EMPIRICISM (Greek, empeiria, trial, ex perience, from the adjective empeirps, which means expert, or experienced in). The philo sophical view that experience is the source and the criterion of all knowledge; the theory that all knowledge is derived from material or data existing in the form of particular states of con sciousness. As sense, outer and inner, is re garded as the source of this matErial, empiri cism, as a theory of the origin of knowledge, is nearly synonymous with Sensationalism (q.v.). Moreover, since historically it has been custom ary for representatives of empiricism to explain the connections and relations of ideas by means of the principle of association, the theory is closely connected with Associationism. Empiricism, however, is not alone in its appeal to experience; all modern systems profess to draw their conclusions from this source. But as a philosophical theory, it is distinguished by the particular way in which it envisages the mind and its content. For it, the mind is either merely the place or support of ideas (as for Locke), or (with later writers) simply a general name that is given t9 the stream of conscious processes; it is not itself a contributing factor in experience and has no power to supply ideas or principles which are not already furnished to it by the original data. At birth the mind is like a blank sheet of paper : it contains no innate ideas, and has no original capacity. In this respect empiricism is opposed to Nativism (q.v.), Transcendentalism (q.v.), and all theo ries which find in experience some expression of the nature of reason or intelligence.
As a theory of the origin of knowledge, em piricism has the task of explaining how the more complex and general aspects of knowledge and of concrete experience have been derived from• the simple psychological elements which it as sumes as its data. As these elements are par titular and isolated states of consciousness, the most difficult problem for empiricism has been to explain the connectedness of experience, and more especially the nature and validity of general propositions. How can experience, which is by hypothesis originally constituted of particular states, guarantee the truth of universal state ments, such for example as are arrived at by science? Since for this theory the mind possesses no general principles in the form of innate truths from which it might deduce con clusions, it is evident that empiricism will em phasize induction as its method of reasoning and seek to explain universal propositions as derived in this way from particular experiences.
In regard to the validity of knowledge, em piricism holds that only those ideas are valid that have their source in and can be traced back to some original data which can be exhibited in the form of actual impressions or contents of consciousness. In Hume's statement, all ideas are derived from some original impression. If then it is impossible in any case to point to the \ impression from which our supposed idea is de rived, we have to conclude that the idea is no proper idea at all, but only a of the imagination. It is by means of this principle that Hume and the empiricists who have con stantly followed his lead discredit the idea of the self and all universal principlels and catego tfated-brack-49- some par ticular experience or group of experiences.
Empirical views regarding the origin criterion of knowledge were maintained by the Greek Sophists, and more systematically by both Stoic and Epicurean schools. In the Middle Ages, the doctrine was maintained in the formula, eNihil est in intellectu quol prius quam non fuerat in sensu." But it has been in the modern period that empiricism has been systematically developed and applied as a philo sophical doctrine. The name is especially con nected with the English school that begins with John Locke and includes as its chief representa-* tives, George Berkeley, David Hume, David Hartley, Joseph Priestley, James Mill. J. S. Mill and A. Bain. The views of H. Spencer also are very largely determined by the influence of this school, though his application of the doctrine of evolution leads him to some new conclusions. It should be recognized, however, that the influence of empiricism has not been confined to any single group of thinkers, but that it has in a sense formed a general /platform for the sciences of mind and society. By pro viding a set of conceptions through which the inner life cy be readily ordered anH made c9m prehensible empiricism came to be accepted as a matter of course by writers on psychology, ethics, sociology and education, oftentimes with out even being aware that their procedure had committed them to any philosophical position. During the past generation the empirical view of mind and experience has furnished the frame work which has largely determined the course of investigations in these fields, even when, as in the case of Spencer, they have been accom panied by professions of allegiance to the prin ciple of development. The truth is that the empirical way of representing experience, as constituted out of atomic °states" or °elements" which unite in accordance with certain prin ciples to form °complexes," is so convincing to °common sense" and at the same time so suc cessful in rendering the mind picturable and describable in terms of science that it appears to be both natural and indispensable. It has accordingly happened that the demonstrations of the shortcomings of empiricism as a philo sophical doctrine which have been furnished notably from the point of view of Kant and the idealistic school (cf. T. H. Green, to Hume' ) have failed to overthrow the influ ence and standing of this doctrine in popular favor. The rival view of experience put for ward by Kant and his followers, being more , difficult to understand and to envisage, did not so readily form the basis for investigation and discussion in this field, and so the dominance of . empiricism remained almost unshaken. In recent years, however, there are signs that in vestigations into psychological and social phe nomena are becoming more fully penetrated with historical and developmental conceptions, and are being carried beyond the atomic and mechanical logic of the older empiricism. This movement beyond empiricism is illustrated by the importance attached to studies of behavior and function at the present time, and especially by the tendency shown to interpret mind and it) various types of experience in the light of the categories of historical development.