Quasi-empirical methods are

methods Method ( grc, μέθοδος, methodos) literally means a pursuit of knowledge, investigation, mode of prosecuting such inquiry, or system. In recent centuries it more often means a prescribed process for completing a task. It may refer to: *Scien ...

applied in

science Science is a systematic endeavor that Scientific method, builds and organizes knowledge in the form of Testability, testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earli ...

and mathematics to achieve

epistemology Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Epis ...

similar to that of empiricism (thus '' quasi- + empirical'') when

experience Experience refers to conscious events in general, more specifically to perceptions, or to the practical knowledge and familiarity that is produced by these conscious processes. Understood as a conscious event in the widest sense, experience involv ...

cannot

falsify Falsifiability is a standard of evaluation of scientific theories and hypotheses that was introduced by the philosopher of science Karl Popper in his book ''The Logic of Scientific Discovery'' (1934). He proposed it as the cornerstone of a so ...

the ideas involved.

Empirical research Empirical research is research using empirical evidence. It is also a way of gaining knowledge by means of direct and indirect observation or experience. Empiricism values some research more than other kinds. Empirical evidence (the record of ...

relies on

empirical evidence Empirical evidence for a proposition is evidence, i.e. what supports or counters this proposition, that is constituted by or accessible to sense experience or experimental procedure. Empirical evidence is of central importance to the sciences ...

, and its empirical methods involve

experiment An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into Causality, cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome oc ...

ation and disclosure of apparatus for reproducibility, by which scientific findings are validated by other scientists. Empirical methods are studied extensively in the

philosophy of science Philosophy of science is a branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. The central questions of this study concern what qualifies as science, the reliability of scientific theories, and the ult ...

, but they cannot be used directly in fields whose hypotheses cannot be falsified by real experiment (for example, mathematics, philosophy,

theology Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...

, and ideology). Because of such

empirical limits in science In philosophy, empiricism is an Epistemology, epistemological theory that holds that knowledge or justification comes only or primarily from Empirical evidence, sensory experience. It is one of several views within epistemology, along with ra ...

, the

scientific method The scientific method is an empirical method for acquiring knowledge that has characterized the development of science since at least the 17th century (with notable practitioners in previous centuries; see the article history of scientific ...

must rely not only on empirical methods but sometimes also on quasi-empirical ones. The prefix '' quasi-'' came to denote methods that are "almost" or "socially approximate" an ideal of truly empirical methods. It is unnecessary to find all counterexamples to a theory; all that is required to disprove a theory logically is one counterexample. The converse does not prove a theory; Bayesian inference simply makes a theory more likely, by weight of evidence. One can argue that no science is capable of finding all counter-examples to a theory, therefore, no science is strictly empirical, it's all quasi-empirical. But usually, the term "quasi-empirical" refers to the means of choosing problems to focus on (or ignore), selecting prior work on which to build an argument or proof, notations for informal claims, peer review and acceptance, and incentives to discover, ignore, or correct errors. These are common to both

and mathematics, and do not include experimental method.

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...

's discovery of the

general relativity General relativity, also known as the general theory of relativity and Einstein's theory of gravity, is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915 and is the current description of gravitation in modern physics ...

theory relied upon

thought experiments A thought experiment is a hypothetical situation in which a hypothesis, theory, or principle is laid out for the purpose of thinking through its consequences. History The ancient Greek ''deiknymi'' (), or thought experiment, "was the most anci ...

and mathematics. Empirical methods only became relevant when confirmation was sought. Furthermore, some empirical confirmation was found only some time after the general acceptance of the theory. Thought experiments are almost standard procedure in philosophy, where a conjecture is tested out in the imagination for possible effects on experience; when these are thought to be implausible, unlikely to occur, or not actually occurring, then the conjecture may be either rejected or amended. Logical positivism was a perhaps extreme version of this practice, though this claim is open to debate. Post-20th-century

philosophy of mathematics The philosophy of mathematics is the branch of philosophy that studies the assumptions, foundations, and implications of mathematics. It aims to understand the nature and methods of mathematics, and find out the place of mathematics in peop ...

is mostly concerned with quasi-empirical mathematical methods, especially as reflected in the actual

mathematical practice Mathematical practice comprises the working practices of professional mathematicians: selecting theorems to prove, using informal notations to persuade themselves and others that various steps in the final proof are convincing, and seeking peer re ...

of working mathematicians.

See also