Question

What is empiricism?

1. What is empiricism?
2. Who founded it and when?
3. Who opposed empiricism?

Answer 1

1. Knowledge comes from experience so we should record observations and experiment.
2. Bacon and Locke.
3. Hobbes.

Explanation:

• Modern empiricism, founded by Bacon and Locke, is the view that knowledge originates in experience and that science should, therefore, rely on observation and experimentation.

• Francis Bacon (1561-1626), who along with Rene Descartes, became a founder of the scientific method. He also foresaw research findings on our noticing and remembering events that confirm our beliefs.

• After Bacon came John Locke (1632-1704), a British political philosopher, who wrote a one-page essay on “our own abilities” for a discussion.
• After 20 years, Locke completes An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, in which he argued that the mind at birth is a tabula rasa—a “blank slate”—on which experience writes, describing the mind of an infant.
• Locke emphasized nurture over nature as the greater influence on development.
• Thomas Hobbes (1558-1679) believed that the idea of a soul, a spirit, or a mind is meaningless.
• Hobbes’ philosophy is known as materialism, which is the belief that the only things that exist are matter and energy.
• Contrary to Locke, Hobbes stressed nature over nurture.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Francis-Bacon-Viscount-Saint-Alban
https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Locke
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Hobbes