empiricism（n.）
"不是基于理论而是直接经验和观察的依赖性; " 最初用于医学意义上的1650年代，来自 empiric 和 -ism。最初的医学意义是贬低的：“江湖医术; 无知者冒充有医学技能。”这种贬低的特性随后体现在“依赖于直接观察而不是理论”的普遍意义上，特别是对单纯个人经验的过度依赖。至于哲学上将经验视为唯一知识来源的教义，始于1796年。
Were I obliged to give a short name to the attitude in question, I should call it that of radical empiricism, in spite of the fact that such brief nicknames are nowhere more misleading than in philosophy. I say 'empiricism' because it is contented to regard its most assured conclusions concerning matters of fact as hypotheses liable to modification in the course of future experience; and I say 'radical,' because it treats the doctrine of monism itself as an hypothesis, and, unlike so much of the half way empiricism that is current under the name of positivism or agnosticism or scientific naturalism, it does not dogmatically affirm monism as something with which all experience has got to square. The difference between monism and pluralism is perhaps the most pregnant of all the differences in philosophy. [William James, preface to "The Sentiment of Rationality" in "The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy," 1897]
如果我必须为这种态度取个简短的名称，我会叫它 radical empiricism，尽管这样简短的绰号在哲学上常常更加具有误导性。我称其为“经验主义”，因为这种态度认为其对于事实的非常肯定的结论只是一种假设，在未来经验的过程中可能会被修改； 我称其为“激进主义”，因为它将唯一实体论学说本身视为一种假设，并且，与其说它像现在流行的博斯庄主义、不可知论或者科学自然主义一样，半路上的经验主义在意识形态上认为唯一实体论是所有体验都需要证实的。唯一实体论和复数实体论之间的差异或许是哲学上最重要的差异之一。[威廉詹姆斯，来自1897年《相信的意志与其他流行哲学论文集》中的《理性情感》序言]
该词起源时间：1650年代