Empiricism
The British school holding that all knowledge derives from sense experience. No innate ideas — the mind begins as a blank slate. Locke, Berkeley, and Hume pushed this principle to increasingly radical conclusions.
Sub-topics
John Locke (1632-1704). The mind is a tabula rasa — all knowledge comes from experience (sensation and reflection). Natural rights to life, liberty, property. Social contract. Father of classical liberalism.
David Hume (1711-1776). The great skeptic. Causation is mere habit, not logical necessity. The is-ought gap in ethics. Undermined rational theology, induction, and personal identity. Woke Kant from his 'dogmatic slumber.'
George Berkeley (1685-1753). Esse est percipi — to be is to be perceived. Material objects exist only as ideas in minds. Immaterialism: God's perpetual perception sustains reality. Radical empiricism taken to idealist conclusions.