THE present work is an endeavour to discuss the various issues associated with the modern empirical philosophical tradition of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Europe. There is no doubt in stating that the modern Western philosophy (both rationalism and empiricism) has its root in the Greek philosophy. The Greek philosophy dealt with a wide variety of subjects, including astronomy, epistemology, mathematics, political philosophy, ethics, metaphysics, ontology, logic, biology, rhetoric and aesthetics, and stated that human mind is capable of knowing, understanding and interpreting nature by "a priori" means. The influence of the rationalistic Greek philosophy could be seen in René Descartes, Baruch Spinoza and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Even John Locke and Immanuel Kant, though empiricists, were not completely free from its influence. Differing from Socrates and Plato, Aristotle was eager to introduce the scientific method in philosophy for properly understanding the philosophical concepts. A.P. Rao writes, "Aristotle's aim was to show how physics is a theoretical science (Philosophy)... he states it exactly in the middle of his book" (Metaphysica 102a, quoted in 1968: 10) and the defence of science was his primary aim: The main issue of modern empirical philosophy was to deal with the continental wrong dogmatic rationalistic philosophical conceptions and to progress towards understanding philosophy scientifically. In general, the modern philosophers endeavoured to make philosophy analytic, clear and self-evident. In this regard, the influence of Aristotle is undeniable. The main questions which bother the empirical philosophers are ""how is a distinct, clear and self-evident knowledge of the world possible?" and "what would be the proper method of knowing the reality?". Different philosophers have given different interpretations and methods of knowing the world and the reality, and these interpretations and methods will be discussed in this work.
As a result, we find the application of the mathematical and geometrical method in the philosophy of René Descartes, Thomas Hobbes and Immanuel Kant. Francis Bacon introduced the inductive method and attempted to introduce a logical systematization of scientific procedure in his philosophy. Further, endeavour to understand the Law of Causality, the Laws of Motion and the Laws of Association are clearly taken up by Hobbes and David Hume. Hobbes and John Locke not only perceived objects of the external world but also identified the primary and secondary qualities inherent in them. Locke asserts that though knowledge about the external world is derived empirically by sense perception, yet no logical propositions could be deduced about the world with absolute certainty, while self-knowledge attained through intuitive method and knowledge of God attained through demonstrative method are certain. While Locke states human mind as a tabula rasa, George Berkeley advocates that, "all sense experiences are caused only by an infinite universal Mind", i.e. God. God in an orderly way perceives objects for the future predictions and guided actions of man. The purpose of philosophy is to realize that, all the laws of nature are the laws of God revealing through the different happenings of nature. Criticizing Berkeley, David Hume, the sceptic writes that, "the idea of God is non-sensical since we do not have any perception – ideas or impressions of God, and to conceive of God with some peculiar characteristics in no sense entails the idea of God's existence". Even our judgements of matters of fact is probable and doubtful, still we continue to make judgements about matters of fact because, nature by an absolute and uncontrollable necessity, has determined us to judge as well as breath. J.S. Mill following Hume mentions that all knowledge is sensitive and the knowledge of matter is not possible because men do not have direct and intuitive knowledge of matter. Edmund Husserl in his phenomenology went little further and introduced "introspective intuition" and even included a priori knowledge, ego, consciousness and time order to experience particular things which is "intersubjective" and "intentional reference" oriented. Bertrand Russell, like Hume, rejects inferential knowledge as fallacious and thinks of substituting inference by logical fictions and advocates his new doctrine of internal relations. Internal relations include the "awareness of the mind and the unity of consciousness in time". Differing from them Wittgenstein draws a distinction between world and reality. "World" is defined by him as the existing "states of affairs" and "reality" refers to the "totality of actual and possible states of affairs", and the relation between language and reality is "one of the pictures and the pictured". The logical positivists advocate that "whatever is knowledgeable is expressible, all knowledge is knowable insofar as it is expressible". The logical positivists adopts a combination of logico-linguistic approach and promotes knowledge by verification and proper communication.
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