Empiricism

Empiricism (greek εμπειρισμός, from empirical, latin experientia - the experience), is the philosophical doctrine that all human knowledge comes at first from senses and experience. Empiricism denies that humans have innate ideas or that anything is knowable prior to any experience.

Modern Empiricism

Also known as traditional empiricism. David Hume, John Locke and George Berkeley were among the British philosophers who rejected the theory of innate ideas. Theories of the existence of innate ideas were the subject of much debate between the Continental rationalists and British empiricists in the seventeenth century. In the eighteenth century David Hume was critical of Immanuel Kant's doctrine of the a priori as positing innate ideas, while proponents of innate ideas rejected Kant's doctrine of intuition and deduction as part of a rationalist doctrine. Modern empiricism contends that all knowledge must be attained through internal and external sensations.

Related Topics:
David Hume - John Locke - George Berkeley - Immanuel Kant - A priori

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~