If it is so that humans are more inward directed than other earthlings, is it not a great wonder how empiricism came to be such a dominant and preferred ontology? — Anthony
If we consider, from a historical point of view, the cultural meaning of Empiricism, we must observe that Empiricism, which, as a psychological disposition, is one of the eternal trends inherent in the human mind, developed as a philosophical theory, especially in England, and especially in the XVIIth Century.
At the same epoch, Rationalism developed and took the upper hand in France, simultaneously with the ascent of the bourgeoisie and the gentlemen of the robe. French Rationalism and British Empiricism were to merge in the Eighteenth Century Enlightenment, and Nineteenth Century Positivism. Let us say that Empiricism was a philosophy particularly appropriate to the rise of a commercially dominated regime of social life, as far as the mental patterns connected with trade activity and liberal-economic habits were concerned.
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