Meaning & use
Empiricist
Last updated
A person who believes that knowledge comes primarily from sensory experience and observation rather than pure reasoning or intuition.
See it in a sentence
As an empiricist, she insisted on testing every claim with an experiment.
Philosophers like Locke and Hume are considered founders of British empiricism as empiricists.
A note on using this word
Empiricism stands in philosophical contrast to rationalism, which holds that reason alone, independent of experience, can be a source of knowledge.
Words with a similar meaning
experimentalist
Choose a synonym to suit the sentence. Meanings can overlap without being identical.
Words with an opposite meaning
rationalistidealist
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