British empiricism
All knowledge comes from experience: at birth the mind is a blank slate
Key ideas
- No innate ideas: the mind as a tabula rasa (Locke)
- Observation and experiment as the road to knowledge (Bacon)
- Hume: causation is a habit of mind, not an observed link
- A basis for scientific method and liberal political thought
Key thinkers
- Francis Bacon — English philosopher and statesman, 1561–1626
- Thomas Hobbes — English philosopher, 1588–1679
- John Locke — English philosopher, 1632–1704
- David Hume — Scottish philosopher, 1711–1776
What grew out of it
- The Enlightenment c. 1685 – 1815 · Europe
- German idealism c. 1781 – 1850 · Europe
- Utilitarianism c. since 1789 · Europe
- Positivism c. 1830 – 1900 · Europe
- Pragmatism c. since 1870 · Americas
- Analytic philosophy c. since 1900 · Europe
Meanwhile elsewhere
- Confucianism Asia
- Buddhist philosophy Asia
- Taoism Asia
- Nyaya Asia
- Madhyamaka Asia
- Yogachara Asia
- Chan and Zen Asia
- Advaita Vedanta Asia
- Kalam Middle East
- Neo-Confucianism Asia