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Introduction to Empiricism

Empiricism is a philosophical doctrine that holds that all knowledge is based on experience derived from the senses. According to empiricists like John Locke, there are two types of ideas: simple ideas derived from basic sensory impressions, and complex ideas that are combinations of simple ideas. Empiricism asserts that knowledge comes from experience and sensory perception, rather than innate ideas or reason alone. Through observation of patterns in experiences, inductive reasoning can be used to make general conclusions and gain understanding about the world.

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97 views2 pages

Introduction to Empiricism

Empiricism is a philosophical doctrine that holds that all knowledge is based on experience derived from the senses. According to empiricists like John Locke, there are two types of ideas: simple ideas derived from basic sensory impressions, and complex ideas that are combinations of simple ideas. Empiricism asserts that knowledge comes from experience and sensory perception, rather than innate ideas or reason alone. Through observation of patterns in experiences, inductive reasoning can be used to make general conclusions and gain understanding about the world.

Uploaded by

Carlo Openaria
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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What is Empiricism?

Watch this video to gain an awareness on the fundamentals of Empiricism. In it, you will
learn that Rationalism is based on what is observable from the experiences that you will
create through your senses.

Why do I need to learn Empiricism?


As mentioned in WIKI: Fundamentals of Philosophy, Empiricism (as with Rationalism) is
part of the branch of Epistemology. It asks you to look into how you know what you know.
It asks you to make conclusions about yourself and the world around you.

In order to fully understand yourself, you will need to know how your beliefs and opinions
came to be; how you act upon them—how this ultimately affects how you interact with
other people.

Gaining a deeper understanding on all these will allow you to live a more meaningful life.

What does Empiricism “look” like?


According to John Locke (29 August 1632 - 28 October 1704), there are two kinds of ideas in
Empiricism, and these ideas help shape our knowledge.

Simple Ideas
These are the minute, basic, small impressions that we gain via our senses. For example,
impressions of what we understand to be "fuzzy", "round", "green", and "bouncy".

Complex Ideas
These are the kinds of ideas that we get when we put these simple ideas together. For
example, if we combine "fuzzy", "round", "green", and "bouncy", we get our experience of a
tennis ball (because a tennis ball is fuzzy, round, green, and bouncy).

These ideas all make sense to you because you’ve experienced them, in one way or
another. The combination of these experienced ideas will help form new ideas, also
through experience, and so on and so forth.

How does Empiricism “work”?


Empiricism says that our senses define our experiences, so all knowledge is gained through
sense-experience. Our experiences give us the evidence we need to explain the patterns
that we see around us. Knowledge, then, is a posteriori, or, after or based on experience.
Empiricism is another kind of philosophy. This time, the focus is entirely on how our
experiences inform our knowledge about our own selves and the world around us. It relies
on inductive reasoning to obtain clarity and deeper understanding.

Unlike deductive reasoning, inductive reasoning starts with something specific. By our
experience of that specific, we will then get to the general that relates directly with the
specific. For example: When we are able to observe a pattern, our experience of this
pattern allows us to make conclusions about the concept that describes or explains the
pattern.

Additional Resources
The Existential Choice
This video will briefly explain the arguments posed by Jean-Paul Sartre, one of the
proponents of Empiricism.

Are You Authentic? (Heidegger) - 8-Bit Philosophy


This video will briefly explain the arguments posed by Martin Heidegger, another
proponent of Empiricism.

How To Become Trip Advisor’s #1 Fake Restaurant


This video shows how one man fooled the world by creating online presence for a fake
restaurant that eventually became Trip Advisor’s #1 restaurant in London. This experiment
makes one ask, “How do we know what’s real in the digital age? Can we still trust the
knowledge that we read about without experiencing it with our senses?”

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