EMPIRICISM • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Empiricism

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/ɛmpˈɪrəsˌɪzəm/ Listen

noun

Empiricism n.

The method or practice of an empiric; pursuit of knowledge by observation and experiment.

Specifically, a practice of medicine founded on mere experience, without the aid of science or a knowledge of principles; ignorant and unscientific practice; charlatanry; quackery.

(Metaph.) The philosophical theory which attributes the origin of all our knowledge to experience.

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Etymology of 'Empiricism'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Empiricism" Quotes from Famous Books

... four antinomies constitute the teaching of philosophical dogmatism. The antitheses constitute doctrines of philosophical empiricism. ...

— The World's Greatest Books--Volume 14--Philosophy and Economics • Various

... weedy person; even his vanity was directly traceable to the early influence of an eccentric and feckless father with experimental ideas on the upbringing of a child. It was a pity that brilliantly unsuccessful man had not lived to see the result of his sedulous empiricism. His wife was left to bear the brunt—a brave exile whose romantic history was never likely to escape her continent lips. None even knew whether she saw any or one of those aggravated faults of an only child which were so ...

— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung

... "superhuman" and "supernatural," borrowed from our petty theology, had no meaning in the exalted religious consciousness of Jesus. To him Nature and the development of humanity were not limited kingdoms apart from God—paltry realities subjected to the laws of a hopeless empiricism. There was no supernatural for him, because there was no Nature. Intoxicated with infinite love, he forgot the heavy chain which holds the spirit captive; he cleared at one bound the abyss, impossible to most, ...

— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan

... may set aside their pretensions to have founded an exact science. What, then, is to come in its place? Are we simply to admit that there is no certainty about economical problems, and to fall back upon mere empiricism? Everything,—shall we say?—is to be regarded as an open question. That is, perhaps, a common impression in the popular mind. Yet, on the other hand, we may find some very able thinkers applying mathematical ...

— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen

... were used by later generations to prepare the way for still greater inroads upon the contents of Christianity, and finally to justify an attitude of doubt concerning the very foundations on which Christianity was based. Empiricism, Sensualism, Materialism, and Scepticism in philosophy, undermined dogmatic Christianity, and prepared the way for the irreligious and indifferentist opinions, that found such general favour among the educated and higher classes during ...

— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey

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