Empiricism
All knowledge ultimately derives from sensory experience.
Overview
Empiricists insisted that the mind at birth is a blank slate — there are no innate ideas. Everything we know comes from what we see, hear, touch, taste, and smell. Concepts that seem to be 'pure reason' (like causation) are actually habits formed by repeated experience. This means our knowledge is always limited by what we can observe, and claims that go beyond experience (about God, the soul, or ultimate reality) are suspect.
Origins
British empiricism arose in the 17th-18th centuries as a reaction against rationalist claims of innate knowledge. Locke, Berkeley, and Hume each pushed the empiricist program further, asking: if all knowledge comes from experience, what do we actually know? Hume's conclusion — that we can't even justify belief in causation — forced Kant to develop his revolutionary synthesis.
Key Thinkers (9)
Francis Bacon
1561 CE – 1626 CE
Knowledge is power; systematic observation and experimentation reveal nature's secrets.
John Locke
1632 CE – 1704 CE
All men are by nature free, equal, and independent; government derives its authority solely from the consent of the governed.
George Berkeley
1685 CE – 1753 CE
To be is to be perceived: matter doesn't exist independently of minds.
Benjamin Franklin
1706 CE – 1790 CE
An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.
David Hume
1711 CE – 1776 CE
All knowledge derives from experience; reason alone cannot establish matters of fact.
Denis Diderot
1713 CE – 1784 CE
Enlightenment requires making all human knowledge accessible through systematic compilation.
John Stuart Mill
1806 CE – 1873 CE
Actions are right insofar as they produce the greatest happiness for the greatest number.
William James
1842 CE – 1910 CE
Truth is what works: ideas are true insofar as they prove useful in practice.
Daniel Dennett
1942 CE – 2024 CE
Consciousness is not what it seems: and what it seems is all it is.