What is Empiricism? Critically Evaluate its Value When Writing History

Abstract

Empiricism is one of the crucial theories for writing history which appeared in late nineteenth century while it focuses only on primary sources and sensory experience. It uses an inductive method of reasoning, which means moving from the specific to the general. Empiricism has become one of the most popular methods that has been used by a large number of historians and academics in the last four centuries which they argued that only primary or original sources should be used by historians. Empiricists believe that investigating primary sources and use only evidence for writing history, however, rationalists believe that examining past events can lead to truth because history is always written by elites of society. In addition, the historian’s position is connected with statements about history this demonstrate the association of empiricism with relativism. Finally, it can be argued that historians cannot obtain facts without evidence, although historian’s interpretation is necessary for writing history while criticising the documents may obtain the truth. However, historian’s explanations can also be problematic, because as empiricists argue their perspectives tend to be a fiction and they cannot agree on a single explanation.