John Locke And David Locke : Human Nature Of Human Understanding

John Locke’s argument is that everybody is born with a tabula rasa, meaning a ‘blank slate’ on which experiences wires. Whereas, for Plato and Descartes, they believe that knowledge is born within us or innate.

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.

The piece “Hunting is Not Those Heads on the Wall” by Baraka and Locke’s "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding Book I: Innate Notions” really complement each other. Baraka states art can’t have thought and Locke states we don’t have innate principles. Baraka’s writing helps prove that we don’t have innate properties. Locke’s literature correlates that art can’t have thought but, it rather provokes the thought process. Baraka and Locke explore thoughts and ideas in their pieces of literature. These authors help prove each other’s theories because, Baraka says art can’t have thought while Locke says we don’t have innate properties.

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.

In Locke’s essay, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, he explains where and how one’s knowledge was formed. He reiterates that “Whatsoever the Mind perceives in it self, or is the immediate object of Perception, Thought, or Understanding, that I call Idea; and the Power to produce in any Idea

Hume says that for humans finding or thinking of no explanation for the cause and effect could be considered as such unintelligible. Hume explains that we get the knowledge of cause and effect through our experiences. Hume explains more in depth by describing if how something new is introduced to someone they would not have the experience to cover any of the causes and effects of that object because they have no past experience towards that one object. Hume also says that someone is not able to find the effect from just experiencing the cause and as Hume assumes only if you have experienced it all will you know what will happen if the same thing is going to happen you’ll assume or predict what will be the cause and effect. Such as for every day you experience the sun comes up every day you’ll expect it or predict that it will probably come back up tomorrow as it’s been a repeating experience. Hume presumes that people imagine, to discover the causes and effects through reasonings and not experience.which in turn is not what he believes is true. But Hume explains that we would never be able to find the cause of what gunpowder would do with fire through reasoning alone and also could not find the cause or effects of any particular event.

John Locke and George Berkeley are two famous philosophers whose work found similarities in their proximity of publication, but stark differences in their beliefs. In Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding, he argued passionately for his doctrine of abstract ideas. On the other hand, Berkeley, in his work, Principles of Human Knowledge, he made every effort to reject all of Locke’s claims. Although viciously attacked by Berkeley, Locke’s doctrine of abstraction holds true as a fundamentally sound and practical doctrine for the advancement of knowledge and communication.

David Hume was a Scottish philosopher known for being an empiricist and for being skeptical of religion. Like Hobbes, he was also a big influence on western philosophy. Among his many works, his major writing include, treatise of human nature and enquiry concerning the principles of morals. In an enquiry concerning the principles of morals, Hume introduces his fovarism towards the role of sentiment. He argued reason solely cannot be a motive of any action and that reason can never resist the motive of passion "reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions,"(pg 415). He explains that Moral distinctions are developed from the moral sentiments such as feelings of approval and disapproval felt by an action. Hume believes that pleasure and pain are the causes of the passions that drive our actions. According to Hume, it is the pleasure and pain that are the causes of the passions which drives our actions. He claims that it is the actual experience of the pain or pleasure, not the reason we adduce to their causes that drives us to act.” Morals excite passions, and produce or prevent actions. Reason of itself is utterly impotent in this particular. The rules of morality, therefore, are not

Indeed, Locke’s approach on human knowledge as an external obtained asset is closely linked to his view on ethics. According to Locke, ethics is learned by example coming from the external environment. Certainly, such examples can derive from teachers or other influential individuals who have had the chance to experience life on a broader extent. Due to such transcending thinking, Locke was perceived as a “‘culturally engaged’ philosopher responding to the cultural crises of the Modern Europe, in which a fracture of tradition and warfare had created a need to define the nature and scope of knowledge” (Marshall 468). His contribution was important because it provided people at that time with an alternative system of ethics that took into account reason and was not solely based on what others held ethical and/or unethical. It is this notion of reason, the factor

What moral principles can humans change understanding? What is the element towards prosperity in a society? John Locke's, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, shows the solution towards seizing true reality. With the help of his personal experience, Locke, the philosopher, contributed his political theories to the concerns of men. His philosophy was the introduction of human behavior and also revealed their errors. Locke’s principles of what influences the blank mind of humankind and also the capabilities of an innate humanity. This book revealed John Locke’s personal experience through his concern for the citizens and also his work on religious tolerations. In An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Locke's description of innate principles lies in religion, the future generation, and significance of a mindset.

Locke, Marx and Machiavelli describe their views about trusting the human reasoning. John Locke and Karl Marx argues that humans have the capability, to be both reasonable and cognitive and they adapt this nature from their society to be united. However, Niccolo Machiavelli argues that human beings are not being reasonable and are getting disorganized at some point. Marx and Locke believe that people are caring, equal and they have the power to rule themselves. Although Machiavelli describe people as selfish and easily changed. He also wants the people to rule themselves, but he is supporting only upper-class people. Even though all three writers describe different views on human reasoning but they all wanted the government to give freedom of liberty to humans and bring the change around the world.

When considering knowledge, Locke is interested in the ability for us to know something, the capacity of gathering and using information and understanding the limits of what we know. He believes this also leads him to realise what we perhaps, cannot know. [1] He wants to find out about the origin of our ideas. His main stand-point is that we don’t have innate ideas and he aims to get rid of the sceptical doubt about what we know. The innate ideas which Locke sets out to argue against are those which “the soul receives in its very first being, and brings into the world with it”. [2] “Let us suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper, void of all characters”. [3] This quote depicts the idea of the “Tabula Rasa”, that at birth are minds

Through time people have always wondered what it is that makes us who we are. It has been our human nature that has kept us intrigued with ourselves, and our relationships with others. With this curiosity came various interpretations as to our human nature, each changing the way we see the societal world we live in. With each interpretation came a new understanding of people and the relationship they hold with each other. Human nature has been one of the most studied elements of the world we live in. From our nature came the interest of how we as humans interact with each other, through the development of our nature some have served and others had ruled. Three philosophers that have focused their political ideas around human nature

It was the Founding Fathers’ view of power that led them to declare their independence from Britain. When the French and Indian War ended, Britain gained a large amount of territory which costed a large sum of money to defend from trespassers. Consequently, Parliament started to tax the colonists without their consent. This unbalance of power caused tensions between Britain and the original 13 colonies. Therefore, the Founding Fathers decided that power should be distributed equally amongst the people and that government should be limited. These views were only strengthened when John Locke wrote “The Second Treatise of Civil Government”, which discussed natural rights, consent of the governed, and limited government. Many of the ideas of John Locke were widely accepted and used by the Founding Fathers, specifically Thomas Jefferson. In the Declaration of independence, Jefferson altered Locke’s phrase “life, liberty, and property” into “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. These three ideas of Locke exist to this day in American political culture. Liberty is at the core of American values, some individuals quote Patrick Henry who said, “Give me liberty, or give me death” in the Revolutionary War. This famous statement of the Revolutionary War reflects that if there is no freedom (liberty) to choose or express oneself, then there is no purpose to living a life where one is not in control of their destiny. The second ideal, consent of the governed, describes how

Throughout history, there have been many political philosophers whom influenced the government seen in history books and in modern-day society. Despite the varying ideas about government by each political theorist, aspects of each individual idea can be seen in several political documents such as the United States Declaration of Independence. One of these political theorists being Thomas Hobbes, who believed that people would benefit greatly from a Monarch. While John Locke, another renowned political theorist believed that, though the government could help the people, but did not need absolute control over every aspect of their lives. Though, both theorists had different ideology on the structure of the government the ideas would later go on to influence several political documents including the United States Declaration of Independence.