Empiricism is an epistemological framework that treats sensory experience, observation, and experimentation as the primary or sole sources of knowledge. It carves knowledge into a hierarchy: raw observation, measured data, inductive generalization, and tested hypothesis. It persists through scientific method, pedagogical transmission, and the disciplined practices of verification and falsification across generations. [formal: empiricism | substrate: mind | horizon: generations | explicit: yes | epoch: 0.42]
Accepted ontology entry
empiricism
Empiricism is an epistemological framework that treats sensory experience, observation, and experimentation as the primary or sole sources of knowledge. It carves knowledge into a hierarchy: raw observation, measured data, inductive genera…
Definition
Why it is in scope
A human-made epistemological framework positing that knowledge claims are justified by their grounding in observable, sensory experience. It constructs a method for evaluating beliefs through empirical evidence, standing in contrast to rationalist frameworks that privilege a priori reasoning. The MAP — the category of empiricist theories, their criteria, and their history — is human-made.
Names and aliases
- empiricismen · CANONICAL
Relations from this entry
- cms6acqx000hf5ygsvj9tf6d7DERIVED_FROM →
Experience as a concept (accumulated knowledge through direct involvement) predates empiricism as a formal epistemological framework. Empiricism systematized what experience alone provides informally. The which-came-first test: experience concepts existed long before the term 'empiricism' was coined for the philosophy.
- cmrbkv6h70037a9g497m5u538SERVES →
Empiricism is the epistemological framework that serves science: its designed purpose is to provide the methodological principle (sensory experience and experimentation as primary knowledge sources) that science operates by. The servant (empiricism) points at the master (science).
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Record identity
- Created
- Aug 10, 2026, 10:53 PM UTC
- Content hash
- 9a5c97b20616beb542afd1fa60f2e30196e95d9aa4803fa9eb53183c2fb66974