George Locke

From Aristotle to John Locke to Thomas Jefferson, the ideas of great philosophers influenced the foundations of the United States. When Jefferson began writing the Declaration of Independence, he wanted to make this new country based on the basic fundamentals. He wanted to base the country on what was considered the natural laws. Jefferson had many philosophical minds to ponder when writing the document, such as Aristotle and most importantly John Locke.

John Locke was perhaps one of the most influential political philosophers of the modern period. In the Second Treatise of Government, John Locke discusses the move from a state of nature and perfect freedom to a then governed society in which authority is given to a legislative and executive power. His major ideas included liberalism and capitalism, state of nature, state of war and the desire to protect one’s property.

John Locke and George Berkeley are two respected individuals in the world of philosophy. These two brilliant minds impacted the philosophy and brought new ideas that are worth noting. John Locke is famously known for his belief in tabula rasa or blank slate. He believed that knowledge was not innate in humans at born, but it is learned experiences that give us knowledge. Example, a psychiatrist understands how to help a client with this problem that may be new to the psychiatrist because he/she would use what they’ve learned before to help that client. This example shows that we learn things through experiences and gain knowledge through our past experiences. Another example plays on Locke’s theory that are just objects that we add elements to it. It’s separated in two terms; primary and secondary. Primary refers more to just the shape, the weight, or location and secondary refers to the color, taste, smell, and other qualities that give us a sensation. Locke was also known for his belief in a concept he called, substance. This concept refers to matter and mind. Example, a physical object such as a car would be considered a matter, you can also think of it as something that takes up space and that is tenable. Now, thinking about how that car is operated and if it something useful in the future then that is what he called the mind. Also, the cognitive process was not tenable and was not mind then it would be considered mind. Berkeley in the other hand completely disapproved

The enlightenment era arose in the modern cultural ideology of the 18th century, as ideas among philosophers had a widespread effect among the society. The age of enlightenment, in western society, projected the rejection of traditional Christianity, western philosophy, intellectual advances, scientific, and cultural life, government legitimacy and authority. Upon the enlightenment period multiple philosophers emerged, the individuals arose to leading figures using reason to understand all aspects of human life. The motivations for the enlightenment came primarily from the Englishmen, John Locke. John Locke was a philosophical influence in both political theory and theoretical philosophy, which was embraced among the era of 1789-1914 and

Berkeley's attempt to popularize his pro-mind conception of the external world, Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, serves to undermine Locke's distinctions between primary and secondary qualities of the external world. In his publication, Berkeley uses dialogue between Hylas and Philnous, which consists of a series of arguments, to determine the most sound theory. Ground rules of the debate consists of: whoever of the two's position avoids skepticism about knowledge of physical objects wins and that if one position can be shown to entail that we cannot know anything about physical objects, consequently that position should be dismissed as absurd (Kelly, 2013). Throughout the arguments, Berkeley weakens Locke's theory of Limited Representationalism by counteracting Locke's with the possibility that instead of “matter” that comprises physical objects in the external world, these objects are simply ideas. Drawing back on Berkeley's catchy motto, “to be is to be perceived”, he proposes three arguments that support his idealist view that the motto encapsulates. The three pieces of support also importantly shed skepticism upon Lockes primary and secondary distinctions involving “matter”. The three statements of support include: The argument that physical

John Locke's theory of knowledge stated that all knowledge is derived from the senses, that are converted into impressions, that are then made into ideas, either simple or complex. Simple ideas are ones that involve only one sense, whereas complex ideas consist of multiple simple ideas being combined to create a vivid one. Ideas have two qualities, primary qualities, and secondary qualities. Primary qualities are things that are perceived the same for everyone, and secondary qualities are the individual perceptions of

John Locke thought that the ideas or perceptions which we have of objects in the world partially represent the objects as they are in themselves, and so whether they are being perceived. This view of Locke’s is called representative realism. The term realism refers to the view that objects are real or exist apart from perception. And representative means that some of our perceptions accurately represent an object as the thing which it is in itself apart from perception. Locke thought that only some of our ideas or perceptions are accurate representations of the object itself, and that

Locke argued that just the discovery of knowledge alone through believes could put forth a justification that knowledge “requires only reasonably high probability”. When Descartes talks about his solution when he states “what we directly see, feel, hear, touch…are our own sense data that ultimately exists in our minds” Descartes that by using our senses we interpret things that are certain. And so we have to use our senses in order to prove certainty, whereas Locke states that certainty only has to do with a reasonably high probability. If we were not able to use our senses, just through our prior knowledge of what we know we wouldn’t know if something was for certain. An example I can illustrate, if someone shows us an exotic fruit in part of the jungle which we have never traveled but, we are familiar with oranges and apples and such other fruits, but we only see the fruit, can we tell what color is on the inside? Or how tough the rind is? Through Descartes method we will be able to see the rind and based on our knowledge fruit come to a conclusion about it. Through Locke’s method we only need knowledge of the fruit we already are familiar with in order to formulate both how tough the rind is and what color is on the

Secondly, George Berkeley, a representational idealist, believes that knowledge comes from experience, but he perceives his thoughts in a different way then Locke. He doesn't believe that things from your senses can be reality. Berkeley believes that if our minds did not produce an idea, then God delivered and perceived his experiences to us, but he also says that empiricism and Christianity cannot be used together. We have a small role to play out and God makes sure that everything gets done. Berkeley was very mind dependent; he had faith that there is no world without a mind. With this in mind, he felt that all objects we encounter in experience are nothing more than mind-dependent collections of ideas. This is known as Esse est percipi, or "To be is to be perceived." He also believed that reality is nonphysical and everything that exists is either minds or the ideas they perceive.

Primary qualities, however, are objective and include aspects such as an object’s height and weight (Paquette 212). Through this, Locke claimed that the existence of objects can be made certain due to the primary qualities it possesses (Paquette 212). Similar to Descartes, Locke believed in a sense of existence. However, in his view, the facts from the primary qualities proved the object exists because the object exists within itself (Paquette 212).

This essay discusses Berkeley’s immaterialism and his usage of God. Berkeley argues that sensible qualities are ideas and exist only in the mind, but at the same time require us to perceive to them in order to exist. God, as an omnipresent, being holds the power to perceive all things all of the time, and as such is used by Berkeley as solution to this potential problem in his immaterialism. This essay looks to explain Berkeley’s account of why this is the case. First the essay explains why Berkeley rejects materialism, as he does not believe matter exists. Next we see that God’s omnipresence allows him to perceive all things all of the time, eliminating the problem from Berkeley’s account. After we see that since sensible qualities exist,

Locke feels that we do not have any innate ideas.  Then the question arises of

John Locke starts off his treatise with the thesis that ideas spring from two fountainheads--sensation and reflection. The former, man acquires from external sensible objects that affect man's five senses--those same senses endowed upon all men by the Creator. Material things outside man's being are the objects of sensation. Through experiencing sensation, man's thinking process gives rise to ideas thereby gaining for the thinking being a certain amount of

I will argue that Locke believed that if you remain the same person, there are various entities contained in my body and soul composite that do not remain the same over time, or that we can conceive them changing. These entities are matter, organism (human), person (rational consciousness and memory), and the soul (immaterial thinking substance). This is a intuitive interpretation that creates many questions and problems. I will evaluate Locke's view by explaining what is and what forms personal identity, and then explaining how these changes do conceivably occur while a human remains the same person.

All ideas we experience derive from sensations and perception. Sensation obviously uses the bodily senses to receive ideas, whereas reflection uses the body’s own procedures to receive ideas like thinking, believing and doubting. [4] Both of these processes are passive. The corpuscular hypothesis, which Locke expanded on from Boyle’s original thoughts, seems to suggest that everything in existence are colourless, tasteless, soundless and odourless corpuscles of matter. By looking at the bits of matter and their motions, it is possible for us to explain the sensations we gain from primary and secondary