EXPERIENCE. — From experior (I experience, I attempt), in the generic sense it is every perception of contents and data of consciousness (v.), and hence every modification and determination of conscious life or, in the objective sense, the total complex of conscious phenomena. According to their specific diversity, e. is likewise divided into various species, assuming more determinate references. External e. is the perception of all contents of knowledge given as external to the subject, whereas internal e. is that which refers to subjective phenomena and states (acts and functions of psychic life); it is sensible e. when it has as its object the data proper to sensibility, and spiritual e. when it concerns the data and contents of intellectual and volitional life. One also speaks of religious e. (v.), artistic e., etc., meaning particular states of consciousness in which religious, artistic, etc., phenomena are experienced, determining corresponding psychological situations, more or less profound or permanent, in the subject. The vulgar sense of e. approaches this meaning, referring to the acquisition of habitual, objective, secure knowledge through a repeated series of situations “lived,” “experienced” (cf. “experience of life,” “personal experience”).
In a narrower sense, already in use since antiquity and especially valued in modern philosophy, e. is the direct, concrete, and positive knowledge of the sensible world, of its phenomena and their laws, by means of observation and experiment. As such, e. is opposed to rational and a priori knowledge, which develops general principles through a purely logical-synthetic process. In this latter sense, e. constitutes the basis of the analytical-inductive method (v. ANALYSIS), and is the indispensable source of objective knowledge, and therefore also of an objective philosophical interpretation of nature.
In the history of philosophy one can discern a recurring oscillation of gnoseological-metaphysical systems, according to the diverse evaluation of e., understood especially in the last sense indicated. In Greek philosophy, e., overvalued by Erucilio, is neglected by Platonic rationalism, whereas in Aristotle it regains its natural scientific function as the means and path by which the human intellect ascends from the particular to knowledge of the universal (cf. Met., I, 1; Phys., VII, 3). In the principal currents of medieval scholasticism, especially in s. Alberto Magno and s. Tommaso, and later in Ruggero Bacone, the scientific-philosophical function of e. is expressly recognized, whereas it was often forgotten by practitioners of late scholasticism. In modern philosophy, e., inculcated by F. Bacone and scientifically advanced by Galileo, is proclaimed the sole source of knowledge by empiricism and phenomenalism (Locke, Hume, Stuart Mill), culminating in the denial of every achievement of thought that asserts itself as an essential surpassing of the data directly presented by e. itself. In Kant, e., posited as a subjective synthesis of external impression and transcendental intuition of sensibility, loses its ancient value as objective knowledge: a position taken up and intensified by modern scientific relativism. In the last idealist systems there is a return to the a priori method and to the devaluation of e.; although it too is denied, it is forcibly confined within absolute theoretical schemas, independent of e. itself.
BIBL. The problem of e. and its value is treated, more or less extensively, in every treatise on the theory of knowledge (v. ESPERIENZA)A. Lalande, Expriente, in Vocab. de la philos., 5th ed., Paris 1947, pp. 309–311 (new drafting of the entry); A. Guzzo, L'io e la ragione, Brescia 1947, pp. 134–30. Ugo Viglino