Introduction to Philosophy/Empiricism

Empiricism is a philosophical idea based on the idea that all reliable knowledge about the world is gained in the process of experience. Famous empiricists were Hume, Locke and Berkley. This philosophical concept is based on the idea that individuals are born Tabula rasa which means empty of any built-in mental content. According to the theory we are born without any built-in mental content and all thought and knowledge comes from perceptions we receive throughout our lives. The movement of empiricism was in part a countermovement to what Descartes and Spinoza had proposed as rationalism. Knowledge derived from experience is called a posteriori.

Reference and further readings

• Empiricism at Wikipedia.