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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)
The first para of the intro contains the following frog (quack, quack):
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. ( mbork3!) 18:50, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
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| talk 20:15, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
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
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)
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)
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)
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)
In the opening definition of empiricism it is said, "knowledge comes only or primarily from sensory experience."
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)
"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)
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)
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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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)
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'Shea ( talk) 08:33, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
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. /info/en/?search=Scientific_method — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.8.220.14 ( talk) 21:02, 27 May 2020 (UTC)
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.
The result was: rejected by
BlueMoonset (
talk)
05:05, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
Article no longer exists; the page is now a redirect, and hence ineligible for DYK.
5x expanded by Airstarfish ( talk). Self-nominated at 11:28, 7 May 2022 (UTC).
@ John P. Sadowski (NIOSH): The nominator hasn't edited since late May. Have your issues been addressed yet or do they still remain? Narutolovehinata5 ( talk · contributions) 04:41, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
"Hypothesis One. We expected to see a strong divergence between molecular and evolutionary biologists, given the emphasis on the investigation of the intrinsic, structural nature of the gene in the former discipline and the emphasis on genes as markers of phenotypic effects in the latter discipline. " ... "Hypotheses one and two, which suggest, in broad terms, that biologists whose research focus is in evolutionary biology conceptualize genes primarily via their effects on phenotypes, are supported in some tests but not others. The fact that the hypotheses are supported when indirect questions are used, but not when direct questions are used..." How Biologists Conceptualize Genes: An empirical study
Very disappointed that Chinese traditions are not adequately represented in the history section. Kelly222 ( talk) 20:14, 28 February 2024 (UTC)