Essay on John Locke, George Berkeley and David Hume

After reading the analysis of innate ideas of the two philosophers. I tend to agree with Locke’s argument that there is no such innate ideas. First, Descartes does not proving enough about how can we born with innate ideas? This major flaw eventually get to Locke’s tension and give us a strong evident of the young children should aware of truth if they have innate ideas in them. Second, I believe in Locke’s criticism about ideas only gain through our experiences and situations. Thus the more experience we have, the vivid picture about our external world we can perceived.

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.

The methods of empiricism continued to spread with little restraint. An Irish bishop and philosopher, George Berkeley, contributed to the empirical movement in the early eighteenth century. He deduced that the arguments employed by Locke supporting that secondary qualities exist only in the mind of the

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

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

In the modern period of philosophy, around the 16th and 17th century, after the fall of Rome and the rise of the dark years, three major events had occurred. The first began with the scientific revolution, where many philosophers were becoming scientist, such as the philosopher of science Francis Bacon. The next event was the resurgence of skepticism, where one questions everything until they discover the truth. For instance, the philosopher famous for saying the phrase “Cogito, ergo sum,” (translated as I think, therefore I am) was the skeptic Rene Descartes, who came up with this quote by doubting everything until there was nothing else to doubt except doubting. The final altering event in the

A monarch is in control. You are being what to do by someone you do not even want ruling your country. What could you do? This is how your world works, it’s always worked like this, so why change it? Simply change it because you are unhappy with the way the world is, you deserve to enjoy the country you live in. That there, change the society, is exactly what the Enlightenment thinkers wanted to do. The Enlightenment thinkers are a group of people who found countless flaws in the way people decided to run the countries. Therefore, of all the Enlightenment thinkers, I believe John Locke, David Hume, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau impacted the world the most due to them having a full grasp on the ideologies of humanity.

Furthermore, Locke’s profound analysis on sources of knowledge contributed to today’s psychological analysis of the unsolved dilemma of nature versus nurture while significantly shaping the foundation of modern psychology. As Locke introduced empiricism in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, he was an important figure of Enlightenment to foster and alternate the schools of thinking in many spheres including here philosophy and psychology among many others.

Socrates once said, “As for me, all I know is that I know nothing.” Several philosophers contradicted Socrates’ outlook and believed that true knowledge was in fact attainable. This epistemological view however had several stances to it, as philosophers held different beliefs in regards to the derivation of true knowledge. Rationalists believed that the mind was the source of true knowledge, while in Empiricism, true knowledge derived from the senses. Rene Descartes, a rationalist, and John Locke, an empiricist, were prime examples of epistemologists who were seen to differentiate greatly within each of their philosophies. However, although Descartes and Locke’s ideas did contrast in that sense,

Like Descartes, Locke also believed in an external world. As an empiricist, Locke relied heavily on the senses to provide true knowledge (Moore 2002). He shared Aristotle’s belief that the mind is a blank slate, also known as tabula rasa, at birth (Paquette 211). Our sense experiences thereafter provide us with knowledge to fill in those slates (Paquette 211). In Locke’s “Representative Theory of Perception,” also known as Epistemological Dualism, he stated that material objects exist and are separate entities from human beings (Paquette 227). However, he also believed that objects exist in the mind as psychological entities (Paquette 227). Locke concluded that people can taste, smell, touch, and see the external world which, in turn, becomes impressions in our minds (Paquette 227). Descartes and Locke are thus seen to be similar in the sense that they both believed in an external world.

     Locke instead is an empiricist, and therefore he directly critiques Descartes epistemic system and tries to establish his own foundation of knowledge. Locke believes that our knowledge of the world comes from what our senses tell us. Locke’s theory state that we are all born with a blank slate, tabula rasa, before we

Berkeley and Hume are both philosophers that thought rationally and relied of reason instead of sensory experience to explain the world around us. Berkeley gives both an epistemological argument and a metaphysical argument to why the idea of mind independent matter is not an object of knowledge. I think Hume is also on the same page as Berkeley and gives an epistemological claim to why matters of fact is not a strong tool, Hume in a way is a lot like Berkeley just less fantastical.

Another of the classic empiricists is George Berkeley (1685-1753), who believes that knowledge is possible. He believed that “it was only through experience and not reason that we have knowledge of reality” (p.99). The best way to describe what Berkeley was trying to say would be found in what we call today idealism. Idealism by definition is a position that maintains that ultimate reality is mental or spiritual in nature. He believed that reality is made up in many individual minds rather than one cosmic mind. Hence, when Berkeley says that we have an idea of something he is not necessarily referring to a particular concept but to the experience of our memory of the combined ideas.

Berkeley was an empiricist. Empiricism is the theory that all knowledge is derived from sense experiences. Some other famous empiricists are Thomas Locke and David Hume. Berkeley is thought to be the bridge between Locke and Hume. Locke believed that primary qualities such as length, shape, and motion existed in the world. While secondary qualities such

According to Berkeley, the world does not exist on its own, perceptions solely do. However, the world does not exist independently of the mind. Berkeley 's argument relies on the existence of a God, who keeps things in place when a person is absent or not around. Hume believes that things including people are nothing but what he perceives as “bundles of perceptions”. He claims that people infer the objective world based on perceived unity and continuity in our observations. Meanwhile, Locke compares the mind to a blank piece of paper. He states, “white paper, void of all characters, without any