the.com/empiricism

means The view that knowledge comes from observation and experience — what you can see, test, and measure — rather than from pure reasoning or received authority.

from From Greek 'empeirikos,' meaning 'experienced,' built from 'em-' (in) plus 'peira' (trial, test, experiment) — the same root that gives us 'pirate,' oddly enough, via the sense of 'one who makes attempts.' The Empiric sect were ancient Greek and Roman doctors who treated patients based on observed symptoms and past results rather than theories about hidden bodily causes — practical trial-and-error medicine over doctrine. The word carried a whiff of the amateur or quack well into the 1600s, before philosophers like Locke and Hume rehabilitated it into a badge of honor for knowledge grounded in evidence.