Locke 's Views On Human Understanding Is Not A Direct Attack With Descartes

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.

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

In regards to the point of contention as to where ideas originate, John Locke provides us with a stronger case for the explanation of the origin of ideas than does Rene Descartes. His empirical explanation of ideas is much more powerful than Descartes’ innate explanations. The innate argument has many flaws associated with it while Locke’s argument has few flaws. It becomes quite clear after thinking about both views that Locke’s case is made the best. Descartes makes his case representing the rationalist point of view, advocating in favor of innate knowledge and the flaws associated with relying solely on our sensory perceptions as a basis for knowledge.

Descartes and Locke also believed in some sense of the external world. Descartes claimed that there is in fact an external world, however it does not exist outside people’s minds (Paquette 206). Since Descartes was a rationalist, he believed that the only method to acquire true knowledge was solely through the mind (Moore 2002). Through the process of doubting existence, Descartes realized that the mind exists (Paquette 205). He went further into thought and concluded that since he, an imperfect person, has knowledge of perfection, something perfect has to exist to have put that knowledge in his mind. From there he claimed the existence of God (Newman 2010). Descartes then stated that a perfect god would not deceive his people, indicating that the material world exists (Newman 2010). Therefore through this thinking process, Descartes came to the conclusion that the real world is of the mind, and the external world is everything else that falls into the material world

In An Essay Concerning Human Understanding Locke dismisses Descartes’ Cartesian dualism and instead writes about his belief that the mind is a blank slate. Galileo, Descartes, and Locke, being some of the greatest thinkers in the history of humanity, employ their own methods of reason to explore the ways humans acquire knowledge.

James Madison and John Locke each created similar but somewhat different ideas about human nature. Whereas John Locke put more hope in human nature, Madison looked down on it with more critical analysis. Locke’s argument may provide few important points in general, but it is Madison who ultimately explained why people work in the specific way we see today and produce the government we enjoy. In fact, some of Locke’s arguments can be tied to Madison’s philosophy and be seen as useful explanations for Madison’s viewpoint toward self-centered human nature.

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.

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

     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

In Locke’s theory, he attempts to refute Descartes’s theory on multiple accounts. He makes it apparent that his main rebuttal is that we can distinguish reality through

One way in which Descartes and Locke differ is their opinions of how knowledge is attained. Descartes ascertained that you could only gain knowledge through reasoning and not reasoning and senses together. He concluded that senses can deceive us and should not be trusted. Descartes states, “I will suppose, then, that everything I see is fictitious. I will believe that my memory tells me nothing but lies. I have no senses. Body, shape, extension, movement and place are illusions. So what remains true? Perhaps just the one fact that nothing is certain!” (Descartes). Descartes identified the mind as a thinking substance and bodies as material substances. Descartes is a rationalist, as he believed knowledge could be gained without experiencing it in the real 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

John Locke (1632-1704) was the first of the classical British empiricists. (Empiricists believed that all knowledge derives from experience. These philosophers were hostile to rationalistic metaphysics, particularly to its unbridled use of speculation, its grandiose claims, and its epistemology grounded in innate ideas) If Locke could account of all human knowledge without making reference to innate ideas, then his theory would be simpler, hence better, than that of Descartes. He wrote, “Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper, void of all characters, without any ideas: How comes it to be furnished? To his I answer, in one word, from EXPERIENCE.” (Donald Palmer, p.165)

Rene Descartes was a rationalist who believed that knowledge of the world can be gained by the exercise of pure reason, while empiricist like Locke believed that knowledge of the world came through senses. Descartes from his meditations deduced from intuitive first principles the existence of self, of God, of the mind as a thinking substance and the extended body as a material substance whereas Locke, asserts that knowledge is acquired through perception, direct sensory of the world, reflections, the mental processes of breaking down complex impressions into simple ones and comparing them, conceptualizing them and recommending them to form new philosophies.

Throughout the passage of time, philosophers have written and discussed many topics in philosophy. Sometimes, these philosophers agree on ideas or sometimes they make their own assumptions. There are two philosophers who had different ideas concerning where innate ideas come from and how we get these types of ideas. Rene Descartes and John Locke were these two philosophers with the opposing argument on innate ideas. The place where Descartes discusses his views were in the Meditations on First Philosophy and Locke's argument is located in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. By using these sources I will be able to describe the difference between these two arguments on innate ideas.