't all the contents of History be upgraded to main headings and the History heading be deleted?Robert P. O&#39;Shea (talk) 08:33, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Makes sense to me.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:09, 27 April 2020 (UTC)


 * What about the Background section? Teishin (talk) 14:56, 27 April 2020 (UTC)


 * I don't see any big problem applying the proposal to that section too? But maybe you have a specific idea?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:43, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Elevate the status of Avicenna and Islamic Golden Age thinkers/scientists in this article
Empiricism manifested in practice, en masse, during the Islamic Golden Age. This seems to highlight a previous deficit not only in the practice of empiricism in Ancient Greece and in India, but also in the underlying theory (which Middle Easterners seemed to flesh out for the first time). In the public conscious, white men like Francis Bacon are given basically all the credit for either creating or refining the ideas behind empiricism. Avicenna or Ibn Al Haytham's picture should be right at the top of the article, ideally preceding Francis Bacon (note: it would be an oversight not to mention Haytham, arguably the first scientist in the modern sense). I also believe that the Middle East/Islamic Golden Age should be given a nod in the background section. I know there's a section mainly highlighting Islamic thinkers, but I don't think it's foreshadowed in a way that would reflect their criticality to the development of empirical thought and practice. From my observation going through the U.S. education system, history classes barely mention the Islamic Golden Age, including when addressing the history of the scientific method. This is a bias which needs to be corrected for a better understanding of history.

Don't take my word for it, look at the Wikipedia article for the scientific method. I believe it does a better job of highlighting Middle Eastern contributions in this area. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.8.220.14 (talk) 21:02, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Absolute empiricists who reject formal sciences (rare, because most don't)
We didn't mention elaborately that rare subcategory.

Most mathematical formulas haven't been physically demonstrated. You (from a letter to an absolute empiricist who rejected formal sciences) reject mathematics, logic and metaphysical. You are an absolute empiricist. Absolute empiricism is wrong because you might debunk something you didn't have the opportunity to observe during your lifetime. Rigorous mathematical proofs are also an acceptable demonstration of true relationships that might be proven useful in the physical world. Humans don't have an infinite lifespan, neither access to infinite information. By rejecting mathematics, metalogic and other formal sciences (being an absolute empiricist), you actually reject physically possible things that you couldn't experience during your lifespan for practical reasons. Also absolute empiricists who reject formal sciences (see term) can accept false positive data as factual, because by rejecting formal sciences, they have a bad theoretical framework to design and interpret their experiments.

Severe lack of Chinese
Very disappointed that Chinese traditions are not adequately represented in the history section. Kelly222 (talk) 20:14, 28 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Even worse, there's virtually nothing in between Aristotle (4th century BC) and al-Farabi (mostly 10th century AD). The whole Hellenistic period, the Roman Principate and late antiquity are omitted basically completely, despite comprising the heyday of empiricism in classical antiquity! That's an amazing oversight, but I've noticed the same problem in other articles too: the core period of classical antiquity in the Mediterranean is regularly given astonishingly short shrift. I suspect that this derives from the outdated 19th-century notion (when scholars idealised Classical Greece) that after Aristotle's pioneering work, the Hellenistic and Roman periods were periods of decline (and at best a footnote to the alleged perfection of Classical Greek culture). In reality, however, empiricism definitely flowered into the 3rd century AD, with innovative science performed by leading lights such as Archimedes, Eratosthenes, Hero, Ptolemy and Galen, and the period between 300 BC and 300 AD basically fulfilled the research programme outlined by Aristotle previously, so leaving it out is as baffling as if the whole of early modern Europe was left out of the article.
 * No doubt the history of empiricism in China also deserves being treated adequately, but I know a lot less about it. Compare our coverage at History of science and technology in China, which we could link to in this article. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 14:36, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
 * It could just be that no one has come along with good sources to work on those things, but OTOH the term empiricism can be used in different ways. I don't think the term is generally used by philosophers just to cover anyone who believes that people can learn true things by experiencing the sensible world. That would mean most people are empiricists. It is also a question of what you think allows people to understand their experiences, and more specifically the term is pretty useless unless it is contrasted with some alternative like "rationalism" (which means the term is not necessarily useful for describing some periods). Aristotle's metaphysics-based understanding of what causes knowledge was therefore not empiricism in the way the term is often used. He did not "trust" the human senses except in the sense that they are supported by metaphysical intelligence. In any case, while such complications might eventually lead to a restructuring or even splitting of our article, the main thing is to find good sources and try to add material in such a way that readers will not be confused.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:55, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
 * This argument, trying to define "empiricism" away to excuse the gap, makes no sense. The "History" section treats the history of empiricism (also) as the history of empirical science (which is also a branch of philosophy, and was certainly considered so from antiquity to the early modern period), so the problem remains. If early modern empirical science is covered, then ancient (Greco-Roman and Chinese) empirical science (where Aristotle was definitely a key figure, whatever his theoretical beliefs) should be covered too, and good sources certainly exist. If empiricism is taken to mean anything at all, these cultures need to be covered, because they're relevant to empiricism in any conceivable sense. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 04:22, 5 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Indeed empirical science was not distinguishable from empirical philosophy, but that still does not mean that all empirical science is empiricism. I don't think I tried to define empiricism away but the term does not equate to all empirical (observation based) science or philosophy. Empiricism is a particular position about empirical science. If the terms are sometimes equated in some sources you have then we would need to be careful, because that would mean that one term was being used to refer to different things that don't necessarily belong in one article.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:43, 5 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Then the "History" section should not cover empirical science from the early modern period, either. You can't get around this double standard. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:15, 6 April 2024 (UTC)
 * The fact remains that plenty of theoretical philosophical work on empiricism was done after Aristotle. It's not like the tradition suddenly ended after the Classical Greek period, to be revived only in the 10th century. This is exactly the blindspot I mean which is so pervasive on Wikipedia: the time between c. 300 BC and c. 900 AD, which is absurdly treated as a Dark Age where nothing happened at all. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:20, 6 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I think it is easiest if you bring reliable sources. I think this article can certainly be improved, by both removing and adding things. However, I'm still not sure if you clearly understand that empiricism is NOT the same as empirical science (or philosophy)? It almost seems like you are denying this? To repeat, empiricism is supposed to be a specific Enlightenment-period position about empirical knowledge. Arguably it is only a teaching aid, but in any case taking it seriously it is almost meaningless unless it is contrasted with "rationalism". It is not just a general approval of empirical observation, which is something no-one really disagreed with. It is a terminology which is primarily used for the Enlightenment, NOT the classical period, and when the term is used for earlier periods, there is always an implied comparison with that period, and an implied debate between rationalism and empiricism. FWIW it is actually quite a complicated thing to compare Aristotle to the later empiricists, because he has a complex position that can, if we compare him to the Enlightenment, also be described as rationalism. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:50, 6 April 2024 (UTC)