John Locke's Philosophy of British Empiricism
Throughout the 18th century and well into the
19th century, the most influential philosopher in England was John Locke,
whose Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) formed the basis
of British empiricism--the view, in general, that only particular, concrete
things actually exist, with all other ideas an abstraction from these primal
realities. Locke rejected the idea that human beings are born with
innate ideas. The mind, in his famous phrase, is a "tabula rasa"--a blank
slate--ready to receive only what sensory experiences write upon it.
Thus, writers following Locke's lead placed emphasis on what was
(empirically defined) rather than what might be (via the imagination
or visionary), on the central importance of guiding principles, not innovative
leaps.
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