• What is empirical knowledge?
• Characteristics of empirical knowledge
• Examples of empirical knowledge
• Differences with scientific knowledge
• Other types of knowledge

We explain what empirical knowledge is, its characteristics, types and examples. In addition, its relationship with scientific knowledge.

Empirical knowledge is obtained by direct perception of the world.

What is empirical knowledge?

Empirical knowledge is that obtained through direct experience or perception of the real world, without going through abstractions or imaginations. Is he knowledge that tells us what the world is like, what things exist and what their characteristics are.

This type of knowledge is the basis of materialistic approaches to reality, that is, of those that seek to understand what there is from what there is. It is fundamental for the emergence of the notion of science and from scientific thought, opposed to religious and philosophical knowledge.

There are two types of empirical knowledge, which are:

• Particular. The one that refers to specific cases of the reality, without being able to guarantee that what has been learned applies to all cases in general.
• Quota. One who attributes characteristics to an object that, however, may lack them in the future.

Characteristics of empirical knowledge

The different authors who define this type of knowledge agree that its fundamental characteristic is its direct link with everyday life, with the experience of the world and with the life herself.

In that sense, empirical knowledge does not come from a training process or educational, nor the action of a conscious and analytical reflection, but it is about the experience processed and converted directly into knowledge. The observation, repetition, rehearsal and error are the usual ways to acquire it.

On the other hand, the senses are a key element in the acquisition of empirical knowledge. You cannot learn empirically something that cannot be perceived, or something that is so abstract that it requires mental processes other than our five senses.

Examples of empirical knowledge

We know that fire burns because we have felt its heat as we approach it.

Some simple examples of empirical knowledge are:

• Know the fire. One of the first lessons of any young child, summarized in that fire burns, something that needs to be experienced firsthand to incorporate it into organized knowledge of the world.
• Learn to walk. To ride a bicycle or to use a skateboard, things that generally have only one way of learning: the practice.
• The acquisition of new languages. Which implies a rational and an empirical knowledge, the latter key to learning the language: constant exercise.

Differences with scientific knowledge

Although empirical knowledge and the doctrine of empiricism were key in the philosophical emergence of the concept of science, empirical and scientific knowledge are not comparable, despite the fact that both have to do with the perception of reality.

To begin with, scientific knowledge starts from hypothesis concrete, linked or not to the empirical, that aspire to become an explanation of the real world, something that empirical knowledge does not offer.

On the other hand, scientific knowledge must be verified by means of a method specific to demonstrations and essays, while the empirical responds to the naked experience of the world.

For example: it is a verifiable fact that from time to time it rains, we know this empirically. But it's a scientific knowledge know why it rains and in what way it rains, or what role the rain plays in the hydrological cycle. And we cannot know the latter with simple experience, but we require specialized abstract knowledge, that is, scientific.

Other types of knowledge

Other types of knowledge are:

• Religious knowledge. One who is linked to the mystical and religious experience, that is, to the knowledge that studies the link between the human being and God or the supernatural.
• Scientific knowledge. That which is derived from the application of scientific method to the different hypothesis that arise from the observation of reality. He tries to demonstrate through experiments what are the laws that govern the universe.
• Intuitive insight. The one that is acquired without a reasoning formal. It occurs quickly and unconsciously, the result of processes that are often inexplicable.
• Philosophical knowledge. That which is detached from human thought, in the abstract, using various logical methods or formal reasoning, which is not always directly detached from reality, but from the imaginary representation of reality.