empiriocriticism

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The system of philosophy of Richard Avenarius (1843–96), founded on pure experience, that is, natural experience conceptually amplified, clarified, and completed. The only assumption of the system not given in experience is supposed to be that the motions of our fellow-men have the same interpretation as our own. This is one of the most important philosophical developments of the latter half of the nineteenth century, but is understood by few, owing to the difficulty of its author's principal treatise and his employment of a novel terminology, which is in-sufficiently explained.