The Mind is a Blank Slate (a Tabula rasa)

  Hard work & love of simplicity (virtues emphasized at home)  Studied:  Classics  Logic & Moral Phil.  Rhetoric  Greek  Medicine

 Period of political, social, intellectual upheaval  Monarchs overthrown  Parliamentary democracy developed  New:  social classes  Lifestyles  Forms of religion  Scientific Revolution

 Active in politics  Esp. in movement preventing English Stuart monarchs in acquiring absolute power  Exiled to Holland  Returned to England 1689 when Stuarts overthrown  Writings reflect interests in  Education  Economics  Government  Theology  Science & Medicine  Philosophy

 Locke  Lived to the age of 72  Achieved significant public success during his lifetime  Had a wide and lasting influence  Politically, Locke helped shape democratic systems in Britain, France & the U.S.  Philosophically, Locke’s ideas about knowledge and understanding  foundation of empiricism, i.e., understanding world via senses

 The result of a “friendly” discussion of philosophy  Before any topic can be discussed successfully, it is necessary to “examine our own abilities and see what objects our understanding were … fitted to deal with.”  Written to “enquire into the original certainty, and extent of human knowledge; together with the grounds and degrees of belief, opinion & assent.”

 (sounds like Descartes’ question…)  Locke rejected:  Descartes’ solution  The existence of innate ideas that need to be discovered (unearthed)  Not only is believing in innate ideas wrong, Locke believed it to be potentially dangerous  one will accept ideas without question or examination

 Skillful rulers might use the principle to govern more easily, & eliminate opposing points of view (England’s Stuart monarchy insisted that they ruled by divine right)

 All our ideas come to us through our senses  We are NOT born with undiscovered ideas existing in our minds, ideas are acquired through experience  All ideas are learned  Locke’s image of learning: the mind is a blank sheet of paper, a blank slate, a tabula rasa  Life’s experiences write their stories on the blank page giving us knowledge & ideas

 All material things have 2 qualities  Primary qualities that reside in the object itself  Secondary qualities are the powers within the object that actively produce ideas within our mind  Primary qualities  Include: Solidity, extension, figure, & mobility  Produce simple ideas in the mind

 There is one candle  It is solid to the touch  Is about 10 cm high  It sits unmoving on the table  We have fairly direct & certain idea of these primary qualities

 Powers within an object that allow us to experience colour, sound, taste & heat  These characteristics are not within the object itself  E.g., the heat & light of the candle are not in the candle, it is the power of the candle that causes us to experience heat and light in our bodies  Therefore, we are less certain of secondary qualities

 Experience comes to us through our senses, from which we receive perceptions about external objects  Simple ideas from our senses:  Yellow, white, hot, cold, soft, hard, bitter, sweet & other sensible qualities  Complex ideas are assembled as a composite of simple ideas  Whiteness, hardness, sweetness  complex idea of sugar

 A product of reason working out the connections between simple ideas aquired through the senses  Ideas are obtained through observation & reflection on those observations  We have an active, analytical role in organizing our ideas  The classification is shaped by our interests and our own convenience

 All ideas from sense perception  How does the “white paper” become furnished? EXPERIENCE!  Two foundations of knowledge  Object of sensation (primary qualities, SENSATION)  Operations of our minds (perception, thinking, doubting, believing, reasoning, knowing, willing, REFLECTION)  All ideas are from sensation & reflection