Dictionary of terms: Empiricism - Research Paper Example

Such experience is stored in our brains and constitutes memories of happenings and events. However, in order for human beings to retain the perceived knowledge in mind, there is a need for memory. Thus, learning something from an experience entails knowing or understanding it from the use of senses (Sellars, Robert, & Richard 28). To claim that one has experience of something indicates that the person is sufficiently aware or conscious of what he has discovered in a particular way. Apart from experience that arises from what our mind retains, feelings, and sensations also constitute experience.

Therefore, perceiving something entails having the sense experiences of that thing. Feelings and perceptions constitute experiences since consciousness of them is something that occurs to us. Hence, experience brings knowledge, which, mainly depend on our use of senses as well as what is revealed through them. Sense experience may facilitate the achievement of experience (Smeyers 5). There are many reasons why all that man knows depends upon experience. The first reason is that every proposition that we discern comes either from direct report experience or from a report whose truth is deduced from experience.

However, an exception to this notion regards the propositions of mathematics. Thus, man knows the truth about mathematics independent of experience. However, J. S Mill disagrees with this view and believes that propositions of mathematics are highly confirmed generalizations obtained from experience. Thus, Miller believes that all propositions generalizations from experience or reports on the experience (Smeyers 37). The second reason for upholding that all knowledge is dependent on experience is that human beings do not have concepts or ideas not derived from experience and thus, all notions or ideas are a posteriori (Sellars, Robert, & Richard 39).

Therefore, we might recognize some propositions without