derived from experiment and observation rather than theory; " an empirical basis for an ethical theory"; " empirical laws"; " empirical data"; " an empirical treatment of a disease about which little is known"

relying on medical quackery; " empiric treatment"

Pertaining to, or founded upon, experiment or experience; depending upon the observation of phenomena; versed in experiments.

Depending upon experience or observation alone, without due regard to science and theory; - said especially of medical practice, remedies, etc.; wanting in science and deep insight; as, empiric skill, remedies.

Empirically.

1. Founded on experience. 2. Relating to an empiric.

Not until the real, individual man is identical with the citizen, and has become a generic being in his empirical life, in his individual work, in his individual relationships, not until man has recognized and organized his own capacities as social capacities, and consequently the social force is no longer divided by the political power, not until then will human emancipation be achieved. – Selected Essays by Karl Marx

Of these three, the problem of logic can be solved exactly and perfectly; the problem of physics can probably be solved with as great a degree of certainty and as great an approach to exactness as can be hoped in an empirical region; the problem of theory of knowledge, however, remains very obscure and very difficult to deal with. – Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays by Bertrand Russell

The nature of the Church itself as an empirical institution in the midst of human society was subjected to the same criticism with the State. – Edward Caldwell Moore Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant by Edward Moore

To a man less thorough and empirical in method than Edison, it would have been sufficient to have made his plans clear to associates or subordinates and hold them responsible for accurate results. – Edison, His Life and Inventions by Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin

The practical application of the theory of heat transfer, as developed at present, seems consequently to rest on these last two formulae, which from their nature are more or less empirical. – Steam, Its Generation and Use by Babcock & Wilcox Co.

But the empirical aspect of this teaching was pushed into the background through the teachings of Socrates and Plato. – An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy by W. Tudor Jones

Instead, however, of considering these kinds of exercise in this empirical way, I will devote a brief space to an examination of them in a more scientific form. – The Complete PG Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

The British sea- plane, although still in an empirical stage, like everything else in this sphere of warlike operations, has reached a point of progress in advance of anything attained elsewhere. – The Mastery of the Air by William J. Claxton

The difficulty of defining the limits of intimately- connected studies has been increased, because for centuries it has been customary to designate various branches p 58 of empirical knowledge by terms which admit either of too wide or too limited a definition of the ideas which they were intended to convey, and are, besides, objectionable from having had a different signification in those classical languages of antiquity from thish chey have been borrowed. – COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 by Alexander von Humboldt

This empirical method may perhaps be better illustrated by a specific example. – Edison, His Life and Inventions by Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin

I wonder if the Portuguese of Angola observed it long ago and adopted violet glass for basins, or was it merely accidental and empirical. – West African studies by Mary Henrietta Kingsley

Dr. Moehrlein's knowledge of the occult of India was wholly empirical. – The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton by Wardon Allan Curtis

Social Science is a vast and complex science; it can not be discovered and constituted by the aid of empirical observation and reasoning: the Inductive method can not do its work here. – History of American Socialisms by John Humphrey Noyes

Of course a large number of apparent cures were due solely to nature; which is true under every form of treatment, orthodox or empirical. – The Complete PG Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

But even at the best, such a popular or empirical psychology has no special claim to be ranked as science. – Hegel’s Philosophy of Mind by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Moreover, it is not conditioned like every other empirical fact, but as consequence and substance of a voluntary act entirely unconditioned. – The Red Room by August Strindberg