The Origin of Lockeʼs Empiricism:
From Experimental Philosophy to Empiricism
2013 Volume 36 Pages 29-42
Details
2013 Volume 36 Pages 29-42
It is widely agreed that the British empiricism originated with John Locke (1632-1704). As is well known among the scholars, although Locke developed his matured empirical epistemology in his philosophical masterpiece An Essay concerning Human Understanding (1690), the main tenets of his epistemology had already been in shape in the Draft A and Draft B of the Essay both written in 1671. Essays on the Law of Nature (1663-4) is also known to have been the starting point of his empirical epistemology. This paper examines these two origins of the Essay and concludes that his debt to the experimental philosophy was decisive for the orientation of the British empiricism.
