“Whatever we learn, according to empiricists, we learn through perception” (“Empiricism”- Theory). This quote is a basic definition of what empiricists believe in and how they perceive the world through their own minds. The true definition of empiricism is that “all concepts originate in experience...or applicable to things that can be experienced, or that all rationally acceptable beliefs or propositions are justifiable or knowable only through experience” (“Empiricism”- Britannica). Although empiricism isn’t a well-known philosophy as of today, it flourished during the Renaissance and during British colonization in the Americas. Empiricism is a very interesting philosophy which has even helped to form some major changing points within the world. The term Empiricism comes from empeiria, an ancient Greek word which means experience. Empiricists learn most of their knowledge from experience, sensory being one of the most common ways for them to learn. They usually do experiments to help answer their theories, and let the world itself test their hypotheses, rather than it be only relied on reasoning. Empiricism has always been heavily contrasted with Rationalism, which is gaining knowledge through reasoning. Empiricism has been known to be influenced by Aristotle’s idea of a tabula rasa, which means “clean slate” or “blank tablet”. This idea was further developed by philosophers such as Avicenna, who explained that the tabula rasa is something that is formed through education, and that knowledge can be obtained through “empirical familiarity” with just random objects around the world and is usually developed with a logical method of reasoning in which observing could lead to propositional statements which when put together could possibly lead to even more abstract ideas. From there, Empiricism had slowly started to become its own philosophy, beginning to have some recognition around the time of The Renaissance in the 13th and 14th century. The main part of time that empiricism began to flourish was around the 17th and 18th century, during the time of British colonization within the Americas. Some of the British Empiricists during this time were considered one of the main people to have “developed versions of both concept and knowledge empiricism” (Lipton). One of these well-known British empiricists was John Locke, whose contributions during the time helped him to become of the main people to influence the writings of the constitution. Locke was born in August of 1632, and lived in England for most of his life. In, 1658, he attained his masters degree, and began looking for work. Locke began to dip into politics around 1672, when a man known as Earl of Shaftesbury became the Lord Chancellor. When Shaftesbury fell from honor around 1675, Locke decided to go to France as a tutor to Caleb Banks, a medical expert. In 1683, after Locke returned to England, he soon had to flee to the Netherlands after being strongly suspicioned of being involved in the Rye House Plot. Locke then went back to England in 1688, and then passed on October 28th, 1704. Locke’s main influential things were his writings. He wrote something called “The Two Treatises of Government”, right along the same time as Thomas Hobbes wrote something of the same nature. Unlike Hobbes, Locke’s thoughts on politics “was grounded in the notion of a social contract between citizens and in the importance of toleration...” (“Locke”). Although both of their works contrasted against each other, both of their works had become major influences when it came to writing the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Empiricism isn’t as popular of a philosophy today as it was back then. There are also many different forms that are based on empiricism, but have slightly different methods or beliefs against from what the original belief. Empiricism could actually be categorized into “three principal forms: (1) Materialism, (2) Sensism, and (3) Positivism” (Siegfried). People who have joined/were intrigued by the empiricistic ways was to see the way of life through another mindset. That to find out facts about how life and all of it really works, you make experiments to test out what your theories are, and your answer will be deducted from only what the experiment concludes. Doing these experiments could really change a person's’ opinions and view on life and the way it is by these tests to really show the answer to what he/she was looking for. Consequently, it could take longer to get the answers because of the times that you have to wait to get the answer that you are looking for, and you might want to try to change the results so that it would personally make whatever your statement was correct, and others would believe it based on your results.
When it comes to getting other people into the empiricist philosophy, probably the way that the experiments are tested are big ways to give a short example on what kind of things you do to prove things that go on in the world. Blowing things up, trying on clothes and mixing other items together, there are all kinds of experiments that can really bring out something in everyone and it would help them to decide major things in life that they had always been pondering about. These types of things can usually appeal to anyone of any age, and being able to learn things solely from reasoning and experiments is something that could easily appeal to creative thinkers or people who want to learn more about the world and how it all works throughout the process of testing experiments (a scientist would be a good example of someone who would be highly intrigued by such a manner). These types of things that empiricists do is what could really interest any average citizen off the street into learning more about your philosophy and how it all works. In conclusion, Empiricism is a very interesting religion that has been sadly disappeared and has failed to last through the test of time. There have been many other types of empiricist-esque philosophies that are similar to the original, but they all have different reasonings for how things are deducted, and has almost become so derived from the original empiricism, to where its beliefs have been thrown into so many different areas, like a big melting pot of empiricism. Empiricism is a very interesting philosophy which has even helped to form some major changing points within the world.