Everything related to experience and observation of the facts is called empirical. Empirical is an adjective that is also attributed to knowledge. Empirical knowledge is based on experience and immediate contact with reality, that is, everything that an individual knows, without having any scientific wisdom, is called empirical knowledge. For example, a person may say that fire burns, but he does not say it because he has some particular knowledge, he simply knows it because he has burned sometime in his life.
What is empirical
Table of Contents
The term has its genesis in the Greek emperirikos, whose meaning is related to experimentation. The empirical thing or person has basic characteristics and everything depends on the perception that is given to different situations. The meaning of empirical in English is empirical and the antonym empirical is hypothetical or theoretical.
Empirical knowledge
It is a knowledge that is based on experiences and the perception that one has of the world, since it is responsible for making one understand what things exist and what are the characteristics they possess, thus providing a truth.
Characteristics of empirical knowledge
As with any knowledge, the empirical method has its own characteristics, which are divided into two aspects, these are particular or contingent.
- Particular: the empirical one is particular when there is no way to make everything that is known come true.
- Contingent: it is the object to which characteristics or properties are attributed, for example, trees that lose their leaves in autumn.
Empiricism
Philosophy empiricism is defined as a philosophical doctrine that values experiences and that tends to be considered as a basis for building knowledge.
The subjects who maintain the belief in this type of theories are considered empirical, but are recognized in society as representatives of empiricism.
Its beginnings date from the seventeenth century to immediately join the sensory perceptions, thus creating knowledge. If knowledge that is not endorsed or approved by experience is not reported, the knowledge will never be recognized.
There is also another philosophical current that generates disagreement with empirical theory, this current is called rationalism and gives more importance to reason and not to experiences. For empiricism, knowledge is nature, but again other studies establish that a part of knowledge is universal and necessary.
Now, when it comes to scope, what is truly real is what is perceived, the rest has nothing of importance. Most people tend to have knowledge of origins and facts from empirical knowledge, likewise, the answers to questions regarding the reason for existence or being are obtained through this same method.
Everything that has been achieved through experiences has been accomplished thanks to chance, without a specific method and with the heat or the value of the circumstances that life places, either by own effort or by validating the knowledge of other people.
Examples of empirical knowledge
Of course, to make understanding of the subject more enjoyable, a series of practical examples on empirical knowledge will be provided:
- People knew that the conjunction of various dark-hued clouds in the sky means that it was going to rain soon and they knew this before the existence of meteorology.
- Their own experiences enable children to learn the mother tongue.
- For many years, people have been making home remedies to cure various ailments or diseases. All were based on experience in its use and not on knowing how they acted in the body.
- Sociology and anthropology need human experiences in order to develop their own theories.
- When children see fire, they are drawn to it and feel the urge to touch it to find out what it is or what it is about, but when they are burned, they learn that they should never touch it again.
- High seas fishermen have knowledge of the place where fish tend to concentrate, there is no theory that explains how they know it, they were simply based on experiences.
- Before starting to walk, children try different methods to determine which is the best way, then they do it as if nothing else, that is part of the empirical knowledge.
