Amanda Ayer

First published in 1952, _British Empirical Philosophers_ is a comprehensive picture of one of the most important movements in the history of philosophic thought. In his introduction, Professor A. J. Ayer distinguishes the main problems of empiricism and gives a critical account of the ways in which the philosophers whose writings are included in this volume attempted to solve them. Editors Ayer and Raymond Winch bring together an authoritative abridgement of John Locke’s _Essay Concerning Human Understanding_; Bishop George Berkeley’s _Principles of Human Knowledge_; almost the entire first book of David Hume’s _Treatise Concerning Human Nature_; and extracts from Thomas Reid’s _Essay on the Intellectual Powers of Man_ and John Stuart Mill’s _Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy_.