El empirismo es la corriente filosófica que afirma que la vía para alcanzar el conocimiento es la experiencia.
Para el empirismo, la experiencia es lo que determina si algo es válido o no. A través de la percepción sensorial obtenemos el conocimiento, y no a través de la razón como propone el racionalismo.
Origen del empirismo
El empirismo como corriente se desarrolla y tomar fuerza en Reino Unido, durante los siglos XVII y XVIII. El término, etimológicamente, proviene del griego empeiria que significa experiencia, y el sufijo -ismo indica que es una doctrina.
Uno de los antecedentes más lejanos del empirismo lo encontramos en los escépticos. El escepticismo se basaba en dudar de todo, hasta que algo no fuese minuciosamente comprobado y demostrado, se dudaba de ello. Y aun así podían seguir dudando, ya que creían que el ser humano no era capaz, cognoscitivamente hablando, de conocer la verdad de las cosas. El empirismo se relaciona con esto en que la duda también les mueve, y la experiencia y el sometimiento de las cosas a su comprobación es lo que valida el conocimiento.
Los representantes más importantes del empirismo, fueron principalmente filósofos:
- Francis Bacon (1561-1626).
- Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679).
- John Locke (1632-1704).
- George Berkeley (1685-1753).
- David Hume (1711-1776).
Entre otros autores que también aportaron al desarrollo del empirismo.
Características del empirismo
Del empirismo se pueden extraer unas características generales:
- El método inductivo como estrategia de investigación.
- El conocimiento es subjetivo, no existen unas ideas innatas, sino que el ser humano a través de la experiencia va adquiriendo conocimientos.
- La capacidad de obtener conocimiento por parte del ser humano es limitado.
- La verdad no es absoluta, debido a lo dicho en el punto anterior.
El método inductivo
Francis Bacon, político y filósofo inglés, desarrolló su obra principalmente durante el siglo XVII y está considerado como el precursor del empirismo. Su aportación más importante a esta corriente fue el desarrollo del método inductivo como herramienta del método científico.
Este método se basa en pasar de lo particular a lo general. Establecer una hipótesis, y a través de la observación y confirmación de la misma en hechos particulares realizar una extrapolación general a todos los casos. Sus etapas son:
- Observación: Se observa el fenómeno que sobre el que se desea conocer más y se extrae información.
- Análisis: Se analiza la información extraída y se buscan patrones de comportamiento común.
- Teoría: A partir del paso anterior, se procede a desarrollar una teoría sobre lo que hemos estado.
Ejemplo de empirismo
Queremos saber si beber alcohol en exceso empeora nuestras capacidades físicas y psíquicas.
- Observación → Vamos a un bar y observamos a las personas más ebrias.
- Análisis → Todas las personas que vimos en el bar que habían bebido en exceso se habían caído al suelo o habían tenido un accidente automovilístico.
- Teoría → Tras realizar el análisis generalizamos y afirmamos que todas las personas que beben en exceso ven alteradas sus capacidades físicas y psíquicas.
FAQs
Empiricism is divided into three categories: classical, radical, and moderate. Classical empiricism is founded on the idea that knowledge is neither intrinsic nor in-born. John Locke, one of the most prominent empiricists, believed that the mind is a tabula rasa (blank slate) from birth.
What are the arguments against empiricism? ›
Critics argue that empiricism struggles to explain concepts that are not directly tied to sensory experiences, such as abstract ideas, complex metaphysical concepts, and even fictional entities.
What is an example of empiricism? ›
We can find many examples in our daily lives reaffirming the empiricist theory. Learning to speak: A child learning to speak is based on a lot of experience. It gets to know the words by listening to them and learning the meanings.
What is a short note on the empiricist method? ›
Empiricism is a philosophical belief that states your knowledge of the world is based on your experiences, particularly your sensory experiences. According to empiricists, our learning is based on our observations and perception; knowledge is not possible without experience.
What are the 5 senses of empiricism? ›
In both everyday attitudes and philosophical theories, the experiences referred to by empiricists are principally those arising from the stimulation of the sense organs—i.e., from visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, and gustatory sensation.
How is empiricism used today? ›
Empiricism, often used by natural scientists, believes that "knowledge is based on experience" and that "knowledge is tentative and probabilistic, subject to continued revision and falsification". Empirical research, including experiments and validated measurement tools, guides the scientific method.
What is the major disadvantage of empiricism? ›
Answer and Explanation:
Some limitations of empiricism are that it is subjective because it depends on people's observations, and it can only provide information about what people can observe.
Is empiricism biased? ›
There is bias in empiricism because observations depend on the perspective of the person observing. Therefore, any empirical result has some bias in. This contrasts against some notions of rationalism, in which one may reason objectively.
Is empiricism irrational? ›
Save this question. Empiricists think that we should rely on our senses as a source of information but they also agree that using induction, and therefore reason as well, to make conclusions are reliable, whereas irrationalists think we can't use reason to make conclusions.
Is empiricism a real thing? ›
Empiricism is a philosophical theory applicable in many disciplines, including science and software development, that human knowledge comes predominantly from experiences gathered through the five senses. In empiricism, knowledge is spoken of as a posteriori, or "from the latter," meaning gained from experience.
Empiricism requires us to have experience of the world. Logic alone cannot give us knowledge of how strawberries taste or what love feels like. Only through experiencing the world around us and reflecting on those experiences do we gain knowledge.
What is empiricism for dummies? ›
In philosophy, empiricism is a theory that states that all knowledge comes from experience. John Locke, founder of British empiricism. 'Experience' is sometimes translated as 'sense data', i.e. we cannot know anything except by information which comes through our senses.
What is empiricism in one sentence? ›
Empiricism is the belief that people should rely on practical experience and experiments, rather than on theories, as a basis for knowledge.
Is Einstein an empiricist? ›
His student Holton rebelled gently and debated this assertion indirectly, in a series of papers, offering his deliberations on Einstein's philosophy of science as well as asserting that there was a transformation between an early Einstein and a later Einstein: the early Einstein was an empiricist and a positivist ...
Which belief statement represents empiricism? ›
(Some philosophers, called rationalists, believe that all knowledge is ultimately grounded upon reason; others, called empiricists, believe that all knowledge is ultimately grounded upon experience.)
What are the main principles of empiricism? ›
Simply put, empiricism is the idea that all learning comes from only experience and observations. The term empiricism comes from the Greek word for experience: empeiria. The theory of empiricism attempts to explain how human beings acquire knowledge and improve their conceptual understanding of the world.
What are the key points of empiricism? ›
Empiricism is a philosophical school holding that knowledge can only be (or is primarily) gained from sensory experience. Accordingly, it rejects any (or much) use of a priori reasoning in the gathering and analysis of knowledge. It rivals rationalism according to which reason is the ultimate source of knowledge.
What are the main characteristics of empiricism? ›
Following are the chief characteristics of Empiricism: a) It emphasizes the role of experience and evidence, especially sensory perception, in the formation of ideas, and argues that the only knowledge humans can have is a posteriori (i.e. based on experience). Thus sense perception is the main source of knowledge.
What are the two doctrines of empiricism? ›
Modern empiricism has been conditioned by two dogmas: the distinction between truths that are analytic and the synthetic and. reductionism: the belief that every meaningful statement is equivalent to some logical construct upon terms that refer to immediate experience.
