The Problem of Skepticism in Locke, Berkeley, and Hume: English Philosophers’ Progress in Empiricism

Abstract

In the history of Western philosophical tradition we have three very distinct schools of philosophy: Cartesian rationalism, Leibnizian idealism and Lockean empiricism, which respectively account for the difference among the French, German and English philosophy. In Great Britain some philosophers made a great effort to establish their own brand of philosophy based on sense and experience. Experience thus is the key word of the controlling force of the English intellectual life. Francis Bacon and John Locke were two pillars of the English national spirit in all fields of science, knowledge, art and literature. The aim of this paper is to discuss the process and progress of three champions’ efforts to establish British empiricism in terms of skepticism in general. Locke was the very first builder of English empiricism in contrast to French rationalism and German idealism. Locke started against the skepticism in order to find truth and knowledge and concluded all knowledge comes from sense and experience. George Berkeley, the immediate follower of Locke, elaborated the theory of knowledge through sense-perception. David Hume was the last of three most representive creators of English empiricism. Through the mires of skepticism Hume reached the fundamental theory of epistemology. Three giants in the history of British philosophy set up a new system of knowledge and truth in everyday life of this world. The new kind of creative epistemology is just called now English empiricism. It is now desirable that the close relationship between British philosophy of empiricism and the English literature should be studied in terms of English aesthetic and critical theories.