Yes, sorta: but mostly no.  My sense is that empiricism itself falls unacceptably short.  At any rate, that program can't be justified / warranted on empiricist grounds (recall the death knell for earlier verificationism / positivism, which couldn't live up to its own standards), and moreover we feel confident in granting mathematics its a priori routes to justified belief.  These two facts suffice to recommend what I suspect we all (down deep in our hearts, as it were) permit anyway, namely, a less myopic epistemology than empiricism.  -- j.a.c.

In physics, a theory, in order to be acceptable, must satisfy two requirements.  It must be (1) sufficiently empirically successful, and (2) sufficiently unified.  (2) is as important as (1).  In fact, given any accepted physical theory, endlessly many empirically more successful but disunified rivals can always easily be formulated.  Excluding such theories from consideration means that physics acceps implicitly a big metaphysical assumption about the nature of the universe: it is such that all disunified theories are false.  We need a new conception of science to take these points into account: see N. Maxwell, "In Praise of Natural Philosophy" (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2017); "Understanding Scientific Progress" (Paragon House, 2017), and "Karl Popper, Science and Enlightenment" (UCL Press, September 2017).

Dear Nicholas Maxwell

I believe I understand the good point you make about "sufficiently unified". In the case of understanding human behavior, it is doubly true: Being unified: Necessary not only for good understanding but even for the possibility of understanding the Subject (the human); and, also necessary for the development of the good understandings the human itself comes to have, i.e. FOR/IN the person itself -- what one looks to finding evidence of in the subject matter (itself), if one is a cognitive psychologist (and, as Piaget and other developmentalists have "seen" things: cognition and cognitive development is central overall).

I show appreciation for the need for having a perspective and theory that is sufficiently unified IN:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Re_Theory_or_models_Why_is_there_no_concern_about_thinking_about_too_much

But, also I show the appreciation for this in: (also see any follow-up Answers/responses I make to any of these questions):

https://www.researchgate.net/post/FOR_science_dont_we_have_to_hang_to_the_utter_essentials_by_our_fingernails

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Shouldnt_any_Developmental_Psychology_Theory_offer_clear_Empiricism_and_how_to_maintain_that_AND_outline_a_clear_Epistemology

https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_are_necessary_features_of_good_general_psychology_theory

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Wont_research_confusions_about_investigated_aspects_of_cognition_be_diminished_if_they_came_to_be_known_to_reliably_sub-serve_some_greater_behavior

https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_would_you_look_for_in_a_new_cognitive-developmental_theory (see my Answer in a response below the question)

and

some other posts.

Science must in its nature go beyond empiricism to speculation. In the old model-predict-measure definition of doing science, new intuitions in modelling (relativity, the quantum, string theory) are not possible without blue-sky speculation. Sometimes, as with string theory, the speculation goes on so long that the temptation grows to say, "This is no longer science", but without such leeway science cannot make new breakthroughs.

Dear Brad, my remark was about theoretical physics.

Dear Guy, Speculation does not go beyond empiricism - as long as the aim is to discover testable hypotheses.  What does go beyond empiricism as conventionally understood is the persistent acceptance of unified theories only, when endlessly many empirically more successful disunified rivals are available.

@Nicholas Maxwell, You are quite right. I wish more avowed empiricists accepted that "Speculation does not go beyond empiricism". But the OP demands "full, direct, proximate ... distinct, clear", a much stronger (and IMHO untenable) position than the mere intention to seek testability.

Dear Guy Inchbald  

My proposal is not that all "full, direct, proximate ... distinct, clear" [(directly observable empirical)] causes be all found right away (in some ways this will no doubt forever remain an ideal goal), but I do say that any research you are doing (AND the theory behind it) should at least POINT clearly _AND_ direct one clearly in the direction toward important proximate causes -- just doing the best possible now.  [ On the other hand, with eye-tracking technology, I do believe that some proximate causes (major ones) may be close at hand; also, identifying some of the MAJOR proximate causes will likely suffice -- it might be impractical to find all. ]  Testability, with such clarity as to yield near-complete inter-rater agreement, IS essential (this will indicate clearly pointing towards proximate causes, as a matter of course).  Also, as I have said before, one sign that psychology has a proper scientific perspective certainly will be thinking and talking in terms of BEHAVIOR PATTERNS and not just "behavior(s)" -- this will show realistic organismic connections with the environment; RELATEDLY : "Learning" will be seen not as some ubiquitous thing, but as learningS, being of various sorts -- and not just ad hoc "social" OR otherwise "basic" (this latter now imagined to be simple and supposedly quite arbitrary). (Learning processes may be simple, while TYPES of learning, found/discovered to be, certainly need not be simple.)

It should never be the case that speculation goes "beyond empiricism".  Thus, I agree with the statement: " I wish more avowed empiricists accepted that 'Speculation does not go beyond empiricism'."  I more than question the notion of "blue-sky speculation".  Speculation (to well-occur) must be in some reasonable "container" and, so for example: in the case of psychology, "contained by" major super-ordinate systems with some clear empirical bases, such as cognition and cognitive processes (all memory-based) -- thus (hopefully) limiting speculation about "more" or about related things or about specifics to other POSSIBLE (additional) congruent processes [ AND, in the case of specifics, being clearly towards more clearly "containing"/determining PROXIMATE CAUSES (the direction to that well-defined, with the previously described excellent inter-rater reliability) ].  [ And, this situation (of determining or clearly moving toward proximate causes) MAY (at times) also exist with respect to understanding "more" and to understanding related things -- OTHERWISE hopefully DISTINCTIONS are similarly being well-made (that is: very reliably). ] (All this, in a real sense, is just maintaining a logical structure; and to do otherwise is to fail to do that.)

Dear Nicholas Maxwell 

You talk about physics, and I talk about psychology.  I do nonetheless believe there must be some similarities in core fundamental, foundational principles in SCIENCE in general.  [ Extremely important principles, well-known and being much more important than simply testing against the 'null hypothesis' (though this may be one reasonable eventual goal); and, among important fundamental aspects of science, and not-yet-mentioned here:  knowledge of one's ASSUMPTIONS, their foundation or lack thereof, and their repercussions. ]

{ Please forgive me for the progressive, continuous editing (with additions, too) which I have done in the last few hours. I guess I would implore you to try to see some "poetry in my prose" -- since it is so hard for me to get it "just right". }