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John Locke's theory of perception and knowledge.
John Locke and his philosophies
John Locke's theory of perception and knowledge.
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Monism vs. Dualism
John Locke’s Essay on Human Understanding his primary thesis is our ideas come from experience, that the human mind from birth is a blank slate. (Tabula Rasa) Only experience leaves an impression in our brain. “External objects impinge on our senses,” which interpret ate our perceptions of various objects. The senses fill the mind with content. Nothing can exist in the mind that was not first experienced by the senses. Dualism resembles Locke’s theory that your mind cannot perceive something that the senses already have or they come in through the minds reflection on its own operation. Locke classifies ideas as either simple or complex, simple ideas being the building blocks for complex ideas.
Materialism vs. Naturalism
Materialist believe that only the physical exist, naturalist believe that we our born with ideas’, concepts, principals and knowledge. Locke found Descartes views of the physical world interesting However, at the same time he disagreed with Descartes’ opinion on the soul and innate ideas. Locke did not believe that the mind contained anything innate except certain capacities for some mental processes. To except this theory one would have to doubt that our feet or hands or anything we come in contact with may not exist.
Idealism vs. Super Naturalism
John Locke
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It is not a self-sustained system in which everything and event has a proper time or place, or a cause-and-effect relationship with the Whole. And yet, he believes there is a divine Master but without a purpose or a meaning in this grand scheme. Locke believes our Creator has infinite wisdom and so designed the world that each creature would have the freedom of living its own reality, free of the restrictions that knowledge "beyond the experience" would impose on its attitudes and behavior. It stands to reason that Locke believes we learn everything through our senses of free
John Locke strongly believed in more rights for the people and was against oppression. In his book, Second Treatise on Civil Government, Locke stated, “(W)e must consider, what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose [manage] of their possessions. . .” (Document A). Locke means every man is naturally equal, no one was created better and he has certain guaranteed rights. This helps society because it would deny a monarch to strip a person of their guaranteed rights and it would make the monarch less powerful and his/her power would be given to the people.
John Locke was an English philosopher who lived during 1632-1704. In political theory he was equally influential. Contradicting Hobbes, Locke maintained that the original state of nature was happy and characterized by reason and tolerance; all human beings were equal and free to pursue "life, health, liberty, and possessions." The state formed by the social contract was guided by the natural law, which guaranteed those inalienable rights. He set down the policy of checks and balances later followed in the U.S. Constitution; formulated the doctrine that revolution in some circumstances is not only a right but an obligation; and argued for broad religious freedom.
John Locke wrote the Two Treatises of Government. In his work Locke talked about how governments are not created by God, but by human beings. He claimed that by nature all people are free and equal against the claims of God and that a government should work between the governor and the ones being governed, instead of a governor and God. Locke also wrote several religious essays that served as an early model for the separation of the church and the state. His phrase of “life, liberty, and property,” would end up influencing the United States’ early documents. Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding expressed the idea that knowledge neglects inmate ideas and in order to discover the truth beyond simple experience, he suggested methods of experimental science. Thoughts Concerning Education expressed Locke’s idea on how the mind can be educated by having a healthy body, a pure character, and the right academic curriculum. Later on, it would be acknowledged by Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
1. First of all, John Locke reminds the reader from where the right of political power comes from. He expands the idea by saying, “we must consider what estate all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons as they think fit.” Locke believes in equality among all people. Since every creature on earth was created by God, no one has advantages over another. He makes a strong suggestion by saying, “that creatures of the same species and rank, should also be equal one amongst another, without subordination or subjection, unless the lord and master of them all should, by any manifest declaration of his will, set one above another, and confer on him, by an evident and clear appointment, an undoubted right to dominion and sovereignty.” For people to confirm the state of Nature, a law is set that obliges people to follow and consult it. The Law of Nature brings many things that need to be followed by each person. Locke describes the law’s consequences if not obeyed by saying, “the execution of the law of Nature is in that state put into every man’s hands, whereby every one has a right to punish the transgressors of that law to such a degree as may hinder its violation.” Every law is fair and equal to every person. As you have equal rights, you may also be punished equally if you don’t obey it.
What John Locke was concerned about was the lack of limitations on the sovereign authority. During Locke’s time the world was surrounded by the monarch’s constitutional violations of liberty toward the end of the seventeenth century. He believed that people in their natural state enjoy certain natural, inalienable rights, particularly those to life, liberty and property. Locke described a kind of social contract whereby any number of people, who are able to abide by the majority rule, unanimously unite to affect their common purposes. The...
Descartes argues in favor of human reasoning, involving innate ideas and subsequent deductions, as the sole avenue toward reaching this certain knowledge. On the other hand, Locke does not invest himself in the possibility of achieving any knowledge that can be claimed as a universal truth. Rather than this, Locke favored the idea that experience can lead individuals to knowledge that is most probable. Ultimately, these two philosophies cannot reconcile themselves together because of a core divergence on the question of the origins of knowledge. As Locke’s argument finds itself dependent on the concept of the mind as a “tabula rasa” at birth, this doctrine surpasses Descartes’ assertion of innate knowledge and, by extension, systematic doubt. For readers, the acceptance of the mind as a blank slate invariably leads to an acceptance of Locke’s reasoning above Descartes’. The argument propelling Locke’s essay and the improbability of innate knowledge favors the idea that there can be no universal truths and that, since individuals are born without any truths evident to them, they must depend entirely on sensory perception of the external world on which to base the beginnings of their knowledge. To support this, Locke considers how children gain knowledge of the world in small increments, as opposed to possessing an extensive knowledge from the time of their birth. Locke discusses that an individual with exposure solely to black and white would be absolutely unaware of scarlet or green, just like children are ignorant of the taste or texture of pineapples and oysters until they first taste
Locke believes that humans inherently possess complete and inalienable equality in the state of nature. “A state also of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another; there being nothing more evident, than that creatures of the same species and rank, promiscuously born to all the same advantages of nature, and the use of the same faculties, should also be equal one amongst another. ”2 Locke suggests that a civil government has an obligation to treat its citizens equally because humans are equal in the state of nature, and it would be both morally wrong and difficult to find willing subjects if they are denied equality under the government’s rules. authority.
Locke believes that state of nature is pre-political but at the same time it is not pre-moral. He believes that everyone i...
Locke believes that everyone is born as a blank slate. According to Locke there is no innate human nature but human nature is something we create. And because we are born as an equal blank slate all men have the opportunity to create human nature therefore Locke believed all men are created equal. Unlike Bentham Locke believed that government needed to take a step back and allow for each individual to have the right to three things: life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. The Governments role should not be in dictating people what to do but to allow individuals to their three
Our principals and beliefs people choose to follow in life are based on experiences, sensations, and reflections, they are not innate in nature. Even though our knowledge and ideas come from experience, sensation, and reflections, Socrates states in “The Allegory of the Cave”, our minds can create false realities that we may perceive as being the truth. Locke’s beliefs in this essay are very similar to mine, almost exact. I do not believe that we have innate ideas. I believe that everybody has different minds and opinions. At the top of this essay there is a quote that states, rationalist are like spiders who ‘spin webs out of themselves’ while empiricist are more like bees who ‘collect material from the outside world and turn it into something valuable’”(qtd. in Thompson). The way I see it, everybody learns from experience. For example, in lacrosse everybody sucks in the beginning because they lack the experience of playing but with practice, they gain knowledge and experience of the game. Another aspect that I agree with Locke on is how nobody has the same principles and can change and form their own. I think that everybody has the freedom and the consciousness to make there own principles and ideas, which is one thing that make us
Locke, John Essay concerning Humane Understanding, Book II ("Of Ideas"), Chapter 1 ("Of Ideas in General, and Their Original")
...received through the senses and experience. Locke makes a statement in Book II about experience, which says, "In that all our Knowledge is founded; and from that it ultimately derives itself."
Our mind then processes that perception into an idea. A great example I can give is from my childhood. I was playing outside by my elderly neighbor and she said, “Stop,” and I did, which made her tell me I was very obedient. I didn’t know what that word meant so I looked it up and did not like the definition. Ever since that day I tried to not be obedient unless I wanted to be or absolutely needed to be. I heard something I didn’t know anything about, researched it and reflected on it and decided I didn’t want to be that. My experience makes me agree with Locke because I was able to process what happened to me and decide for
The first philosopher, John Locke, laid the foundations of modern empiricism. Locke is a representational realist who touches reality through feelings. He believes that experience gives us knowledge (ideas) that makes us able to deal with the world external to our minds. His meaning of ideas is "the immediate object of perception, thought, or understanding." Locke's ideas consist of simply ideas which turn into complex ideas. Simple ideas are the thoughts that the mind cannot know an idea that it has not experienced. The two types of simple ideas are; sensation and reflection. Sensation is the idea that we have such qualities as yellow, white, heat, cold, soft, hard, bitter, and sweet. Reflection ideas are gained from our experience of our own mental operations. Complex ideas are combinations of simple ideas that can be handled as joined objects and given their own names. These ideas are manufactured in the human mind by the application of its higher powers. Locke believes in two kinds of qualities that an object must have; primary and secondary. Primary qualities o...
That everything in our mind is in idea. It all could be developed by human reason, not innate ideas. Locke goes on to describe his theory in order for your mind to gain knowledge humans will have to fill it up their brain with ideas, and learn through their five senses. Since, the innate ideas was not that relevant to Locke he needed to come up with another perceptions. Locke then suggested that external experience called as sensations; this experience which we can attain our knowledge through our senses that we have such as smells, touch and color. In other words, it is about analyses the characteristics of an object. The second kind of experience which Locke mentions is internal experience known as reflection, it is summarize those personal experience such as our thoughts, thinking, and feelings. He says that all knowledge come from sensations or reflection, “These two are the fountains of knowledge, from whence all the ideas we have, or can naturally have,” (page186). Therefore, the sense and observation make up the whole of knowledge. On the contrary, as for Descartes views he believes we do have innate