The theory that all knowledge derives from the senses; empiricism is therefore an
epistemology. One form of empiricism asserts that all knowledge comes from sense impressions (of the object of knowledge) and the mind plays no role whatsoever in forming that knowledge - this is the traditional empiricism of British philosophers such as Hume and Locke, where the mind is depicted as a blank slate, and is closely associated with the rise of modern science. Since Kant changed the frame of philosophy, which had been one of empiricism versus rationalism (ie knowledge derived from the senses versus knowledge derived from the mind), by mediating these two theories, a modified empiricism has been adopted, whereby some role is given to the mind in forming knowledge, though the problem has always been how to relate the two adequately. For
positivism this has centred on the problem of induction, ie. how to infer general knowledge from particular sensory data. Empiricism of various forms is the dominant epistemology in archaeology; empirical data, achieved particularly through controlled observation are the base or origin of knowledge and are to be kept separate from the distortions of subjectivity (qv values and value freedom). The problem with empiricism in general is that it is self- refuting or at least dependent upon a separate metaphysics, since the claim that all knowledge is dependent on empirical data cannot itself be accommodated in this thesis and has to be justified externally.
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Theory
