I'm going to rephrase my question...What philosophers believed we gain knowledge from EXTERNAL sources?

Question

This is for a research paper and the sources have be philosophical works, not psychological works or psychologists.

Answer 1

One of the important concept here is of the 'external' and the 'internal'. External is whatever we get from our senses. Internal is free of senses. External is what we gain from interacting with objects, people, environment. Internal is what we have without the influence of anything.

Knowledge is understanding or grasping of concepts, phenomenon, expression, etc. What we posses in us is very inert, it builds our core. Whatever information we get from our external self contributes to our understanding ourselves withing the greater whole(universe or whatever).

Since everything in this universe is connected and can not exist alone, our external helps our internal to orient itself in this matrix. its the external that connects all the internals throughout the universe. The external makes up for the communication of individual identities.

All Individual entities connect and gain externally.

Just a hindu thought.... no western philosophy :)

Answer 2

Olden Wao Hung was a Chinese philosopher who popularized the notion of seeking not just information from external sources but seeking love, peace, stimulation.

Answer 3

I think the stoics believed that all knowledge was gained from sense perception but I'm not sure. I'd try Augustine the confessions, works on platonism, possibly plato, but primarily greek philosophers of stoic thought.

Answer 4

And I'll rephrase my answer, the British empiricists such as Locke and Hume.