The Position Of Empiricism In The Philosophy Of Science

After the shift away of epistemology of modern times, empiricism has been developing and becomes the most important topic in philosophy. With the rapid development of science and society, scientific philosophy which was newly founded in contemporary era has grown into a major branch of philosophy where empiricism is developed and improved as the origin of logical empiricism. Popper’s famous falsificationism principle also based on empiricism. And from this point, empiricism has penetrated into all aspects of philosophy. Historicism reveals the empiricism features constructiveness, focusing on researches into experience facts during the development of science. Post-positivism also takes the position of empiricism in terms of methodology. Therefore, we can see the importance of empiricism in the development of scientific philosophy.In Chapter One of this thesis, the origin and development are introduced and the complementary relation between modern science and empiricism is discussed. The contribution of empiricism to epistemology and its influence on modern philosophy are also researched in this chapter. In Chapter Two, justifiability criterion of logical empiricism and Popper’s falsificationism are elaborated. There is also a study on how these two schools inherited and developed empiricism. In Chapter Three, historicism, represented by Hanson, Kurn, Feyerabend is studied in terms of how it is against empiricism’s rationalism, objectivity of truths, foundationalism, partternalism, etc. The important position of empiricism in philosophy is reiterated through discussions on demarcation of science and the selection of theoretical standards.