Empiricism is the philosophy of knowledge by observation.

It holds that the best

way to gain knowledge is to see, hear, touch, or otherwise sense things
directly. In stronger versions, it holds that this is the only kind of knowledge
that really counts. Empiricism has been extremely important to the history of
science, as various thinkers over the centuries have proposed that all
knowledge should be tested empirically rather than just through thought-
experiments or rational calculation.
Empiricism is an idea about how we know things, which means it belongs to
the field of epistemology.

II. Empiricism vs. Rationalism vs. Constructivism

Empiricism is often contrasted with rationalism, a rival school which holds that
knowledge is based primarily on logic and intuition, or innate ideas that we can
understand through contemplation, not observation.
Example
Rationalists hold that you don’t have to make any observations to know that
1+1=2; any person who understands the concepts of “one” and “addition” can
work it out for themselves. Empiricists argue the opposite: that we can only
understand 1+1=2 because we’ve seen it in action throughout our lives. As
children, empiricists say, we learn by observing adults, and that’s how we
gain abstract knowledge about things like math and logic.
Of course, ideally, knowledge consists of both observation and logic; you
don’t have to choose between the two. It’s more a matter of which one you
emphasize.
There is a combined philosophy, called constructivism, which represents one
way to get the best of both worlds. Constructivists, like empiricists, argue
that knowledge is based, first and foremost, on observing the world around
us. But we can’t understand what we see unless we fit it into some broader
rational structure, so reason also plays an essential role. Constructivism is a
high-profile idea in the philosophy of education, and many teachers use it to
design their lessons: the idea is to present information in an order that builds
on previous information, so that over time students “construct” a picture of
the subject at hand, and at each step they are able to “place” the new
information in the context of old information.

Quotes About Empiricism

Quote 1
 “Although all our knowledge begins with experience, it does not follow that it arises from
experience.” (Immanuel Kant)
Immanuel Kant was one of the most influential philosophers in European
history, and part of the reason for his fame was that he tried to synthesize
empiricism and rationalism into a single, combined philosophy. Kant argued
that all of our knowledge comes from observations and experience, so in that
sense he was an empiricist. But he also argued that those observations and
experiences were constrained by the inherent structures of thought itself. In
other words, the human mind is wired to make only certain kinds of
observations — so, observation has limits. And those limits, Kant argued, are
what we call logic and rationality. So in that sense he was a rationalist!
Confused? You’re not alone! Philosophers have been arguing for centuries
about whether Kant’s point of view makes sense. Kant was in many ways an
early constructivist.

Quote 2
“The bottom of being is left logically opaque to us . . . something we simply come upon and
find, and about which (if we wish to act) we should pause and wonder as little as possible. In
this confession lies the lasting truth of empiricism.” (William James)
William James was as major empiricist thinker who lived in America around
the turn of the century (c. 1900). This quote is a little obscure, but James is
basically saying that no philosophy can ever hope to understand the “bottom
of being,” or the most basic truths about reality. Since it seems impossible to
prove our most fundamental observations through reason (such as “I seem to
exist”), it makes more sense, in these cases, to rely on empirical observation.
Many philosophers recoil at this suggestion, since they think of philosophy as
being all about analyzing and proving deeper and deeper truths. But James
argued that, at a certain point, this is a waste of time — like trying to look
into your own eyeball without the aid of a mirror.

he History and Importance of Empiricism

Philosophers have long tried to arrive at knowledge through some

combination of observation and logic — empiricism and rationalism. For
example, the ancient rivalry between Plato (rationalism)
and Aristotle (empiricism) shaped the future of philosophy not only in Europe
but also throughout the Islamic world, stretching from Africa to India and
beyond. European and Islamic philosophers argued for centuries about
whether the best sort of knowledge was deduction from abstract principles
(following Plato) or observing the world around us (following Aristotle).
The debate is even older than ancient Greece, as empiricism and rationalism
had already appeared in Indian philosophical texts dating back centuries
before Plato and Aristotle were born. Most Indian philosophers, however, took
 the view that both empiricism and rationalism were necessary, whereas
European philosophers tended to argue that one had to be victorious over the
other.
Empiricism really took off in Europe during the Scientific Revolution, when
scholars began conducting systematic experiments and observations of the
world around them. These observations led to earth-shattering discoveries,
such as the fact that our planet revolves around the sun rather than the other
way around. However, the Scientific Revolution also owed a lot to rationalism,
which is involved in coming up with experiments to begin with, and deriving
knowledge from their results. Rationalism was especially influential in
promoting mathematical reasoning as an essential part of deriving scientific
conclusions.

V. Empiricism in Popular Culture

Example 1
Many RPGs (role-playing games), such as Skyrim, give players the ability to
combine various items to make potions, weapons, armor, etc. In many cases,
you have to get there by pure trial-and-error because there’s very little rhyme
or reason — no patterns. These games encourage empiricism because you have
to learn by repeated experiments and observation rather than abstract
reasoning.
Example 2
“Call it what you will, it’s about getting up off your chair, going where the action is, and
seeing things firsthand.” (David Sturt)
David Sturt is a self-help author and motivational speaker. In this quote, he’s
promoting a kind of empiricism as a philosophy of life. See things for
yourself! Experience the world directly! This is similar to the epistemological
empiricism that we’ve been discussing in this article. However, it’s a little
different in that true empiricism is a theory of where knowledge comes from.
In other words, empiricism is a theory about how best to know reality
(through direct experience).

VI. Controversies

Empiricism and Skepticism

Many empiricists are also skeptics: they argue that many common-sense ideas
are not empirically observable, and therefore that either those ideas are not
 true or, at best, we can’t know whether they’re true. For example, David Hume,
one of the most famous empiricists, argued that we could not empirically
demonstrate the existence of causality! His argument went something like this:
 You see a baseball flying towards a window.

 Moments later, you hear a crash and see the window break.

 You infer that the ball caused the window to break.

David Hume argued that only (1) and (2) are empirical; they’re observations.
But (3) isn’t an observation; it’s an inference (technically, an inductive inference).
Therefore, according to Hume’s empiricism, we can’t really know whether the
ball caused the window to break! We only know for sure that certain things
happened, not whether they’re connected! Therefore it’s impossible to know
whether any event causes another or whether they just occurred one after the
other. In other words, we can observe separate events, but we can never
observe a causal link between them.
Later empiricists would question Hume’s argument. For example, William
James argued for what he called “radical empiricism,” or the view that
you can actually observe causality. He argued that Hume was being overly
reductive about what counts as “observation,” and failing to account for more
abstract observations that we make all the time.
For example, we might say “I saw the ball break the window.” This is more
than just an observation of two separate events; it’s also an observation of
one event, an event involving causation, which we directly observe.

Pragmatism (experimentalism)
1. 1. Pragmatism (Experimentalism) Kristen Karazsia Educational Philosophies Presentation
Sept. 28, 2015
2. 2. John Dewey, (1859-1952) a philosopher, psychologist, Georgist, and educational reformer
believed…
3. 3. Out with the old (religion), in with the new (critical thinking)… At a time when society was
religion-based and human-centered, a change occurred thanks to the minds of men like
scientist Charles Darwin, mathematician Charles Pierce, and psychologist William James.
Darwin, who wrote “The Origin of Species” shook previously-held views about creation and
religion. Pierce and James developed principles that 1. rejected dogmas or preconceived
truths and 2. promoted testing to verify ideas. The fresh approach taken by these men
caused a shift in educational philosophy called PRAGMATISM (Experimentalism).
4. 4. According to page 32 of “Philosophical Foundations of Curriculum…” 1. Pragmatism is
based on change, process, and relativity. 2. Pragmatism construes knowledge as a process
in which reality is constantly changing. As a result… 3. Pragmatic learning environments are
constantly changing to meet the ever-changing student. 4. Pragmatic learning occurs as a
person engages in problem solving in a way that is transferable to other walks of life.
5. 5. The pragmatist’s approach… *is exploratory versus explanatory. *focuses on the method
of teaching, versus the subject taught. *teaches students HOW to think, not WHAT to think.
TEACHING AND CURRICULUM SHOULD FOCUS ON CRITICAL THINKING!!
 6. 6. The rise of pragmatism replaced the common doctrines and teaching and recitation of
knowledge. Instead of Saying This… A Pragmatist Would Say This… What? Why? Who?
How come? When? What if?
7. 7. Works Cited…  Ornstein, Allan, C. & Hunkins, F. (2013). Curriculum: Foundations,
Principles, and Issues. Boston, MA: Pearson.

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ntroduction
Instrumentalism is the methodological view
in Epistemology and Philosophy of Science, advanced by the
American philosopher John Dewey, that concepts and theories
are merely useful instruments, and their worth is
measured not by whether the concepts and theories
are true or false (Instrumentalism denies that theories
are truth-evaluable), or whether they correctly depict
reality, but by how effective they are
in explaining and predicting phenomena. It maintains that
the truth of an idea is determined by its success in the active
solution of a problem, and that the value of an idea is
determined by its function in human experience.
In Philosophy of Mind, Instrumentalism is the view that
propositional attitudes such as beliefs are not actually
concepts on which we can base scientific investigations of
the mind and brain, but that acting as if other beings do have
beliefs is often a successful strategy.
Instrumentalism is closely related to Pragmatism (which
stresses practical consequences as constituting the
essential criterion in determining meaning, truth or value),
and opposed to Scientific Realism (the view that the
world described by science is the real
world, independent of what we might take it to be).
 Back to Top
Types of Instrumentalism
 Moral Instrumentalism (or Instrumentalist Morality)
defines moral rules only as tools for moral good. Thus, the moral
code arising from a given population is simply a collection of rules
that are useful to that population. This view
resembles Utilitarianism and developed from the teachings of David
Hume and John Stuart Mill.
 Political Instrumentalism is the view, developed by John
Dewey from his instrumentalist and Pragmatist views, and from the
much earlier writings of Niccolo Machiavelli, which sees politics as
simply means to an end.
Education is a lifetime process with no true beginning or ending. Education consists of
experience, environment, socialisation and communication. According to John Dewey;
“Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.” It is through education that you
can change the face of the world

"Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself." John Dewey was convinced
that learning through doing was the best approach to education. ... For Dewey, "experience"
is defined as that which people think and perceive through the senses and then act upon.

Education for Life is a system that prepares the child to face the challenges of living as a
human being, and helps him to achieve balance and harmony in all he does. ... As defined it in
the book, Education for Life, maturity is the ability to relate appropriately to other realities than
one's own

Progressive education is essentially a view of education that emphasizes the need to learn by
doing. Dewey believed that human beings learn through a 'hands-on' approach. This
places Dewey in the educational philosophy of pragmatism. Pragmatists believe that
reality must be experienced.

Education gives us a knowledge of the world around us and changes it into something better. It
develops in us a perspective of looking at life. It helps us build opinions and have points of view
on things in life. People debate over the subject of whether education is the only thing that
gives knowledge
Moderate empiricists believe that significant knowledge comes from our experience but also
know that there are truths that are not based on direct experience. For example, a math
problem, such as 2 + 2 = 4, is a fact that does not have to be investigated or experienced in
order to be true.

Instrumentalism, in the philosophy of science, the view that the value of

scientific concepts and theories is determined not by whether they are literally
true or correspond to reality in some sense but by the extent to which they
help to make accurate empirical predictions or to
resolve conceptual problems. Instrumentalism is thus the view that scientific
theories should be thought of primarily as tools for solving practical problems
rather than as meaningful descriptions of the natural world. Indeed,
instrumentalists typically call into question whether it even makes sense to
think of theoretical terms as corresponding to external reality. In that sense,
instrumentalism is directly opposed to scientific realism, which is the view that
the point of scientific theories is not merely to generate reliable predictions but
to describe the world accurately.
Instrumentalism is a form of philosophical pragmatism as it applies to the
philosophy of science. The term itself comes from the American
philosopher John Dewey’s name for his own more general brand
of pragmatism, according to which the value of any idea is determined by its
usefulness in helping people to adapt to the world around them.
Instrumentalism in the philosophy of science is motivated at least in part by
the idea that scientific theories are necessarily underdetermined by the
available data and that in fact no finite amount of empirical evidence could
rule out the possibility of an alternate explanation for observed phenomena.
Because in that view there is no way to determine conclusively that one theory
more closely approaches the truth than its rivals, the main criterion for
evaluating theories should be how well they perform. Indeed, the fact that no
amount of evidence can decisively show that a given theory is true (as
opposed to merely predictively successful) begs the question of whether it is
meaningful to say that a theory is “true” or “false.” It is not that instrumentalists
believe that no theory is better than any other; rather, they doubt that there is
any sense in which a theory can be said to be true or false (or better or worse)
apart from the extent to which it is useful in solving scientific problems.

In support of that view, instrumentalists commonly point out that the history of
science is replete with examples of theories that were at one time widely
considered true but are now almost universally rejected. Scientists no longer
believe, for example, that light propagates through the ether or even that there
is such a thing as the ether at all. Whereas realists argue that as theories are
modified to accomodate more and more evidence, they more and more
closely approximate the truth, instrumentalists argue that if some of the best
historical theories have been discarded, there is no reason to suppose that
the most widely accepted theories of the present day will hold up any better.
Nor is there necessarily any reason to believe that the best current theories
approximate the truth any better than the ether theory did.

There may nevertheless be a sense in which the instrumentalist and realist

positions are not as far apart as they sometimes seem. For it is difficult to say
precisely what the distinction is between accepting the usefulness of a
theoretical statement and actually believing it to be true. Still, even if the
difference between the two views is in some sense only semantic, or one of
emphasis, the fact is that most people intuitively do make a distinction
between the truth and the practical usefulness of scientific theories.

Experimentalism in Education

1. 1. Experimentali sm  Experience anything to learn it  Education should be a study of

social problems and how it is solved  Students shouldn’t be taught what to think, But HOW
to think
2. 2. Experimentalism believes that things are constantly changing. It is based on the view that
reality is what works right now and that goodness comes from group decisions. As a result,
schools exist to discover and expand the society we live in. Students study social
experiences and solve problems.
3. 3. John Dewey “If we teach today's students as we taught yesterday's, we rob them of
tomorrow.”
4. 4. What Experimentalism is?  Experimentalism is associated with a very broad but shallow
curriculum. Many electives, few required subjects.  Experimentalism is friendly to
educational research, and many new ideas come from it.
5. 5. But…  Experimentalism can be wasteful of resources.  It can also fail to follow through.
6. 6. Experimentalist teachers like to tinker or experiment. They don’t like to leave things the
same all the time. In experiencing something, you are creating knowledge
7. 7. What Experimentalists would teach?  Everything — anything that had any relation to
students’ possible futures.  Has been accused of trying to do the home’s job.
8. 8. Classroom Management Don’t like assertive discipline  Prefer more constructivistic
approaches such as Discipline with Dignity
9. 9. Where Experimentalism shines?  When school has become all work and no play. 
When essentialism or perennialism have been in power for so long, school programs have
become stagnant.  When traditional methods have become ineffective.
10. 10. END Presentors: Demafiles, Cheryl Anne Talaboc, Clarice Anne II-6 AB/BSE Literature
(English)
Module 1 ppt 3 Batayang teorya
1. 1. Pilosopiya ng Personalismo Mga Batayan Teorya sa mga Pamamaraan sa Pagtuturo at
Pagkatuto
2. 2. Mga Teoryang Batayan ng Pagtuturo at Pagkatao Naipamamalas ng mag-aaral ang pag-
unawa sa mga konsepto sa pananagutang pansarili, pamilya, kapwa, bansa, daigdig at
Diyos; nakapagpapasya at nakakikilos nang mapanagutan tungo sa kabutihang panlahat.
3. 3. Mga teorya • Ang mga nasa edad (adults) ay natututo sa pamamagitan ng kanilang
pagninilay sa kanilang mga karanasan, pagbuo ng mga konklusyon o insight mula sa mga
ito, at paglalapat ng mga ito sa angkop na mga sitwasyon ng buhay.
4. 4. • Nagkakaroon ng pagkatuto ang tao at gumagawa ng kabuluhan (meaning) batay sa
kanyang karanasan. • Tuon sa mag-aaral. • Nagkakaroon siya ng mga bagong pagkatuto
gamit ang mga tanong ng guro at ng kanyang malikhaing paraan.
5. 5. • Ang pagpapasya ng bata ukol sa kurso o propesyon – dumadaan sa iba’t ibang yugto
batay sa kanyang pagtingin sa sarili (self-concept), saloobin (attitude) at mga
pagpapahalaga. • Ang pagtanggap o pagtanggi sa isang kurso o trabaho batay sa
obserbasyon niya.
6. 6.  Kamalayang Pansarili (Self-awareness)  Pamamahala ng Sarili (Self-management) 
Kamalayang Panlipunan (Social Awareness)  Pamamahala ng Pakikipag-ugnayan
(Relationship Management)  Mapanagutang Pagpapasya (Responsible Decision Making)
7. 7. Social Learning Theory (Interaktibong Teorya ng Pagkatuto) Albert Bandura • Ang mga
pagkatutotulad ng pagkakaroon ng mabuting ugali at bagong impormasyon ay maaaring
makuha sa pagmamasid sa ibang tao
8. 8. Ang Pilosopiya Ang Edukasyon sa Pagpapakatao ay batay sa pilosopiyang Personalismo
tungkol sa pagkatao ng tao at sa Virtue Ethics. Ayon sa pilosopiya ng Personalismo, ang
ating mga ugnayan ay nakaugat lagi sa pagpapakatao. Nililikha natin ang ating
pagpapakatao sa ating pakikipagkapwa.
9. 9. Ang Pilosopiya Sa Virtue Ethics naman, sinasabing ang isang mabuting tao ay
nagsasabuhay ng mga virtue o mabuting gawi (habits) at umiiwas sa mga bisyo o
masamang gawi. Samakatuwid, ang nagpapabuti sa tao ay ang pagtataglay at ang
pagsasabuhay ng mga mabuting gawi.

Dewey believed that human beings learn through a 'hands-on' approach. This
places Dewey in the educational philosophy of pragmatism. Pragmatists believe that
reality must be experienced. From Dewey's educational point of view, this means that
students must interact with their environment in order to adapt and learn.