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Philosophy 1
Spring, 2002
G. J. Mattey
British Empiricism
• John Locke (1632-1704) adopted Descartes’s
“new way of ideas”
• Locke rejected innate ideas, claiming that all ideas
come from experience
• He also held that all that can be known on this
basis is our own existence, the existence of God,
and that of material things we are now sensing
• George Berkeley (1695-1753) denied the
existence of matter altogether
David Hume
• Born 1711
• Scottish
• Historian of England
• Popular essayist
• Worked in diplomacy
• Denied teaching
position due to
charges of atheism
• Died 1776
Hume’s Contributions
• Argued for moderate skepticism in theoretical
matters
– Cause and effect
– Personal identity
– Existence and nature of God
• Tried to base geometry on sensory experience
• Originated the “belief-desire” account of human
action
• Proposed an ethical theory based on the feeling of
sympathy
Species of Philosophy