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Essay on Similarities between Criticism and Empiricism
Primarily, and in its psychological application, Empiricism and Criticism signify the theory that the phenomena of consciousness are simply the product of sensuous experience, i.e. of sensations variously associated and arranged. It is thus distinguished from Nativism or Innatism. Secondarily, and in its logical (epistemological) usage, it designates the theory that all human knowledge is derived exclusively from experience, the latter term meaning, either explicitly or implicitly, external sense-percepts and internal representations and inferences exclusive of any superorganic (immaterial) intellectual factor. In this connection it is opposed to Intellectualism, Rationalism, Apriorism. The two usages evidently designate but two inseparable aspects of one and the same theory the epistemological being the application of the psychological to the problem of knowledge.
In its most general sense, Empiricism is the name applied to the attitude that beliefs are to be accepted and acted upon only if they first have been confirmed by actual experience--a definition that accords with the derivation of the name from the Greek word empeiria, "experience."............
