In a strict sense, empiricism is the philosophical school that emerged in England in the eighteenth century, which posited that everything known to man is what he perceives through his senses and, in particular The sight and touch. This position, with different nuances, was held by John Locke, David Hume and George Berkeley and had a precedent in the ideas put forward by Francis Bacon in the seventeenth century. In a broader sense, the concept of empiricism also includes the theories of other thinkers who admitted that the formation of knowledge, in addition to sensory experience, involving other aspects of the psyche such as fear or pain .
The empirical expression was used during the twentieth century to designate new philosophical currents that had only a distant relationship with classical empiricism. Among them may be mentioned logical empiricism, whose leading exponents were Henri Poincare and Bertrand Russell.
Among the most notable may be mentioned the Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Locke, The Treaty on human nature, Hume, and The Principles of Human Knowledge, Berkeley.