"There is no method of reasoning more common, and yet none more blamable, than, in philosophical disputes, to endeavor the refutation of any hypothesis, by a pretense of its dangerous consequences to religion and morality." (Hume; An Enquiry Concerning the Human Understanding.)
Philosophy (Greek, meaning the love of wisdom) is the study of the ultimate reality, causes, and principles of that which underlie being and thinking (1).
Empiricism is in which all ideas can be traced back to sense data. "British Empiricism" refers to the 18th century philosophical movement in Great Britain which maintained that all knowledge comes from experience. Continental Rationalists maintained that knowledge comes from foundational concepts known intuitively through reason, such as innate ideas. Other concepts are then deductively drawn from these. Bristish Empiricists staunchly rejected the theory of innate ideas and argued that knowledge is based on both sense experience and internal mental experiences, such as emotions and self-reflection. Three principal philosophers are associated with British Empiricism: John Locke, George Berkeley, and David Hume. (1)
John Locke was an English philosopher, political theorist, and founder or Empiricism (6). Locke's empiricism emphasizes the importance of the experience of the senses in pursuit of knowledge rather that intuitive speculation of deduction. The empiricist doctrine was first expounded by the English Philosopher and statesmen Francis Bacon early in the 17th century, but Locke gave it systematic expression in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) (7). This Essay was Locke's most important work (6). He regarded the mind of a person at birth as a tabula rasa, a blank slate upon which experience imprinted knowledge, and did not believe in intuition or theories of innate conceptions. Locke also held that all persons are born good independen
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