How do hume, hobbes, locke and berkeley link.......in relation to the movement towards modern day psychology. What did they as philosophers do that impacted on psychology....

-- Lorraine Cole (rain@infinet.net), March 25, 2001

Answers

They were all British empiricists (except for Hobbes, who was more of a materialist mechanist, but a proto-empiricist, of sorts). Empiricism was the philosophical movement behind much of modern natural science. Although none of these people were scientists in their own right (or, rather, "natural philosophers," as one said in those days) they all, especially Locke and Hume, had a strong influence on development on what might be called the "scientific attitude": observation is the foundation of knowledge; elaborate speculative reasoning that is not strongly grounded in observation is to be regarded with suspicion.

-- Christopher Green (christo@yorku.ca), March 25, 2001.