Empirical knowledge: what it is, characteristics, types and examples

Knowledge is a complex process that involves various sensory and cognitive mechanisms, and this is how information is obtained from the environment. Since the beginning of human civilization, each individual has used different methodologies to understand the world around him: indeed, through observation, research, and analysis, several generations have been able to cope with various challenges.
There are, however, various types of knowledge, classifiable by the way in which they are acquired, or in terms of their foundation and universality.

This article will deal with a modality of knowledge: the empirical knowledge, to see what it is, its characteristics, types and some examples.

Index

1. What is empirical knowledge and examples
2. Characteristics of empirical knowledge
3. Types of empirical knowledge
4. Differences between empirical and scientific knowledge

Empiricism (from the Greek empeirìa, "experience"), is a philosophical branch, born in the second half of the century XVII in England, according to which human knowledge derives exclusively from the senses or from the experience. In a broad sense, today by "empiricism" is understood a practical and experimental approach to knowledge, based on research and a posteriori way of proceeding, preferred to pure logic deductive.

The empirical knowledge it is the product of experience; It is acquired when the sense organs make contact with the outside world. This type of knowledge has allowed humanity to accumulate valuable and diverse experiences along its history.

The use of fire, the emergence of agriculture and the domestication of plants and animals, are some examples of empirical knowledge that has been transmitted from generation to generation. The validity of many empirical knowledge about medicine, astronomy, agriculture, navigation and construction, among others, has been verified with daily practice.

Empirical knowledge is characterized by the following:

• Empirical knowledge uses sensory data as the basis for any way of knowing and proceeds from feeling to concept, and not vice versa.
• Empiricism asserts that knowledge is acceptance of sensory data in its concrete and particular immediacy.
• In human knowledge, one always starts from the particular: there are no universal notions that condition the movement of the thought, but the universality of notions (obtained through generalizations) is only a point of arrival, a conquest. The method of empiricism is therefore induction.
• Empiricism does not recognize any knowledge that does not come from an immediate contact of the subject with the object. The primary source of all knowledge is empirical data that take the name of sensations, perceptions, impressions, but also of ideas.
• Empiricism limits the field of knowledge to empirical data and denies thought the possibility of going further, therefore denies the possibility of a metaphysics.

Two different types of empirical knowledge can be identified, one particular and the other contingent.

1. The particular empirical knowledge it is identified because it refers to specific situations, to a unique reality. However, it is not possible to guarantee that experience based on experience can be applied to other cases in a generalized way.
2. On the other hand the contingent empirical knowledge it is identified by describing characteristics that can be attributed to an event. However, they could change in the near future for various reasons.

Empirical is an adjective often related to the term science, and is used in both the natural and social sciences, and This means the use of working hypotheses that can be disproved by observation or experiment (that is, ultimately from the experience). In another sense, the term empirical in science can be synonymous with experimental.

Scientific knowledge, on the other hand, is obtained as a result of an appropriate methodical investigation, which allows discovering constant relationships about facts and phenomena. Let's see, by points, what are the biggest differences between the two types of knowledge:

• The objective of empirical knowledge is to know the observable reality in order to solve problems practical of society; that of scientific knowledge is to describe, explain theoretically, predict and transform reality.
• The object of study of empirical knowledge comprises the working tools of the human being and the field of labor and social activity; that of scientific knowledge is definite, real and comprises the essence of reality.
• Empirical knowledge does not use special knowledge methods, contrary to scientific knowledge.
• Empirical knowledge does not develop theoretical systems: knowledge takes the form of concrete indicators (it does not present a theoretical-methodological basis). Scientific knowledge, on the other hand, elaborates theoretical systems verifiable in practice, and is guided by scientific philosophical principles.

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