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Theory vs Empiricism - What's the difference?

theory | empiricism |

As nouns the difference between theory and empiricism

is that theory is mental conception; reflection, consideration while empiricism is a pursuit of knowledge purely through experience, especially by means of observation and sometimes by experimentation.

theory

English

Noun

  • (obsolete) Mental conception; reflection, consideration.
  • * 1646 , (Thomas Browne), Pseudodoxia Epidemica , VII.19:
    • As they encrease the hatred of vice in some, so doe they enlarge the theory of wickednesse in all.
  • (sciences) A coherent statement or set of ideas that explains observed facts or phenomena, or which sets out the laws and principles of something known or observed; a hypothesis confirmed by observation, experiment etc.
  • * 2002 , Duncan Steel, The Guardian , 23 May 2002:
    • It was only when Einstein's theory' of relativity was published in 1915 that physicists could show that Mercury's "anomaly" was actually because Newton's gravitational ' theory was incomplete.
  • * 2003 , (Bill Bryson), A Short History of Nearly Everything , BCA, p. 118:
    • The world would need additional decades [...] before the Big Bang would begin to move from interesting idea to established theory .
  • * 2009 , (Richard Dawkins), The Greatest Show On Earth: The Evidence for Evolution , Bantam, p. 10:
    • Scientists and creationists are understanding the word "theory'" in two very different senses. Evolution is a '''theory''' in the same sense as the heliocentric '''theory'''. In neither case should the word "only" be used, as in "only a ' theory ".
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2012-01
    • , author=Michael Riordan , title=Tackling Infinity , volume=100, issue=1, page=86 , magazine= citation , passage=Some of the most beautiful and thus appealing physical theories', including quantum electrodynamics and quantum gravity, have been dogged for decades by infinities that erupt when theorists try to prod their calculations into new domains. Getting rid of these nagging infinities has probably occupied far more effort than was spent in originating the ' theories .}}
  • (uncountable) The underlying principles or methods of a given technical skill, art etc., as opposed to its practice.
  • * 1990 , Tony Bennett, Outside Literature , p. 139:
    • Does this mean, then, that there can be no such thing as a theory of literature?
  • * 1998 , Elizabeth Souritz, The Great History of Russian Ballet :
    • Lopukhov wrote a number of books and articles on ballet theory , as well as his memoirs.
  • (mathematics) A field of study attempting to exhaustively describe a particular class of constructs.
    • Knot theory classifies the mappings of a circle into 3-space.
  • A hypothesis or conjecture.
  • * 1999 , Wes DeMott, Vapors :
    • It's just a theory I have, and I wonder if women would agree. But don't men say a lot about themselves when a short-skirted woman slides out of a car or chair?
  • * 2003 , Sean Coughlan, The Guardian , 21 Jun 2003:
    • The theory is that by stripping costs to the bone, they are able to offer ludicrously low fares.
  • (countable, logic) A set of axioms together with all statements derivable from them. Equivalently, a formal language plus a set of axioms (from which can then be derived theorems).
    • A theory is consistent if it has a model.

    Usage notes

    In scientific discourse, the sense “unproven conjecture” is discouraged (with hypothesis or conjecture preferred), due to unintentional ambiguity and intentional equivocation with the sense “well-developed statement or structure”.

    Synonyms

    * See also

    Holonyms

    * (in logic) formal system

    Meronyms

    * (in logic) axioms

    Derived terms

    * acoustic theory * algorithmic information theory * antenna theory * atomic theory * catastrophe theory * category theory * cell theory * chaos theory * circuit theory * complexity theory * computation theory * control theory * critical theory * decision theory * domino theory * extreme value theory * game theory * giant impact theory * graph theory * group theory * in theory * information theory * kinetic theory of gases * knot theory * literary theory * music theory * number theory * opponent-process theory * phlogiston theory * probability theory * proof theory * quantum field theory * rational choice theory * set theory * signal theory * social theory * systems theory * theory of gravity * theory of relativity * theory of truth * Theory X * Theory Y * type theory * value theory * virtue theory

    Related terms

    * theorem * theoretical * theorise, theorize

    See also

    * axiom * postulate * proposition Check translations

    empiricism

    English

    (wikipedia empiricism)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A pursuit of knowledge purely through experience, especially by means of observation and sometimes by experimentation.
  • *1885 , Gerard F. Cobb, "Musical Psychics," Proceedings of the Musical Association , 11th Session, p. 119:
  • *:Our whole life in some of its highest and most important aspects is simply empiricism'. ' Empiricism is only another word for experience.
  • *1951 , , letter to Maurice Solovine (Jan. 1), in Letters to Solovine :
  • *:I have found no better expression than "religious" for confidence in the rational nature of reality... . Whenever this feeling is absent, science degenerates into uninspired empiricism .
  • *2001 , Mark Zimmermann, "The Stillness of Painting: Robert Kingston and His Contemporaries," PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art , vol. 23, no. 3 (Sep), p. 71:
  • *:Painting needs no explanation or apology. This most religious of art forms belies the pathetic empiricisms of contemporary discussions.
  • (philosophy) A doctrine which holds that the only or, at least, the most reliable source of human knowledge is experience, especially perception by means of the physical senses. (Often contrasted with rationalism.)Dictionary of Philosophy'', (ed.), Macmillan, 1967. ''See: "Empiricism" by D. W. Hamlyn, vol. 2, pp. 499-505.
  • *1893 , James Seth, "The Truth of Empiricism." The Philosophical Review , vol. 2, no. 5 (Sep.), p. 552:
  • *:Empiricism teaches us that we are unceasingly and intimately in contact with a full, living, breathing Reality, that experience is a constant communion with the real.
  • *1950 , Virgil Hinshaw, Jr., "Review of Socratic Method and Critical Philosophy, Selected Essays by Leonard Nelson''," ''Philosophy and Phenomenological Research , vol. 11, no. 2 (Dec.), p. 285:
  • *:He agrees with Kant that Hume's empiricism is refuted de facto'' by the example of mathematics, whose judgments are synthetic ''a priori .
  • *1958 , Ernest A. Moody, "Empiricism and Metaphysics in Medieval Philosophy," The Philosophical Review , vol. 67, no. 2 (Apr.), p. 151:
    • Empiricism is the doctrine that human knowledge is grounded on the kind of experience, mostly achieved through the five senses, whose objects are particular events occurring at particular times and in particular places.
  • (medicine, dated) A practice of medicine founded on mere experience, without the aid of science or a knowledge of principles; ignorant and unscientific practice; the method or practice of an empiric.
  • *1990 , Alison Klairmont Lingo, "Review of Professional and Popular Medicine in France, 1770-1830'' by Matthew Ramsey," ''Journal of Social History , vol. 23, no. 3 (Spring), p. 607:
  • *:Even at the height of its popularity, medical empiricism was the creature of a most unforgiving free market economy. Successful practioners seduced crowds as well as public officials.

    • Synonyms

    *(medical practice founded on experience) charlatanry, quackery

    Related terms

    *empirical *empiricist

    See also

    *rationalism

    References

    *" empiricism" at OneLook® Dictionary Search . *" empiricism" in Encyclopedia Britannica , 1911 ed. *" empiricism" in Columbia Encyclopedia , 6th ed., at Bartleby.com. *" empiricism" by F. P. Siegfried, in The Catholic Encyclopedia , Robert Appleton Company, New York, 1911. * Notes: English words suffixed with -ism