George Locke

Berkeley's attempt to popularize his pro-mind conception of the external world, Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, serves to undermine Locke's distinctions between primary and secondary qualities of the external world. In his publication, Berkeley uses dialogue between Hylas and Philnous, which consists of a series of arguments, to determine the most sound theory. Ground rules of the debate consists of: whoever of the two's position avoids skepticism about knowledge of physical objects wins and that if one position can be shown to entail that we cannot know anything about physical objects, consequently that position should be dismissed as absurd (Kelly, 2013). Throughout the arguments, Berkeley weakens Locke's theory of Limited Representationalism by counteracting Locke's with the possibility that instead of “matter” that comprises physical objects in the external world, these objects are simply ideas. Drawing back on Berkeley's catchy motto, “to be is to be perceived”, he proposes three arguments that support his idealist view that the motto encapsulates. The three pieces of support also importantly shed skepticism upon Lockes primary and secondary distinctions involving “matter”. The three statements of support include: The argument that physical

John Locke starts off his treatise with the thesis that ideas spring from two fountainheads--sensation and reflection. The former, man acquires from external sensible objects that affect man's five senses--those same senses endowed upon all men by the Creator. Material things outside man's being are the objects of sensation. Through experiencing sensation, man's thinking process gives rise to ideas thereby gaining for the thinking being a certain amount of

John Locke thought that the ideas or perceptions which we have of objects in the world partially represent the objects as they are in themselves, and so whether they are being perceived. This view of Locke’s is called representative realism. The term realism refers to the view that objects are real or exist apart from perception. And representative means that some of our perceptions accurately represent an object as the thing which it is in itself apart from perception. Locke thought that only some of our ideas or perceptions are accurate representations of the object itself, and that

Locke argued that just the discovery of knowledge alone through believes could put forth a justification that knowledge “requires only reasonably high probability”. When Descartes talks about his solution when he states “what we directly see, feel, hear, touch…are our own sense data that ultimately exists in our minds” Descartes that by using our senses we interpret things that are certain. And so we have to use our senses in order to prove certainty, whereas Locke states that certainty only has to do with a reasonably high probability. If we were not able to use our senses, just through our prior knowledge of what we know we wouldn’t know if something was for certain. An example I can illustrate, if someone shows us an exotic fruit in part of the jungle which we have never traveled but, we are familiar with oranges and apples and such other fruits, but we only see the fruit, can we tell what color is on the inside? Or how tough the rind is? Through Descartes method we will be able to see the rind and based on our knowledge fruit come to a conclusion about it. Through Locke’s method we only need knowledge of the fruit we already are familiar with in order to formulate both how tough the rind is and what color is on the

Philosophers Thomas Hobbs and John Locke argue that having a government is the only way for a society to avoid the state of nature. However, Hobbs and Lock argue for completely different methods of government, monarchy and republic, which are both means to break out of the inherent state of nature. One such method, argued for by Hobbs, is an absolute monarchy where you subdue your liberty for security. Whether or not the absolute monarchy is tyrannical, Hobbs portrays the state of nature as “poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” For the most part the state of nature, as referred to by Hobbs, makes the population accept the tyranny of a monarchy because that is better than the state of nature. The colonies rejected Britain’s Monarchy for its lack of representation, which caused a revolution. Furthermore, after the American Revolution the articles of confederation was drafted to create order after independence was gained. The articles of confederation is extremely weak, and does not tie the newly birthed nation together cohesively. There are a plethora of problems with regards to the articles of confederation, but the most profound is the lack of power vested in the national government. Therefore, the constitution should be ratified since it maintains balance of national and state government, additionally, the constitution fosters the overall growth of the nation through its ability to collect taxes, maintain cooperation between states, and represents the population

Primary qualities, however, are objective and include aspects such as an object’s height and weight (Paquette 212). Through this, Locke claimed that the existence of objects can be made certain due to the primary qualities it possesses (Paquette 212). Similar to Descartes, Locke believed in a sense of existence. However, in his view, the facts from the primary qualities proved the object exists because the object exists within itself (Paquette 212).

The enlightenment era arose in the modern cultural ideology of the 18th century, as ideas among philosophers had a widespread effect among the society. The age of enlightenment, in western society, projected the rejection of traditional Christianity, western philosophy, intellectual advances, scientific, and cultural life, government legitimacy and authority. Upon the enlightenment period multiple philosophers emerged, the individuals arose to leading figures using reason to understand all aspects of human life. The motivations for the enlightenment came primarily from the Englishmen, John Locke. John Locke was a philosophical influence in both political theory and theoretical philosophy, which was embraced among the era of 1789-1914 and

I will argue that Locke believed that if you remain the same person, there are various entities contained in my body and soul composite that do not remain the same over time, or that we can conceive them changing. These entities are matter, organism (human), person (rational consciousness and memory), and the soul (immaterial thinking substance). This is a intuitive interpretation that creates many questions and problems. I will evaluate Locke's view by explaining what is and what forms personal identity, and then explaining how these changes do conceivably occur while a human remains the same person.

This essay discusses Berkeley’s immaterialism and his usage of God. Berkeley argues that sensible qualities are ideas and exist only in the mind, but at the same time require us to perceive to them in order to exist. God, as an omnipresent, being holds the power to perceive all things all of the time, and as such is used by Berkeley as solution to this potential problem in his immaterialism. This essay looks to explain Berkeley’s account of why this is the case. First the essay explains why Berkeley rejects materialism, as he does not believe matter exists. Next we see that God’s omnipresence allows him to perceive all things all of the time, eliminating the problem from Berkeley’s account. After we see that since sensible qualities exist,

Secondly, George Berkeley, a representational idealist, believes that knowledge comes from experience, but he perceives his thoughts in a different way then Locke. He doesn't believe that things from your senses can be reality. Berkeley believes that if our minds did not produce an idea, then God delivered and perceived his experiences to us, but he also says that empiricism and Christianity cannot be used together. We have a small role to play out and God makes sure that everything gets done. Berkeley was very mind dependent; he had faith that there is no world without a mind. With this in mind, he felt that all objects we encounter in experience are nothing more than mind-dependent collections of ideas. This is known as Esse est percipi, or "To be is to be perceived." He also believed that reality is nonphysical and everything that exists is either minds or the ideas they perceive.

John Locke's theory of knowledge stated that all knowledge is derived from the senses, that are converted into impressions, that are then made into ideas, either simple or complex. Simple ideas are ones that involve only one sense, whereas complex ideas consist of multiple simple ideas being combined to create a vivid one. Ideas have two qualities, primary qualities, and secondary qualities. Primary qualities are things that are perceived the same for everyone, and secondary qualities are the individual perceptions of

John Locke was perhaps one of the most influential political philosophers of the modern period. In the Second Treatise of Government, John Locke discusses the move from a state of nature and perfect freedom to a then governed society in which authority is given to a legislative and executive power. His major ideas included liberalism and capitalism, state of nature, state of war and the desire to protect one’s property.

An argument made during that time period was that general knowledge was universally accepted. He counter argues that if knowledge and truth were universally accepted, then certain demographics such as children or "idiots" , as Locke calls them, would be reliable sources for knowledge and truth themselves. Alas, they are not. He believed that we are, in fact, blank slates who acquire true knowledge from experiences based on sensation and reflection. "Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper void of all characters, without any ideas. How comes it to be furnished? Whence comes it by that vast store which the busy and boundless fancy of man has painted on it with an almost endless variety? Whence has it all the materials of reason and knowledge? To this I answer, in one word, from experience" (Locke, 36). Sensation is the way of gaining experiences from the physical and materialistic world. Reflection is the method of gaining experiences from within our own minds. A misconception is that Locke contradicts himself by stating sensation is prior to reflection, therefore alluding it as an innate idea to reflection. However, Locke quickly saves his theory by saying that reflection is somewhat dependent on sensation, and in fact, not an innate idea to it. What Locke held was that each intricate thought can be broken down and analyzed into parts and those remaining

Conversely, Locke felt that individuals gained knowledge through real world experiences. He believed in two kinds of complex ideas: ideas of substances and ideas of modes. In The

John Locke and George Berkeley are two respected individuals in the world of philosophy. These two brilliant minds impacted the philosophy and brought new ideas that are worth noting. John Locke is famously known for his belief in tabula rasa or blank slate. He believed that knowledge was not innate in humans at born, but it is learned experiences that give us knowledge. Example, a psychiatrist understands how to help a client with this problem that may be new to the psychiatrist because he/she would use what they’ve learned before to help that client. This example shows that we learn things through experiences and gain knowledge through our past experiences. Another example plays on Locke’s theory that are just objects that we add elements to it. It’s separated in two terms; primary and secondary. Primary refers more to just the shape, the weight, or location and secondary refers to the color, taste, smell, and other qualities that give us a sensation. Locke was also known for his belief in a concept he called, substance. This concept refers to matter and mind. Example, a physical object such as a car would be considered a matter, you can also think of it as something that takes up space and that is tenable. Now, thinking about how that car is operated and if it something useful in the future then that is what he called the mind. Also, the cognitive process was not tenable and was not mind then it would be considered mind. Berkeley in the other hand completely disapproved