John Locke
John Locke, the foremost English philosopher of the early period of modern post-Cartesian philosophy, published in 1689 his Essay Concerning Human Understanding. In this paper I shall look a little at the life of John Locke and the Essay¾ the work for which he is best known.Not a professional philosopher, most of John Locke's time and energy was devoted to public affairs and so he spent many years on and off on a small number of comprehensive and systematic studies. With a desire to 'remove some of the rubbish that was in the way to knowledge', Locke embarked on a relatively unambitious program- in a metaphysical sense- because he didn't depend as much as rationalists did upon the attainment of metaphysical knowledge. Although he wrote on various branches of philosophy (as well as theology, medicine and education) his interest primarily was epistemology. The initial impulse for the line of thought that culminated in the Essay occurred in early 1671. Locke was having a discussion with some friends on matters of morality and revealed religion. In the Epistle to the reader at the beginning of the Essay he describes the discussants. '[They] found themselves quickly at a stand by the difficulties that arose on
Complex ideas of substance are considered subsistent of themselves (i. These ideas based on experience, he wrote, are only 'the materials of reason and knowledge' (II i 2). Ideas which come from subjective reality are called reflections (like the ideas of desire, will, memory decision etc. Experience furnishes the material of knowledge but isn't knowledge itself. Devoutly believing that we have been created and allowed to inhabit the earth by God, with some expectation of an afterlife, Locke aimed to discover what kind of things God has fitted us to know. ) while those from outside are referred to as sensations. Reality can be subjective or external, i. Ideas of sensation can originate in only one sense (colours smells, sounds) or in more than one (movement, solidity, extension, number). SUBSTANCESimple ideas constitute the matter or material of knowledge: the intellect, in receiving them is entirely passive but then becomes active in ordering this material, giving rise to complex ideas.
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