From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishempiricismem‧pir‧i‧cis‧m /ɪmˈpɪrɪsɪzəm/ AWL noun [uncountable] REAL/NOT IMAGINARYthe belief in basing your ideas on practical experience —empiricist noun [countable]
Examples from the Corpus
empiricism• The distinction between rationalism and empiricism relates to a distinction between knowledge acquired by reason and knowledge acquired by the senses.• It is bald assertion, based on what economists call casual empiricism.• It was the dawn of the age of empiricism.• It is that the probabilistic idea is in accord with a kind of empiricism.• But there is another characteristic strand to foundationalism, that of empiricism.• Indeed, they have been embarrassed by them, having so internalized the epistemological criteria of positivism, empiricism and pragmatism.• He noted that qualitative experience is lost when a reductionist empiricism seeks only quantitative generalizations.• It therefore rejected empiricism and was particularly critical of utilitarianism.