Empiricism
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{{otheruses4|the field of philosophy|the album by Borknagar|Empiricism (album)}}
In [[philosophy]], '''empiricism''' is a theory of knowledge that is practical rather than abstract, and asserts that knowledge arises from experience rather than revelation.
Empiricism is one view held about how we know things, and so is part of the branch of philosophy called [[epistemology]], which means "theory of knowledge". Empiricism emphasizes the role of [[experience]] and [[evidence]], especially [[sensory perception]], in the formation of ideas, while discounting the notion of [[innate idea]]s.
In the [[philosophy of science]], '''empiricism''' emphasizes those aspects of scientific knowledge that are closely related to evidence, especially as discovered in [[experiment]]s. It is a fundamental part of the [[scientific method]] that all [[hypotheses]] and [[theory|theories]] must be tested against [[observation]]s of the [[natural world]], rather than resting solely on ''[[a priori (philosophy)|a priori]]'' [[reasoning]], [[intuition (knowledge)|intuition]], or [[revelation]]. Hence, science is considered to be ''methodologically'' empirical in nature.
The term "empiricism" has a dual etymology. It comes from the [[Ancient Greek|Greek]] word εμπειρισμός, the Latin translation of which is ''experientia'', from which we derive the word experience. It also derives from a more specific classical Greek and Roman usage of ''empiric'', referring to a physician whose skill derives from practical experience as opposed to instruction in theory.<ref name=sini>Sini, Carlo (2004), "Empirismo", in Gianni Vattimo et al. (eds.), Enciclopedia Garzanti della Filosofia.</ref>
==Philosophical usage==
[[Image:John Locke.jpg|thumb|right|[[John Locke]], founder of British empiricism]]
The term "empirical" was originally used to refer to certain ancient Greek practitioners of medicine who rejected adherence to the dogmatic doctrines of the day, preferring instead to rely on the observation of ''phenomena'' as perceived in experience.<ref name=sini>Sini, Carlo. "Empirismo" in Enciclopedia Garzanti della Filosofia (ed.) Gianni Vattimo et al. 2004</ref> The ''doctrine'' of empiricism was first explicitly formulated by [[John Locke]] in the 17th century. Locke argued that the mind is a ''[[tabula rasa]]'' ("clean slate" or "blank tablet"; Locke used the words "white paper") on which experiences leave their marks. Such empiricism denies that humans have [[innate ideas]] or that anything is knowable without reference to experience.
It is worth remembering that empiricism does not hold that we have empirical knowledge automatically. Rather, according to the empiricist view, for any knowledge to be properly inferred or deduced, it is to be gained ultimately from one's sense-based experience.<ref>Markie, P. (2004), "Rationalism vs. Empiricism" in Edward D. Zalta (ed.), ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rationalism-empiricism/ Eprint].</ref> As a historical matter, philosophical empiricism is commonly contrasted with the philosophical school of thought known as "[[rationalism]]" which, in very broad terms, asserts that much knowledge is attributable to [[reason]] independently of the senses. However, this contrast is today considered to be an extreme oversimplification of the issues involved, because the main continental rationalists ([[Descartes]], [[Spinoza]] and [[Leibniz]]) were also advocates of the empirical "scientific method" of their day. Furthermore, Locke, for his part, held that some knowledge (e.g. knowledge of God's existence) could be arrived at through [[intuition]] and reasoning alone.
Some important philosophers commonly associated with empiricism include [[Francis Bacon (philosopher)|Francis Bacon]], [[Thomas Hobbes]], [[John Locke]], [[George Berkeley]], [[David Hume]], [[John Stuart Mill]], [[Gilles Deleuze]] and [[Felix Guattari]].
==Scientific usage==
{{main|Empirical method|Empirical research}}
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". ''Empirical'' is used in conjunction with both the [[natural science|natural]] and [[social science]]s, and refers to the use of working [[hypothesis|hypotheses]] that are [[testable]] using [[observation]] or [[experiment]]. In this sense of the word, scientific statements are subject to and derived from our experiences or observations.
In a second sense "empirical" in science may be synonymous with "experimental". In this sense, an empirical result is an experimental observation. The term ''semi-empirical'' is sometimes used to describe theoretical methods which make use of basic [[axiom]]s, established scientific laws, and previous experimental results in order to engage in reasoned model building and theoretical inquiry.
==History==
===Early empiricism===
[[Aristotle]] writes of the ''unscribed tablet'', or ''tabula rasa'' in his treatise Περι Ψυχης (''De Anima'' or ''On the Soul'').
<blockquote>
What the mind thinks must be in it in the same sense as letters are on a tablet (''grammateion'') which bears no actual writing (''grammenon''); this is just what happens in the case of the mind. (Aristotle, ''[[On the Soul]]'', 3.4.430<sup>a</sup>1).</blockquote>
Besides some arguments by the [[Stoics]] and [[Peripatetics]], the Aristotelian notion of the mind as a blank slate went much unnoticed for more than 1000 years.
In the 11th century, the theory of [[tabula rasa]] was further developed by the [[Early Islamic philosophy|Persian philosopher]], [[Avicenna|Ibn Sina]] (known as "Avicenna" in the [[Western world]]). He argued that the "human intellect at birth is rather like a tabula rasa, a pure potentiality that is actualized through education and comes to know" and that knowledge is attained through "[[empirical]] familiarity with objects in this world from which one abstracts universal concepts" which is developed through a "[[Syllogism|syllogistic]] method of [[reasoning]]; observations lead to prepositional statements, which when compounded lead to further abstract concepts." He further argued that the intellect itself "possesses levels of development from the material intellect (''al-‘aql al-hayulani''), that potentiality that can acquire knowledge to the active intellect (''al-‘aql al-fa‘il''), the state of the human intellect at conjunction with the perfect source of knowledge."<ref>Sajjad H. Rizvi (2006), [http://www.iep.utm.edu/a/avicenna.htm Avicenna/Ibn Sina (CA. 980-1037)], ''[[Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]]''</ref>
In the 12th century, the [[Al-Andalus|Andalusian]]-[[Early Islamic philosophy|Arabian philosopher]] and novelist [[Ibn Tufail]] (known as "Abubacer" or "Ebn Tophail" in the West) demonstrated the theory of tabula rasa as a [[thought experiment]] through his [[Arabic literature|Arabic philosophical novel]], ''[[Hayy ibn Yaqdhan]]'', in which he depicted the development of the mind of a [[feral child]] "from a tabula rasa to that of an adult, in complete isolation from society" on a [[desert island]], through [[experience]] alone. The [[Latin]] translation of his [[philosophical novel]], entitled ''Philosophus Autodidactus'', published by [[Edward Pococke]] the Younger in 1671, had an influence on [[John Locke]]'s formulation of tabula rasa in ''[[An Essay Concerning Human Understanding]]''.<ref name=Russell>G. A. Russell (1994), ''The 'Arabick' Interest of the Natural Philosophers in Seventeenth-Century England'', pp. 224-262, [[Brill Publishers]], ISBN 9004094598.</ref> [[Poland|Polish]] [[alchemy|alchemist]] and philosopher [[Michał Sędziwój]], who died four years after [[John Locke]] was born, asserted in one of his treatises that "experience is the sole teacher of truth".<ref>http://portalwiedzy.onet.pl/4868,12799,1483961,1,czasopisma.html | ''Praktyk i mistyk'', Andrzej Datko, Wiedza i życie 2008-04-28 (in Polish)</ref>
===British empiricism===
Earlier concepts of the existence of "innate ideas" were the subject of debate between the Continental rationalists and the British empiricists in the 17th century through the late 18th century. [[John Locke]], [[George Berkeley]], and [[David Hume]] were the primary exponents of empiricism.
Responding to the continental "[[rationalism]]" most prominently defended by [[René Descartes]] (a type of philosophical approach which should not be confused with [[rationalism]] generally), [[John Locke]] (1632-1704), writing in the late 17th century, in his ''[[An Essay Concerning Human Understanding]]'' (1689), proposed a very influential view wherein the ''only'' knowledge humans can have is ''[[a posteriori]]'', i.e., based upon experience. Locke is famously attributed with holding the proposition that the human mind is a ''[[tabula rasa]]'', a "blank tablet," in Locke's words "white paper," on which is written the experiences derived from sense impressions as a person's life proceeds. There are two sources of our ideas: sensation and reflection. In both cases, a distinction is made between simple and complex ideas. The former are unanalysable, and are broken down into primary and secondary qualities. Complex ideas are those which combine simple ones and are divided into substances, modes and relations. According to Locke, our knowledge of things is a perception of ideas that are in accordance or discordance with each other, which is very different from the quest for [[certainty]] of [[Descartes]].
[[Image:BishBerk.jpg|thumb|left|200px|Bishop George Berkeley]]
A generation later, the Irish Bishop [[George Berkeley]] (1685-1753) determined that Locke's view immediately opened a door that would lead to eventual [[atheism]]. In response to Locke, he put forth in his ''[[Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge]]'' (1710) a different, very extreme form of empiricism in which things ''only'' exist either as a ''result'' of their being perceived, or by virtue of the fact that they are an entity doing the perceiving. (For Berkeley, God fills in for humans by doing the perceiving whenever humans are not around to do it). In his text ''Alciphron'', Berkeley maintained that any order humans may see in nature is the language or handwriting of God.<ref>Thornton, Stephen (1987) "Berkeley's Theory of Reality" in ''The Journal of the Limerick Philosophical Society'' [http://www.ul.ie/~philos/vol1/berkel.html]</ref> Berkeley's approach to empiricism would later come to be called [[subjective idealism]].<ref>Macmillan Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1969), "George Berkeley", vol. 1, p. 297.</ref><ref>Macmillan Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1969), "Empiricism", vol. 2, p. 503.</ref>
The Scottish philosopher [[David Hume]] (1711-1776) added to the empiricist viewpoint an extreme [[skepticism]] that he brought to bear against the accumulated arguments and counterarguments of Descartes, Locke and Berkeley, among others. Hume argued in keeping with the empiricist view that all knowledge derives from sense experience. In particular, he divided all of human knowledge into two categories: ''relations of ideas'' and ''matters of fact''. Mathematical and logical propositions (e.g. "that the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the two sides") are examples of the first, while propositions involving some [[contingent]] observation of the world (e.g. "the sun rises in the East") are examples of the second. All of people's "ideas", in turn, are derived from their "impressions". For Hume, an "impression" corresponds roughly with what we call a sensation. To remember or to imagine such impressions is to have an "idea". Ideas are therefore the faint copies of sensations.<ref name=Hume1>Hume, D. "An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding", in Enquiries Concerning the Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals, 2nd edition, L.A. Selby-Bigge (ed.), Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 1902. (Orig. 1748).</ref>
[[Image:David Hume.jpg|thumb|right|[[David Hume]]'s empiricism led to numerous philosophical schools]]
Via his skeptical arguments (which became famous for the tenacity of their logic) he maintained that all knowledge, even the most basic beliefs about the [[natural world]], cannot be conclusively established by reason. Rather, he maintained, our beliefs are more a result of accumulated ''habits'', developed in response to accumulated sense experiences. Among his many arguments Hume also added another important slant to the debate about [[scientific method]] — that of the [[problem of induction]]. Hume argued that it requires inductive reasoning to arrive at the premises for the principle of inductive reasoning, and therefore the justification for inductive reasoning is a circular argument.<ref name=Hume1>Hume, D. "An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding", in Enquiries Concerning the Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals, 2nd edition, L.A. Selby-Bigge (ed.), Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 1902. (Orig. 1748).</ref> Among Hume's conclusions regarding the problem of induction is that there is no certainty that the future will resemble the past. Thus, as a simple instance posed by Hume, we cannot know with certainty by [[inductive reasoning]] that the sun will continue to rise in the East, but instead come to expect it to do so because it has repeatedly done so in the past.<ref name=Hume1>Hume, D. "An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding", in Enquiries Concerning the Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals, 2nd edition, L.A. Selby-Bigge (ed.), Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 1902. (Orig. 1748).</ref>
Hume concluded that such things as belief in an external world and belief in the existence of the self were not rationally justifiable. According to Hume these beliefs were to be accepted nonetheless because of their profound basis in instinct and custom. Hume's lasting legacy, however, was the doubt that his skeptical arguments cast on the legitimacy of inductive reasoning, allowing many skeptics who followed to cast similar doubt.
===Phenomenalism===
{{main article|Phenomenalism}}
Most of Hume's followers have disagreed with his conclusion that belief in an external world is ''rationally'' unjustifiable, contending that Hume's own principles implicitly contained the rational justification for such a belief, that is, beyond being content to let the issue rest on human instinct, custom and habit.<ref>Morick, H. (1980), Challenges to Empiricism, Hackett Publishing, Indianapolis, IN.</ref> According to an extreme empiricist theory known as [[Phenomenalism]], anticipated by the arguments of both Hume and George Berkeley, a physical object is a kind of construction out of our experiences.<ref>Marconi, D (2004), "Fenomenismo"', in Gianni Vattimo and Gaetano Chiurazzi (eds.), L'Enciclopedia Garzanti di Filosofia, 3rd edition, Garzanti, Milan, Italy.</ref> Phenomenalism is the view that physical objects, properties, events (whatever is physical) are reducible to mental objects, properties, events. Ultimately, only mental objects, properties, events, exist — hence the closely related term [[subjective idealism]]. By the phenomenalistic line of thinking, to have a visual experience of a real physical thing is to have an experience which belongs to a certain kind of group of experiences. This type of set of experiences possesses a constancy and coherence that is lacking in the set of experiences of which hallucinations, for example, are a part. As [[John Stuart Mill]] put it in the mid-19th century, matter is the "permanent possibility of sensation".<ref>Mill, J.S., "An Examination of Sir William Rowan Hamilton's Philosophy", in A.J. Ayer and Ramond Winch (eds.), British Empirical Philosophers, Simon and Schuster, New York, NY, 1968.</ref>
Mill's empiricism went a significant step beyond Hume in still another respect: in maintaining that induction is necessary for ''all'' meaningful knowledge including mathematics. As summarized by D.W. Hamlin:
{{cquote|[Mill] claimed that mathematical truths were merely very highly confirmed generalizations from experience; mathematical inference, generally conceived as deductive [and ''a priori''] in nature, Mill set down as founded on induction. Thus, in Mill's philosophy there was no real place for knowledge based on relations of ideas. In his view logical and mathematical necessity is psychological; we are merely unable to conceive any other possibilities than those which logical and mathematical propositions assert. This is perhaps the most extreme version of empiricism known, but it has not found many defenders.<ref name=MEP2>Macmillan Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1969), "Empiricism", vol. 2, p. 503.</ref>}}
Mill's empiricism thus held that knowledge of any kind is not from direct experience but an inductive inference from direct experience.<ref> Wilson, Fred (2005), "John Stuart Mill", in Edward N. Zalta (ed.), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.</ref> The problems other philosophers have had with Mill's position center around the following issues: Firstly, Mill's formulation encounters difficulty when it describes what direct experience is by differentiating only between actual and possible sensations. This misses some key discussion concerning conditions under which such "groups of permanent possibilities of sensation" might exist in the first place. Berkeley put God in that gap; the phenomenalists, including Mill, essentially left the question unanswered. In the end, lacking an acknowledgement of an aspect of "reality" that goes beyond mere "possibilities of sensation", such a position leads to a version of subjective idealism. Questions of how floor beams continue to support a floor while unobserved, how trees continue to grow while unobserved and untouched by human hands, etc, remain unanswered, and perhaps unanswerable in these terms.<ref name=MEP2>Macmillan Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1969), "Empiricism", vol. 2, p. 503.</ref><ref name=MEP6> Macmillan Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1969), "Phenomenalism", vol. 6, p. 131.</ref> Secondly, Mill's formulation leaves open the unsettling possibility that the "gap-filling entities are purely possibilities and not actualities at all".<ref name=MEP6>Macmillan Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1969), "Phenomenalism", vol. 6, p. 131.</ref> Thirdly, Mill's position, by calling mathematics merely another species of inductive inference, misapprehends mathematics. It fails to fully consider the structure and method of [[mathematical science]], the products of which are arrived at through an internally consistent [[deductive reasoning|deductive]] set of procedures which do not, either today or at the time Mill wrote, fall under the agreed meaning of [[inductive reasoning|induction]].<ref name=MEP2>Macmillan Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1969), "Empiricism", vol. 2, p. 503.</ref><ref> Macmillan Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1969), "Phenomenalism", vol. 6, p. 131.</ref><ref> Macmillan Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1969), "Axiomatic Method", vol. 5, p.188-189, 191ff.</ref>
The phenomenalist phase of post-Humean empiricism ended by the 1940s, for by that time it had become obvious that statements about physical things could not be translated into statements about actual and possible sense data.<ref>Bolender, John (1998), "Factual Phenomenalism: A Supervenience Theory"', SORITES, no. 9, pp. 16–31.</ref> If a physical object statement is to be translatable into a sense-data statement, the former must be at least deducible from the latter. But it came to be realized that there is no finite set of statements about actual and possible sense-data from which we can deduce even a single physical-object statement. Remember that the translating or paraphrasing statement must be couched in terms of normal observers in normal conditions of observation. There is, however, no ''finite'' set of statements that are couched in purely sensory terms and which can express the satisfaction of the condition of the presence of a normal observer. According to phenomenalism, to say that a normal observer is present is to make the hypothetical statement that were a doctor to inspect the observer, the observer would appear to the doctor to be normal. But, of course, the doctor himself must be a normal observer. If we are to specify this doctor's normality in sensory terms, we must make reference to a second doctor who, when inspecting the sense organs of the first doctor, would himself have to have the sense data a normal observer has when inspecting the sense organs of a subject who is a normal observer. And if we are to specify in sensory terms that the second doctor is a normal observer, we must refer to a third doctor, and so on (also see the [[Third Man Argument|third man]]).<ref> Berlin, Isaiah (2004), The Refutation of Phenomenalism, Isaiah Berlin Virtual Library.</ref><ref> Chisolm, R. (1948), "The Problem of Empiricism", Journal of Philosophy 45, 512–517.</ref>
===Logical empiricism===
{{main|Logical positivism}}
Logical empiricism (aka ''logical positivism'' or ''neopositivism'') was an early 20th century attempt to synthesize the essential ideas of British empiricism (e.g. a strong emphasis on sensory experience as the basis for knowledge) with certain insights from [[mathematical logic]] that had been developed by [[Gottlob Frege]] and [[Ludwig Wittgenstein]]. Some of the key figures in this movement were [[Otto Neurath]], [[Moritz Schlick]] and the rest of the [[Vienna Circle]], along with [[A.J. Ayer]], [[Rudolf Carnap]] and [[Hans Reichenbach]].
<!-- Unsourced image removed: [[image:Bertrand Russell.jpg|thumb|160px|right|Bertrand Russell]] -->
The neopositivists subscribed to a notion of philosophy as the conceptual clarification of the methods, insights and discoveries of the sciences. They saw in the logical symbolism elaborated by Frege (d. 1925) and [[Bertrand Russell]] (1872-1970) a powerful instrument which could be used to rationally reconstruct all scientific discourse into an ideal, logically perfect, language which would be free of the ambiguities and deformations of natural language. This gave rise to what they saw as metaphysical pseudoproblems and other conceptual confusions. By combining Frege's thesis that all mathematical truths are logical with the early Wittgenstein's idea that all logical truths are mere linguistic tautologies, they arrived at a twofold classification of all propositions: the ''analytic'' (a priori) and the ''synthetic'' (a posteriori).<ref>[[Peter Achinstein|Achinstein, Peter]], and Barker, Stephen F. (1969), The Legacy of Logical Positivism: Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD.</ref> On this basis, they formulated a strong principle of demarcation between sentences which have sense and those which do not: the so-called [[verification principle]]. Any sentence which is not purely logical or for which there is no method of verification was to be considered devoid of meaning. As a result, most metaphysical, ethical, aesthetic and other traditional philosophical problems came to be considered pseudoproblems.<ref>Barone, Francesco (1986), Il neopositivismo logico, Laterza, Roma Bari.</ref>
The extreme empiricism of the neopositivists was expressed, at least before the 1930s, in the idea that any genuinely synthetic assertion must be reducible to an ultimate assertion (or set of ultimate assertions) which expresses direct observations or perceptions. In later years, Carnap and Neurath abandoned this sort of ''phenomenalism'' in favor of a rational reconstruction of knowledge into the language of an objective spatio-temporal physics. That is, instead of translating sentences about physical objects into sense-data, such sentences were to be translated into so-called ''protocol sentences'', for example, "''X'' at location ''Y'' and at time ''T'' observes such and such."<ref> [[Nicholas Rescher|Rescher, Nicholas]] (1985), The Heritage of Logical Positivism, University Press of America, Lanham, MD.</ref> The central theses of logical positivism (verificationism, the analytic-synthetic distinction, reductionism, etc.) came under sharp attack after World War 2 by thinkers such as [[Nelson Goodman]], [[W.V. Quine]], [[Hilary Putnam]], [[Karl Popper]], and [[Richard Rorty]]. By the late 1960s, it had become evident to most philosophers that the movement had pretty much run its course, though its influence is still significant among contemporary [[analytic philosophy|analytic philosophers]] such as [[Michael Dummett]] and other [[anti-realism|anti-realists]].
==Integration of empiricism and rationalism==
In the late 19th century and early 20th century several forms of [[pragmatism|pragmatic philosophy]] arose. The ideas of pragmatism, in its various forms, developed mainly from discussions that took place while [[Charles Sanders Peirce]] and [[William James]] were both at Harvard in the 1870s. James popularized the term "pragmatism", giving Peirce full credit for its patrimony, but Peirce later demurred from the tangents that the movement was taking, and redubbed what he regarded as the original idea with the name of "pragmaticism". Along with its ''[[pragmatic theory of truth]]'', this perspective integrates the basic insights of empirical (experience-based) and [[rationalism|rational]] (concept-based) thinking.
[[Image:Charles Sanders Peirce theb3558.jpg|thumb|150px|right|Charles Sanders Peirce]]
Charles Peirce (1839–1914) was highly influential in laying the groundwork for today's empirical [[scientific method]]. Although Peirce severely criticized many elements of Descartes' peculiar brand of rationalism, he did not reject rationalism outright. Indeed, he concurred with the main ideas of rationalism, most importantly the idea that rational concepts can be meaningful and the idea that rational concepts necessarily go beyond the data given by empirical observation. In later years he even emphasized the concept-driven side of the then ongoing debate between strict empiricism and strict rationalism, in part to counterbalance the excesses to which some of his cohorts had taken pragmatism under the "data-driven" strict-empiricist view. Among Peirce's major contributions was to place [[inductive reasoning]] and [[deductive reasoning]] in a complementary rather than competitive mode, the latter of which had been the primary trend among the educated since David Hume wrote a century before. To this, Peirce added the concept of [[abductive reasoning]]. The combined three forms of reasoning serve as a primary conceptual foundation for the empirically based scientific method today. Peirce's approach "presupposes that (1) the objects of knowledge are real things, (2) the characters (properties) of real things do not depend on our perceptions of them, and (3) everyone who has sufficient experience of real things will agree on the truth about them. According to Peirce's doctrine of [[fallibilism]], the conclusions of science are always tentative. The rationality of the scientific method does not depend on the certainty of its conclusions, but on its self-corrective character: by continued application of the method science can detect and correct its own mistakes, and thus eventually lead to the discovery of truth".<ref>Ward, Teddy (n.d.), "Empiricism", [http://personal.ecu.edu/mccartyr/american/leap/empirici.htm Eprint].</ref>
In his Harvard "Lectures on Pragmatism" (1903), Peirce enumerated what he called the "three cotary propositions of pragmatism" ([[Latin|L:]] ''cos, cotis'' whetstone), saying that they "put the edge on the [[pragmatic maxim|maxim of pragmatism]]". First among these he listed the peripatetic-thomist observation mentioned above, but he further observed that this link between sensory perception and intellectual conception is a two-way street. That is, it can be taken to say that whatever we find in the intellect is also incipiently in the senses. Hence, if theories are theory-laden then so are the senses, and perception itself can be seen as a species of [[abductive reasoning|abductive inference]], its difference being that it is beyond control and hence beyond critique — in a word, incorrigible. This in no way conflicts with the fallibility and revisability of scientific concepts, since it is only the immediate percept in its unique individuality or "thisness" — what the [[Scholastics]] called its ''[[haecceity]]'' — that stands beyond control and correction. Scientific concepts, on the other hand, are general in nature, and transient sensations do in another sense find correction within them. This notion of perception as abduction has received periodic revivals in [[artificial intelligence]] and [[cognitive science]] research, most recently for instance with the work of [[Irvin Rock]] on ''[[indirect perception]]''.<ref>Rock, Irvin (1983), The Logic of Perception, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.</ref><ref> Rock, Irvin, (1997) Indirect Perception, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.</ref>
[[Image:Wm james.jpg|thumb|130px|left|William James]]
Around the beginning of the 20th century, William James (1842-1910) coined the term "radical empiricism" to describe an offshoot of his form of pragmatism, which he argued could be dealt with separately from his pragmatism - though in fact the two concepts are intertwined in James's published lectures. James maintained that the empirically observed "directly apprehended universe, requires no extraneous trans-empirical connective support",<ref> James, William (1911), The Meaning of Truth.</ref> by which he meant to rule out the perception that there can be any [[value added]] by seeking [[supernatural]] explanations for [[nature|natural]] [[phenomena]]. James's "radical empricism" is thus ''not'' radical in the context of the term "empiricism", but is instead fairly consistent with the modern use of the term "[[empirical]]". (His method of argument in arriving at this view, however, still readily encounters debate within philosophy even today.)
[[Image:John Dewey.jpg|thumb|120px|right|John Dewey]]
[[John Dewey]] (1859-1952) modified James' pragmatism to form a theory known as [[instrumentalism]]. The role of sense experience in Dewey's theory is crucial, in that he saw experience as unified totality of things through which everything else is interrelated. Dewey's basic thought, in accordance with empiricism was that [[reality]] is determined by past experience. Therefore, humans adapt their past experiences of things to perform experiments upon and test the pragmatic values of such experience. The value of such experience is measured by scientific instruments, and the results of such measurements generate ideas which serve as instruments for future experimentation.<ref> Dewey, John (1906), Studies in Logical Theory.</ref> Thus, ideas in Dewey's system retain their empiricist flavour in that they are only known ''a posteriori''.
==Footnotes==
{{reflist}}
==References==
* Achinstein, Peter, and Barker, Stephen F. (1969), ''The Legacy of Logical Positivism: Studies in the Philosophy of Science'', Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD.
* [[Aristotle]], "[[On the Soul]]" (''De Anima''), [[W. S. Hett]] (trans.), pp. 1–203 in ''Aristotle, Volume 8'', [[Loeb Classical Library]], [[Heinemann (book publisher)|William Heinemann]], London, UK, 1936.
* Aristotle, ''[[Posterior Analytics]]''.
* Barone, Francesco (1986), ''Il neopositivismo logico'', Laterza, Roma Bari.
* Berlin, Isaiah (2004), ''The Refutation of Phenomenalism'', Isaiah Berlin Virtual Library.
* Bolender, John (1998), "Factual Phenomenalism: A Supervenience Theory"', ''SORITES'', no. 9, pp. 16–31.
* Chisolm, R. (1948), "The Problem of Empiricism", ''Journal of Philosophy'' 45, 512–517.
* Dewey, John (1906), ''Studies in Logical Theory''.
* ''Encyclopedia Britannica'', "Empiricism", vol. 4, p. 480.
* [[David Hume|Hume, D.]], ''[[A Treatise of Human Nature]]'', L.A. Selby-Bigge (ed.), Oxford University Press, London, UK, 1975.
* Hume, D. "An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding", in ''Enquiries Concerning the Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals'', 2nd edition, L.A. Selby-Bigge (ed.), Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 1902.
* James, William (1911), ''The Meaning of Truth''.
* [[Morris T. Keeton|Keeton, Morris T.]] (1962), "Empiricism", pp. 89–90 in Dagobert D. Runes (ed.), ''Dictionary of Philosophy'', Littlefield, Adams, and Company, Totowa, NJ.
* Leftow, Brian (ed., 2006), ''Aquinas: Summa Theologiae, Questions on God'', pp. vii ''et seq''.
* ''Macmillan Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' (1969), "Development of Aristotle's Thought", vol. 1, p. 153ff.
* ''Macmillan Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' (1969), "George Berkeley", vol. 1, p. 297.
* ''Macmillan Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' (1969), "Empiricism", vol. 2, p. 503.
* ''Macmillan Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' (1969), "Mathematics, Foundations of", vol. 5, p, 188–189.
* ''Macmillan Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' (1969), "Axiomatic Method", vol. 5, p. 192ff.
* ''Macmillan Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' (1969), "Epistemological Discussion", subsections on "A Priori Knowledge" and "Axioms".
* ''Macmillan Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' (1969), "Phenomenalism", vol. 6, p. 131.
* ''Macmillan Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' (1969), "Thomas Aquinas", subsection on "Theory of Knowledge", vol. 8, pp. 106–107.
* Marconi, D (2004), "Fenomenismo"', in [[Gianni Vattimo]] and Gaetano Chiurazzi (eds.), ''L'Enciclopedia Garzanti di Filosofia'', 3rd edition, Garzanti, Milan, Italy.
* Markie, P. (2004), "Rationalism vs. Empiricism" in Edward D. Zalta (ed.), ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rationalism-empiricism/ Eprint].
* [[Nicholas Maxwell|Maxwell, Nicholas]] (1998), ''The Comprehensibility of the Universe: A New Conception of Science'', Oxford University Press, Oxford.
* Mill, J.S., "An Examination of Sir William Rowan Hamilton's Philosophy", in A.J. Ayer and Ramond Winch (eds.), ''British Empirical Philosophers'', Simon and Schuster, New York, NY, 1968.
* Morick, H. (1980), ''Challenges to Empiricism'', Hackett Publishing, Indianapolis, IN.
* [[Charles Sanders Peirce|Peirce, C.S.]], "Lectures on Pragmatism", Cambridge, MA, March 26 – May 17, 1903. Reprinted in part, ''Collected Papers'', CP 5.14–212. Reprinted with Introduction and Commentary, Patricia Ann Turisi (ed.), ''Pragmatism as a Principle and a Method of Right Thinking: The 1903 Harvard "Lectures on Pragmatism"'', State University of New York Press, Albany, NY, 1997. Reprinted, pp. 133–241, Peirce Edition Project (eds.), ''The Essential Peirce, Selected Philosophical Writings, Volume 2 (1893–1913)'', Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN, 1998.
* Rescher, Nicholas (1985), ''The Heritage of Logical Positivism'', University Press of America, Lanham, MD.
* [[Irvin Rock|Rock, Irvin]] (1983), ''The Logic of Perception'', MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
* Rock, Irvin, (1997) ''Indirect Perception'', MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
* [[Dagobert D. Runes|Runes, D.D.]] (ed., 1962), ''Dictionary of Philosophy'', Littlefield, Adams, and Company, Totowa, NJ.
* Sini, Carlo (2004), "Empirismo", in Gianni Vattimo et al. (eds.), ''Enciclopedia Garzanti della Filosofia''.
* Solomon, Robert C., and Higgins, Kathleen M. (1996), ''A Short History of Philosophy'', pp. 68-74. <!--publisher-->
* Sorabji, R. (1972), ''Aristotle on Memory''. <!--publisher-->
* Thornton, Stephen (1987), ''Berkeley's Theory of Reality'', [http://www.ul.ie/~philos/vol1/berkel.html Eprint]
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==See also==
{{col-begin}}
{{col-break}}
* [[Empirical formula]]
* [[Empirical knowledge]]
* [[Empirical method]]
* [[Empirical relationship]]
* [[Empirical research]]
* [[Empirical validation]]
{{col-break}}
* [[History of scientific method]]
* [[Inquiry]]
* [[Instrumentalism]]
* [[Logical positivism]]
* [[Naturalism (philosophy)|Naturalism]]
* [[Objectivity (philosophy)|Objectivity]]
{{col-break}}
* [[Phenomenalism]]
* [[Pragmatic maxim]]
* [[Psychological nativism]]
* [[Quasi-empirical method]]
* [[Rationalism]]
* [[Scientific method]]
* ''[[Two Dogmas of Empiricism]]''
{{col-end}}
==External links==
* [http://personal.ecu.edu/mccartyr/american/leap/empirici.htm Empiricism]
* [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rationalism-empiricism/ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Rationalism vs. Empiricism]
* [http://www.faithnet.org.uk/Philosophy/AS%20Level/Knowledge/knowledge_empiricism.htm Theory of Knowledge: An Introduction to Empiricism]
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/inourtime_20040610.shtml BBC Radio 4's In Our Time programme on Empiricism] (requires [[RealAudio]])
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