John Locke1632-1704

modern philosopher

Influences/Contemporaries

Heavily influenced by Aristotle and Descartes

Empiricists around his time:

› Berkeley, & Hume (all Brits including Locke)

Rationalists around his time:

› Descartes (french), Spinoza (dutch), & Leibniz (german ya)

Locke essentially based his philosophy off of Aristotle’s ideas and combined it with some of the rationalistic views of Descartes

Locke’s Philosophy

Believed that all humans when born have a “tabula rasa” for a mind, or an empty slate

› Important because:

1. All humans are therefore created equally

2. All humans gain knowledge through experiences and senses

Empiricism – knowledge comes primarily or only from experiences involving our senses

Empiricism

“there is nothing in the mind except what was first in the senses.” – Aristotle

Locke claimed that we cannot have a correct idea of something we have never experienced before

› Example: we cannot understand God or eternity because no one has ever experienced God or eternity

Essay Concerning Human Understanding

This was Locke’s most famous work

In it, he attempted to answer 2 main questions:

1. Where do we get our ideas from?

2. Can we rely on what our senses tell us?

This work would greatly influence Hume and Berkeley in the following years

Formation of Ideas (question #1)

Locke divided the formation of ideas into a 2 step process:1. Sensation

Involves simple ideas of sense such as seeing, tasting, smelling, feeling, etc.

We gather basic information of an object through senses

2. Reflection Involves questioning, reasoning, and

forming conclusions After we gather info, we reflect on it and

create a complex idea of that object

Example Eating cake Joe D takes a slice of cake because he

obviously loves food› He first sees the cake, then smells it, then

tastes it Joe used his multiple senses to get a basic

idea of the cake› After that, he thinks to himself, “I am

eating a slice of cake, yummy.”

Joe has now combined his simple senses to create a more complex logical, reasonable understanding of cake.

Knowledge that cannot be traced back to a simple sensation is false knowledge and must be rejected.

Relying on our Senses (question #2)

Mainly based on Descartes’ principles

Locke once again divided it into 2 different qualities:

1. Primary qualities

Extension, weight, motion, numbers, shapes

Definite qualities that cannot change from person to person

2. Secondary qualities

Color, smell, taste, sound

May appeal to some but it may not to others

Example

Let’s use Joe as an example

Everyone can agree that Joe has one definite weight, right? (about 250… Kg)

› That’s a primary quality; personal opinion will not have an effect on the fact

Now if I asked, “Is Joe sexy?”

› We would get different answers based on different opinions since it is a secondary quality

This shows that the world is indeed the way we perceive it with our senses.

Cake…

Locke’s Legacy

He established natural rights

› Everyone has the right to life, liberty, and property

› (in the Declaration)

Also, he invented the idea of division of powers

1. Legislative – elected representatives

2. Judicial – law of courts

3. Executive – government

› (also in the Declaration)

Works Cited

Gaarder, Jostein, and Paulette Møller. Sophie's World: a Novel about the History of Philosophy. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007.