be constructed in a way which makes it possible to distinguish empiricism among other epistemological positions in contemporary science and scholarship. In other words: Empiricism as a concept has to be constructed along with other concepts, which together make it possible to make important discriminations between different ideals underlying contemporary science. Empiricism is one of several competing views that predominate in the study of human knowledge, known as epistemology. Empiricism emphasizes the role of experience and evidence, especially sensory perception, in the formation of ideas, over the notion of innate ideas or tradition in contrast to, for example, rationalism which relies upon reason and can incorporate innate knowledge. List of empiricist philosophers: Francis Bacon John Locke George Berkeley David Hume Political philosophy Political philosophy is the study of such topics as politics, liberty, justice, property, rights, law, and the enforcement of a legal code by authority: their nature and purpose; what (if anything) makes a government legitimate; what rights and freedoms (if any) it should protect and how and why it should do so; what duties (if any) citizens owe to a legitimate government; and when (if ever) it may be legitimately overthrown. In a vernacular sense, the term "political philosophy" often refers to a general view, or specific ethic, political belief or attitude, about politics that does not necessarily belong to the technical discipline of philosophy. List of political philosophers by country: United Kingdom Jeremy Bentham Thomas Carlyle Thomas Hobbes John Locke James Mill John Stuart Mill France Montesquieu Jean-Jacques Rousseau Voltaire Italy Cesare Beccaria Giambattista Vico Giuseppe Mazzini Germany Karl Marx Friedrich Engels Idealism Idealism refers to the group of philosophies which assert that reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally a construct of the mind or otherwise immaterial. Epistemologically, idealism manifests as a skepticism about the possibility of knowing any mind-independent thing. In a sociological sense, idealism emphasizes how human ideas—especially beliefs and values—shape society. As an ontological doctrine, idealism goes further, asserting that all entities are composed of mind or spirit. Idealism thus rejects physicalist and dualist theories that fail to ascribe priority to the mind. An extreme version of this idealism can exist in the philosophical notion of solipsism. List of idealist philosophers: Immanuel Kant Johann Gottlieb Fichte Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Arthur Schopenhauer Francis Herbert Bradley J. M. E. McTaggart John Foster Existentialism Existentialism is generally considered