John Locke - An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.

John Locke (above)

John Locke was a philosopher who was very much in favour of empiricism and this is clearly demonstrated in his work, his most famous being 'The Essay of Human Understanding.' Locke opposed many of his predecessor Idealist philosophers, in particular Decartes. 

Locke believed that from birth we are completely void of all knowledge and our brains are similar to a blank, white canvas. We have no personality and as we grow older we learn more about the environment we are surrounded by and gradually knowledge begins to make imprints on our minds. He asks himself that if this is the case and we are all born without any innate knowledge, how does this develop? His answer is a simple idea and one which I struggle to challenge. He claimed that knowledge is learnt entirely from experience. This is then broken down into sensation and reflection.  

Sensation, he believes is a method we use to understand external objects and beings or 'sensible objects'. For example, we can familiarise with the texture of the object using our touch sense or the smell of a food we like using our smell. All five senses allow us to gain further knowledge about the external objects we share our environment with. 

Reflection, is slightly different and this refers to how we can understand internal processes and concepts which we are unable to rely on our senses to understand. An example of how reflection may be used is 'love'. This is something that we are unable to see or touch, but we understand this through past experiences which we then later reflect on and recognise this as being love.  Locke claims that there is nothing within our minds that has not derived from either sensation or reflection. He poses a difficult question to the reader, asking them to challenge this and I cannot honestly think of anything that has not come from either of these two concepts. 

Throughout the essay, Locke refers to children frequently to emphasise his points. He explains how whilst a child is developing through the first few years of their life, they will experience a wave of different objects and emotions, all of which probably will not register with them and will probably cause confusion. It will be at a later point in their life when a similar situation occurs that they will then reflect on past events and gain knowledge. An example, Locke presents is the idea that if a child were to be kept in a totally black room until they were a fully grown adult they would have no idea about other colours, only those which they had been presented with as a child. This supports his theory of sensation feeding us with knowledge.

I also have an example which supports Locke's theory...

During my English Language A Level Course, we came across an interesting story of a small child called Genie, who was locked away in a small room in her home town of Temple City, California.  She was strapped to a potty chair and was deprived of all human communication. When she was discovered in 1970, Genie had no or very little language. This is because as children we learn language from hearing sounds from others around us, and as Genie was denied this she had only developed the normal sounds you would hear from 'babbling' babies. This also supports Locke's theory as it suggests that humans learn knowledge from their senses (in this case hearing) from objects and other beings surrounding them.

Locke then takes his ideas slightly deeper in the latter part of his essay, he discusses the soul and dreaming. He explains how when one dreams, they can also experience pleasure and pain despite the events taking place not being 'real'. He explains that the soul is constantly thinking and believes that as sleep takes us into an almost unconscious state, the soul has the ability to split and even inhabit another body. During my seminar, it was suggested that this may mean his empiricist work is questionable, I  however believe he is showing empiricism throughout as he states that he finds his claims difficult to prove in some areas as he lacks evidence. Idealist philosophers such as Decartes would never suggest this and believe that by using a process of 'figuring things out'  they can understand the world. Locke draws his essay to conclude that thought processes begin when an individual engages within their first 'sensation', this then goes hand in hand with 'reflection'. 

I enjoyed Locke's reading and this week I felt more relaxed in the seminar. 

For now, watch this space.