In 1696, he paired up with Newton and helped stabilize their currency. In the same year he became a Commissioner to the Board of Trade and Plantations. His health deteriorated and he retired to Oates, in Essex where he died in 1704.
Founder of Empiricism.
A pursuit of knowledge purely through experience, especially by means of observation and sometimes by experimentation could be explained as 'Empiricism'. John Locke was considered to be the founder of Empiricism. His first book (Essay Concerning Human Understanding) concerned arguing with Plato, Descartes and other scholars citing that there are no original ideas or principles. He launched an attack on the thinking the people had then, which was somehow considered a priority. He stated that if truth is native to our minds, then observation and experimentation could lead one nowhere, at the most they can only confirm our knowledge and not act as additions to it. Sometimes, it can't even be confirmed because of the existence of 'inner' conviction. He explained this giving a beautiful example. The example was that we arrive at knowledge in the opposite way a spider spins his web from its bowels. The spider first spins his web and creates his home, but here looking at the reverse method, Locke believed that, we humans spin our web first and then learn from the whole experience. We do not gain ideas from within ourselves, but we acquire them from without. .
Even in his second book he explained further that ideas are derived from two sources: sensation and perception. Sensation, was the operation of our own minds called 'internal sense' because we can think of ideas and all ideas come from experience and perception is the first step and degree towards knowledge and a sort of an inlet of all the materials in it. To 'know' in Locke's opinion is to come to an understanding between two ideas. There are two types of ideas: Simple ideas and complex ideas.
