A focus on knowledge

Empiricist philosophy offers a particular form of reasoning in the face of specific problems, such as the study and understanding of the world. Like rationalism, logically and systematically searching to explain new theories and, in between, finding and using evidence to support them.

The main focus of empiricism, beyond its characteristic of supporting strategic observation, is that the basis of all scientific knowledge is found in accumulated experience. This occurs when starting a new field, where the evidence and the result obtained are new to the scientific community or the general public.

The scientific method was established with the Scientific Revolution, comprising parts of induction and deduction. Galileo Galilei was a pioneer in combining calculation and observation to account for natural phenomena. With Isaac Newton, science took on an even more formal character, based on verifiable universal laws, applicable to a multitude of circumstances.

With the philosophy of science advancing over time, the twentieth century appeared with problems for traditional approaches. Philosophers such as Karl Popper went against the possibility of verification, introducing the principle of falsifiability as a suggestion. In turn, Thomas Kuhn suggests that scientific progress occurs in periods in which for a time they alternate and contradict logic, this contradicts the idea that much of knowledge is in a single line of progress.

The foundations of scientific thought and the way in which we obtain knowledge about the world are, indisputably, works of the classical philosophy of science, this, without a doubt, is still important today. But, like philosophy itself, the related debates are more than alive and evolve with the advance of scientific practice and try, and often succeed, to expand the understanding of the method and the very essence of knowledge.