Locke Flashcards
(6 cards)
The explanation for why Lock is interested in studying our capacity for understanding.
Locke introduces a shift in focus in turning attention to ourselves. He starts to look at our own cognitive limitations to make sure we do not go beyond them whenever we try to make sense of the universe (like Descartes and Spinoza were doing). By doing so we can know what things we can can or cannot comprehend.
Locke’s interest in why people have different opinions. And why does this motivate him to study where our ideas come from.
We have many different ideas and opinions, and even thought they differ, we take our own stance with much confidence.
This presents us with a conflict: either there isn’t any such thing as truth or mankind isn’t equipped to come to know it.
His arguments against innate ideas
Innateness:
1: Some principles are accepted by all of mankind, like do not kill.
Locke says this is not true because children do not know.
2: Some principles COULD be known by anyone, like geometry. Locke says this is not necessarily true. If we have ideas shared by all mankind, it doesn’t entail innateness per se. There could be an other reason.
Why Locke argues against the existence of innate ideas.
Locke thinks all our knowledge is received trough the senses and that you are born as a blank slate. The notion of innate ideas, to already have idea’s in you when you are born, goes against this principle.
His arguments for thinking that we get our ideas from sensation and reflection.
1: We are born as a blank slate. The more we experience in life the more ideas we have. If you grow up in black room you develop less ideas than when you grow up in the world.
2: I can not think of where else they can not come from. Since they are not innate, as argued by him, then there is nowhere else that they could come from.
The definition of primary and secondary qualities.
Primary qualities
Things that are essential to an object
size, shape, and motion
Secondary qualities
The power of objects to produce sensations in us
Colours, tastes, sounds, smells, tactile properties
