1650s, in the medical sense, from empiric + -ism. Later in a general sense of "reliance on direct observation rather than theory," especially an undue reliance on mere individual experience; in reference to a philosophical doctrine which regards experience as the only source of knowledge from 1796.
Were I obliged to give a short name to the attitude in question, I should call it that of radical empiricism, in spite of the fact that such brief nicknames are nowhere more misleading than in philosophy. I say 'empiricism' because it is contented to regard its most assured conclusions concerning matters of fact as hypotheses liable to modification in the course of future experience; and I say 'radical,' because it treats the doctrine of monism itself as an hypothesis, and, unlike so much of the half way empiricism that is current under the name of positivism or agnosticism or scientific naturalism, it does not dogmatically affirm monism as something with which all experience has got to square. The difference between monism and pluralism is perhaps the most pregnant of all the differences in philosophy. [William James, preface to "The Sentiment of Rationality" in "The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy," 1897]
实用例句
1. It is in this sense that Comte repudiates empiricism.
正是从这个意义上说,孔德抛弃了经验主义.
来自辞典例句
2. Some are obviously tinged with relatively unalloyed empiricism.
其中有些地方明显地带有较多不相容的经验主义色彩.
来自辞典例句
3. The opposite of empiricism is rationalism.
经验论的对立面是唯理论.
来自辞典例句
4. Rationalism usually considers itself more religious than empiricism.
理性主义总以为自己比经验主义更有宗教信仰.
来自辞典例句
5. The rationalism, opposite to empiricism , holds the theory of innate ideas.
