Empiriset

Empiriset, meaning "empirical" in Finnish, describes knowledge, methods, or evidence grounded in observation and experience rather than purely theoretical reasoning. The term is used across sciences and humanities when results or claims are supported by data obtained through senses or instrumentation.

Empirical knowledge arises through empirical methods, which involve observation, measurement, experimentation, data collection, and replication. In contrast to a priori or deductive reasoning, empirical investigation seeks generalizable patterns from observed cases. Empiricism as a philosophical tradition emphasizes that knowledge primarily comes from sensory experience and evidence.

In Finnish usage, "empiriset" appears in phrases such as empiriset tutkimusmenetelmät (empirical research methods) and empiriset todisteet (empirical evidence). The related noun is empirismi, or "empiricism," and the adjective "empirinen" corresponds to English "empirical."

Limitations and critiques of empirical approaches include issues of measurement validity, sampling bias, and the problem of induction—the challenge of deriving universal laws from finite observations. Proper empirical practice emphasizes transparency, methodology, preregistration where applicable, and replication to increase reliability.

See also: empiricism, empirical method, empirical evidence, data, experiment, hypothesis testing, scientific method.