Define empiricism. What was it in other philosophies that the empiricists opposed most?
Empiricism is a philosophical theory, which states sensory experience in the origin of all knowledge. It stresses the importance of experience in the attainment of knowledge. There are many types of experiences but only the sensory experience plays vital role in acquiring knowledge according to empiricism. It also asserts that knowledge cannot exist without sensory experience and even intellectual processes use this experience.
There used to be dispute between both rationalism and empiricism. According to the rationalists, the knowledge can be attained with sensory experiences and also be gained independently of sensory experience. But according to empiricist, the sensory experience is the only source of attaining knowledge and concepts. Rationalists accounts of how reason acts as source of concepts and knowledge, while empiricists opposes it.
The disagreements of empiricists against the rationalists resulted in conflicts within epistemology, which is a branch of philosophy concerned with nature, sources and limits of knowledge. Empiricists opposed the following suggestions of other philosophies:
i. They attack the rationalists accounted for how reason can be a source of concepts and knowledge.
ii. They also reject Descartes’s deductive method and the concept of innate ideas, the ideas that do not need any experiences.
iii. They also rejected the existence of superior knowledge.
iv. It also rejects the phenomenon of intuition, which describes the ability to acquire knowledge without the use of reason or any interference.
v. It also rejected the deductive reasoning, which involves logic to reach to certain conclusion.