FREE ESSAY ON JOHN LOCKE

JOHN LOCKE

John Locke (1632-1704) was born in Wrington, England to
Puritan parents who fostered his education in theology and
politics. He attended the Westminster school, and then
entered Christ Church, Oxford, where he received a
scholarship. Locke studied classical languages,
metaphysics, logic, and rhetoric there. He developed
friendships with Robert Boyle and Isaac Newton, both of whom
influenced his views. In 1690, he wrote An Essay Concerning
Human Understanding, this is considered his greatest work. 
The essay tries to set limits on human understanding. Locke
attempts to answer two questions. The first question is
where we get our ideas from. The second question is whether
we can rely on what our senses tell us. The Essay also
classifies knowledge into three degrees. These are the
intuitive, demonstrative, and the sensitive. Finally, the
Essay divides the ways ideas can be related into four
categories: identity or diversity, relation, coexistence,
and finally real existence. Part of Locke's theory is that
women are equal to men, this will be discussed in the second
part of my paper. 
To understand why Locke wanted to explain where we get
our ideas from, it is important to understand what sect of
philosophy he was a part of. Locke belonged to an
eighteenth century group of British philosophers which
included George Berkeley and David Hume. These three
philosophers shared a view called empiricism. Empiricism is
the belief that all knowledge and ideas come from the
senses. Thus, a new born baby is a blank slate until its
first sensory experience with the world. Aristotle was the
originator of the empiricist way of thinking. Empiricism
directly conflicts with Plato, and the rationalist way of
thinking which states that humans are born with a set of
innate ideas about the world. As Locke explains in An Essay
Concerning Human Understanding, humans gain all ideas and
knowledge by interacting with the external world with their
senses, and by reflecting their new gained knowledge. By
senses, Locke is referring to the five senses: sight, sound,
taste, feeling, and hearing. Locke's definition of
reflection is the way the mind actively processes the
information given to it by sensation. In reflection, the
mind continues to analyze what it has sensed. This
analization includes trusting, not trusting, or
rationalizing the sensory experience and thereby parlaying
even more knowledge and ideas out of the experience. 
Locke believed that simple sensations of something
eventually led to a complex idea of that thing. He thought
that we could only perceive simple parts of the whole which
would eventually lead up to the entire thing. Locke writes,
Combining several simple ideas into one compound one; and
thus all complex ideas are made. An example of this could
be a child's first experience with a chocolate chip cookie. 
The child sees that the cookie is round, she notices the
brown color, and the dark chocolate spots that make up the
chips. The child is really not capable of understanding a
cookie yet, though. In another experience with the cookie,
the child reflects upon her past experience and builds upon
it. This time, she feels the rough texture, and tastes the
sweet confection. Only after the child experiences all the
sum of the cookies parts is she able to own the idea of
cookie. 
One aspect of knowledge that Locke was concerned with
is what can be called false knowledge. This is knowledge
that can not be traced back to simple sensations. Even the
words God and eternity are being misused and
misconcepted because nobody has experienced these things. 
Locke does not totally disbelieve that there is a God and
eternity though, because he later reasons in the Essay that,
Nothing cannot produce a Being; therefore Something must
have existed from Eternity. 
The second question Locke attempts to tackle is whether
we can rely on what our senses tell us, or is the world the
way we perceive it. To help answer this question he divided
sensations into primary and secondary qualities. Primary
qualities are described as those that do not change when the
substance is divided. This includes solidity, extension,
figure, and mobility. Secondary qualities are those that
are subject to change in a substance, such as colors,
sounds, and tastes. Thus, all people see primary qualities
in the same way, but not everyone views the secondary
qualities in the same way. For example, although two
children see the same round cookie, one might think that it
tastes good and the other may despise the taste of it. It
is through these qualities that Locke attempted to judge
whether we can rely on our senses to correctly perceive the
world. 
After Locke established how ideas are formed, he
developed a classification system that renders the knowledge
into degrees. The three degrees that Locke established are
intuitive, demonstrative, and sensitive. The first degree,
intuitive, is considered blatant knowledge. Locke states,
This part of knowledge is irresistible, and, like bright
sunshine, forces itself immediately to be perceived. 
Intuitive knowledge is the most obvious and assured that
human beings are aware of. The second degree of knowledge,
demonstrative, is the type of knowledge that may be derived
from reasoning. This may require weighing ideas against one
another or relating ideas to each other. The most important
rule that makes demonstrated knowledge valid is that each
step must have intuitive evidence, or proof. Finally,
sensitive knowledge is in a class of its own. Sensitive
knowledge is made up of faith and opinions, the belief in
God, for example. It would seem that this type of
classification would juxtapose Locke's empiricism way of
thinking. To justify sensitive knowledge, Locke asks,[is
there any man] when he actually tastes wormwood, or smells a
rose, or only thinks on that savour or odour? What Locke
asks is what man can do these things without considering
that there might be a God. 
Locke made the statement Knowledge is the perception
of the agreement or disagreement of two ideas. This means
that we gain knowledge by relating two items of knowledge. 
To help us understand he divided this agreement or
disagreement into four kinds: identity or diversity,
relation, co-existance, and real existence. Identity or
diversity is the simple way that we, at first sight,
distinguish one thing form another. Locke gave the example
blue is not yellow to describe identity. Without this
type there would be no knowledge, because the building
blocks to reasoning, imagination, and distinct thoughts lie
on identity and diversity. Abstract relations between ideas
is finding how two ideas are the same, or related to one
another. Locke's example of relation is Two triangles upon
equal bases between two parallels are equal. The triangles
are equal because their properties are related to each
other. Co-existance refers to how the known attributes of a
particular substance make that substance what it is. It is
important that the characteristics of the substance are
fixed, truthful fact. Locke gives the example of gold. 
Gold always occurs with Yellowness, weight, fusibility,
[and] malleableness, and this makes the word gold what it
is. Finally, Locke talks about real existence. This
category is where the realization of ourselves, God, and
sensible things lay. Real existence is the category that
all knowledge which does not lie in one of the other three
categories lie in. 
Locke had a particular interest in the equal rights of
women. This was a very unusual and unpopular position to
take in the eighteenth century. Locke wrote, The natural
liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on
earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority
of man, but only have the law of nature for his rule. Of
course this passage applies to governments and refers to
slavery, but Locke acknowledges that it also refers to
woman's rights. Locke was also quoted as saying, in
reference to mothers power over their children, if we
consult reason or the Bible, we shall find she has an equal
title. Locke thought that since women have the ability to
reason, they have the right to be treated as equals. Locke
also thought that the injustice in the male-female
relationship was an artificial creation, and thus could be
reversed. Locke was an influence on John Stuart Mill, a man
who was a forerunner for women's rights. 
Because of Locke's found view of women and his place as
the most important philosopher of his time, he is looked on
today as one of the most respected characters in history.