English Deutsch Français Italiano Español Português 繁體中文 Bahasa Indonesia Tiếng Việt ภาษาไทย
All categories

In Lockes writing "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding" What reasons does he give to prove that there is no such thing as Innate knowledge.

I know he gets to the conclusion that the mind is a blank state and only experience leaves a mark on ur mind. But What reasons does he give to get to this conclusion? Or another words What reasons does he give to prove that innate knowledge dont exist?

2007-10-19 03:58:51 · 2 answers · asked by Anonymous in Arts & Humanities Philosophy

Thats a great Example, was this example in "An essay concerning human understanding"?

2007-10-19 04:38:16 · update #1

2 answers

He posits a question. The question was about a blind man. Locke says if we have a man, born blind, and he grows up blind, he's therefore been blind for his entire life.

Now, let's say we can suddenly give this man the gift of sight? Will he be able to tell which shape is a sphere and which is a cube just by looking at the forms? Locke said he would not be able to tell, unless he was allowed to touch and feel the forms. Thus, he would feel the flats, the rounds and the edges, etc. to make a determination.

Therefore, the man had no innate knowledge about what the cube looks like versus the sphere.

And guess what? Locke was right!

With modern medical science, we've been able to conduct this experiment some several hundred years after Locke's death.

2007-10-19 04:35:51 · answer #1 · answered by M O R P H E U S 7 · 2 0

Descartes' first argument, the ordinary cogito, nevertheless holds. That argument is from a self obtrusive concept, that doubt exists. that's neither innate nor choose it come from the exterior. it relatively is proved interior of ones very own strategies. Descartes' extra complicated arguments nevertheless fail, in simple terms as they already did, and for the comparable ordinary reasons. I see why one waiting to settle for Descartes might think of there is a fascinating communicate here, yet very few human beings settle for something previous his cogito. once you're in that camp, i do no longer think of Locke relatively transformations the communicate.

2016-10-04 04:00:37 · answer #2 · answered by ? 4 · 0 0

fedest.com, questions and answers