John Locke Argumentative Essay

The second epistemological question is; does reason provide us with knowledge of the world independently of experience? John Locke says the answer to this question is no. He uses arguments discussed in the third anchor point of empiricism to support this idea. Locke does not believe that reason alone can provide knowledge because we do not possess innate knowledge that we are not aware of. To best describe this Locke proposes this model: "Suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper, void of all characters, without any ideas; how comes it to be furnished? When man has painted on it with endless variety, how does it have all the materials of reason and knowledge to this question I answer, in one word, from experience. In that all our knowledge is founded, and from that, it ultimately drives itself" (p94). Therefore, without these experiences Locke believes that we would not possess the concept of reason and because of that reason alone cannot provide us knowledge of the world.

Locke’s states that “All knowledge comes from the senses through experience” interpreted when Locke’s “blank slate” idea to when we are kids we know nothing. Our brains have to make connections to things and these connections are gained through experience and continues

From the instant folks begin to grip the world around them, notions begin to form. The mind plays a significant role in such chore as it is the core machine transporting such concepts for a soul to comprehend the world. In fact, this concept mimics the passage of an individual gathering apples during a pleasant summer day. Each apple recollected, enfolds a gist in its figure, tint and size over the networks attained by the individual from the instance each apple is selected, and this pertains my view about experiences since we evolve by them. Similarly, the empiricist John Locke, developed his theory of knowledge grounded by sense experience claiming individuals can get to know things outward to their minds. Contrary to this view, Rene Descartes who held rationalist backgrounds, doubted about knowledge acquisition through the senses putting into question perceptions rejecting the concept of material objects being sensed, meanwhile it is Locke’s main key from where his epistemology derives from. Both thinkers try understanding the origins and acquisition of knowledge differing in the idea of grasping the outside world.

So, while this knowledge may be universal, it does not neccessarily mean that such knowledge is innate, but rather just the capacity to come to know these certain truths. Since Locke is an empiricist, he states that the ability of the mind to know certain truth is only innate through the senses. It is through use of sensory experience that one learns things about nature, our environment, or ourselves.

As an Empiricist, Locke was committed to the idea that there were no such things as innate ideas and that the best, indeed the only way, to come to know objective truth was via sensory experience.The only way to come to know the world is through sensory experience. He would agree with St. Thomas Aquinas that, nothing is in the mind without first having been in the

Another proposed replacement for Locke’s definition is that an innate idea is assented to in the very instance that it is understood. But again, sensory experiences also fall under this definition, because as soon as you experience something you understand what it is, such as red is not yellow and vice versa.

Locke’s second point in his argument is that knowledge comes from the senses and how we perceive the world. This means that all the knowledge society has acquired comes from the observations and reasoning people have made based on their perceptions. In his essay, Locke presents the idea of two fountains of knowledge. These fountains of knowledge is where all the ideas that we can have have come from. The first fountain of knowledge is sensation, which involves all the five senses of the human body. It is because of sensation we have ideas such as hot, the color orange, sweet, and bright. The second fountain of knowledge is experience, which helps explain the things we perceive from the first sense, such as reasoning, thinking, and knowing. Locke then separates experience into two categories, primary and secondary qualities. Primary qualities are qualities that an object can have without us needing to sense it such as size of an object or the way it is moving. An object will already have these qualities regardless if a person recognizes them or not. Secondary qualities are the “other” qualities such as color, or the sound an object makes when it hits the floor. These our qualities that exist in our mind, not qualities that an object has already on its own. A great example is wine. When it comes to wine many people have different experiences on how a wine tastes. Imagine one bottle of wine that is sampled by two different

How we get it, is how we view the world, how we view the world, causes us to become followers and finally act the way we act. In comparison, of “blank slate” and “knowledge,” is that Locke sees it has the way human nature is, how our perspective reflects our

Indeed, the introduction John Locke's Empiricism changed the way in which man viewed himself, as well as the very ideas behind how knowledge was acquired. As Bevery Voloshin states, these beliefs were obvious, "especially in Locke's denial of innate ideas and his conception that all knowledge is built up from atomistic sensations through the mind's power of reflection" (18). Innate ideas were introduced by Descartes' earlier in the 16th century, and Locke was quick to disagree with the Cartesian doctrine of innate ideas - "the doctrine that man is born with clear and undeniably true ideas" (Sahakian 21).  Locke thought that only through reflection could knowledge be gained, and that human beings were not equipped with certain inborn knowledge.  "Locke felt that for people to be receptive toward his empiricism, it was necessary to eliminate the stronghold of innate ideas" (Sahakian 36).  Only through our experiences (which are driven by our senses) and

Locke discards the suggestion of innate ideas. Locke believes that if we always had innate ideas, it would be impossible for us not to perceive or be aware of them. He believes that if there were innate ideas then they would be universal ideas present

Are humans born with any kind of innate knowledge or is everything we know learned from experience? Descartes and Locke have opposing viewpoints on this subject. In Descartes meditations, he shows his belief for innate thinking through his development of thoughts throughout his work. Locke’s essays actually go to combat against those views by using plenty of examples and arguments. Who is right, though? In this essay, both views will be evaluated and Locke’s viewpoint will be combatted. Locke missed possible innate knowledge when explaining why it is not valid.

During the enlightenment, John Locke was constantly teaching and promoting his philosophies. The first major idea that he supported was first suggested by Aristotle (Murphy, 166) which stated that children were born a blank slate or tabula rasa, they were completely free of sins and ready to absorb all that was to learn. Most of Locke’s work revolved around the breakdown of a child’s mind and how capable and willing they were to learn. He proposed the concept that children were not immature

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

John Locke’s theories on how knowledge is gained through the senses and how there are different kinds of experiences and ideas adds to, and justifies, the movement of modern science. Modern science is all about observing the natural world in order to understand and gain knowledge about what is going around us. I agree that humans do gain knowledge and form different kinds of ideas through our senses and different experiences.

Locke’s rebuttal of Descartes argument of innateness is that universal assent does not prove innateness because everyone could have had the same experiences.”(Weatherston 2014) “Implicit knowledge is meaningless because you are either aware of something or not.” (Weatherston 2014) Within this section of notes we talked about children and how they don’t understand some of the principals like the sky is blue, they don’t understand this principal because they are implicitly known. Locke believed that if “principles were known when we reach a certain age, “the age of reason”, then this would not prove innateness unless knowing the principles and the ability to reason were simultaneous.” (Weatherston 2014) Locke also believed that when a child is born their mind is “tabula rasa”: a blank slate. He also believed in two different kinds of experience inner experience, which is reflection and the outer experience, which is sensation. There are four ways of getting ideas according to Locke: the first way is that some ideas can only come from the senses. The second way of getting ideas is that you can get ideas from more than one sense at a time, the example given in the lecture was being able to see things move and feeling them move. The third way of getting ideas is that they come from reflection only, like emotions happy, sad or angry. The final way of