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|Brief=a British philosopher, writer, political activist, medical researcher, Oxford academic, and government official|Summary=Locke was a champion of '''John Locke (1632-1704)empiricism''' , arguing that all knowledge was a British philosopher, writer and political activistderived from experience. Among his most notable works is ''An Essay Concerning Human Understanding'', which provides a defense defence of empiricism and the origins of ideas and understanding. In this work, Locke rejects the idea of innate principles, and argues against their existence, offering his own methods as to how humans generate that all knowledgecomes from experience. Locke has also written wrote on religious toleration and social contract theory. He opposed authoritarianism and argued that individuals should use reason to discover the truth.|Historical Context=While studying at OxfordLocke was born into an English Puritan family of modest means, Locke but was exposed Scholasticism—the Aristotelian-influenced course able to obtain an excellent education by way of study his father's connections. [[CiteRef::Dunn (2003)]] In 1647, at the time—and found that age of fifteen, he began studies at Westminster School, considered London's best. At twenty, he did not like it began studies at Christ Church College, Oxford. His studies focused on logic, metaphysics, and had no use languages taught within the framework of '''Aristotelian scholasticism''', for itwhich he developed an intense dislike. He left this course of study [[CiteRef::Uzgalis (2016)|ppp. 3-4]] and picked up medicine and chemistry, where he became acquainted with Robert Boyle [[CiteRef::Uzgalis Milton (20161994)|p. 5]] This was more than a century after Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543) had posited his '''heliocentric cosmology''' in 1543, and ascribed to forty years after Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) published his Corpuscular Theory, which stated that observations with the natural world was composed of small, invisible pieces of matter called corpusclestelescope in 1610. To Locke, this was simpler and more appealing than ScholasticismThese developments had cast Aristotelianism into doubt. [[CiteRef::Uzgalis Westfall (20161980)|p. 6]] While writing Like many ambitious students of the time, Locke sought alternative resources outside the formal curriculum, and such resources were abundant at Oxford. He became involved with a discussion group organized by John Wilkins (1614-1672)and was exposed to the ''An Essay Concerning Human Understanding'experimental philosophy''' and the ideas of Francis Bacon (1561-1626) who argued for an '''inductive methodology''' for science. The Wilkins group was the nucleus of what would later become the 'Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge', Locke traveled to France, where met Descartes, known simply as the '''Royal Society'''. The Royal Society became a formal institution in the 1660's and was impressed by his anti-Scholasticism England's main society for the promotion of natural philosophy. The society would set itself in opposition to the Aristotelian scholasticism of the universities, Cartesian rationalismadvocating the study of nature rather than of ancient texts. [[CiteRef::Uzgalis (2016)|p. 54]] The empiricism Locke presents in ''Essay'', is considered to be s notebooks indicate a response to both Scholasticism strong interest in medicine and Cartesian rationalism, especially as a rejection chemistry. He attended the lectures of the lattergreat anatomist Thomas Willis (1621-1675) and took careful notes.[[CiteRef::Rogers (1982)|p. 217]][[CiteRef::Anstey (2011)|Major Contributions==== Locke's Empiricism ===p. 6]]

==== After Locke on Innate Principles ====received his bachelor's degree in 1656, he remained at Oxford to study medicine. He worked closely with Dr. Thomas Sydenham (1624-1689), renown for his pioneering work in the treatment of infectious diseases. [[CiteRef::Dunn (2003)]] Robert Boyle (1627-1691) succeeded John Wilkins as the leader of the scientific group at Oxford, and became Locke's scientific tutor. Boyle ascribed to the '''corpuscular mechanistic philosophy''' associated with [[Rene Descartes]] (1596-1650), and was noted for his physical experiments. The corpuscular philosophy held that the visible properties of the natural world were due to interactions between invisibly small particles or corpuscles. Locke read Boyle's and Descartes works, as well as those of Pierre Gassendi (1592-1655), who emphasized the role of the senses in knowledge. He learned from his experimentalist associates and from the writings of Gassendi, to be skeptical of Descartes' '''rationalism'''. [[CiteRef::Uzgalis (2016)]][[CiteRef::Dunn (2003)]][[CiteRef::Fisher (2014)]] He accepted Descartes' corpuscular view of matter, his dualistic view that mind and matter were separate substances, and believed the world to contain genuine causal interactions between physical objects. [[CiteRef::Rogers (1982)]]

Locke begins ''Essay Concerning Human Understanding'' by setting up reasons, as well as responses, became personal physician to why he believes there are no innate notions or principles of the speculative Anthony Ashley Cooper (descriptive1621-1683) or practical (moralLord Ashley), prescriptive) kinds. Locke treats innateness—the theory that there are innate notions—as a hypothesis leading English political figure during the 1670's and proceeds to provide arguments against it1680's. [[CiteRef::Uzgalis Dunn (20162003)|p. 15]] He first rejects was an early member of the argument from universal consent: "Nothing is more commonly taken for granted than that certain principles … are accepted by all mankind. Some people have argued that because these principles are … universally accepted, they must have been stamped into the souls Royal Society and knew most of men from the outset." major English natural philosophers, including [[CiteRef::Locke Isaac Newton]] (2015a1643-1727)|p. 3]] identifying the defect wherein that universal agreement does not entail innateness, and some continental ones as well as . This community was concerned with arguing for the fact that the argument from universal consent can be turned into evidence for a lack reliability of innateness. Locke states that speculative principles cannot be innate simply because ‘children observation and idiots’ are not aware of them. He considers it a contradiction that there would be certain truths imprinted in a person that said person could not understand. He regards ‘imprinting’ experiment as ‘perception.’ He entertains a response that innate propositions could be capable means of being perceived under certain circumstances, and until those circumstances occurred, the propositions would remain unperceived. However, Locke responds that this account fails acquiring knowledge as opposed to distinguish between innate propositions and any other propositions that a person may come to knowAristotelian intuition or Cartesian rationalism. [[CiteRef::Uzgalis (2016)|p. 164]] Locke also considers the account that people "know and assent 's most important contribution to these truths when they come to the use of reasonthis argument was his ''An Essay Concerning Human Understanding''," [[CiteRef::published in 1689. Locke (2015a)|p. 5]] and that Newton became directly acquainted while Locke was finishing this is sufficient to prove those truths innatework. He considers two version of the phraseWhen Locke read Newton's ''Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica'', “use of reason” and argues how both are incorrect. Firstlypublished in 1687, he takes it found epistemological views similar to mean that people use reason to discover innate propositionshis own. He argues against by showing how this definition fails to distinguish between mathematical theorems and axioms, where axioms are supposed to be innate, and theorems not. However, if both axioms and theorems are to be discovered by reason, then there is no way to separate Both had absorbed the views current in the two. Second, he takes “use of reason” to mean that people come to understand innate propositions once they are able to use reason, without using reason to understand those innate propositionsRoyal Society. Locke says this, too, is incorrect, as “we observe ever so many instances 's essay received its warmest reception from the members of the use of reason in children long before they have any knowledge of [innate propositions].” [[CiteRef::Locke (2015a)|p. 5]] In addition, even if this interpretation of “use of reason,” were true, Locke says it still would not entail that said propositions were innate. Regarding practical (moral, prescriptive) innate propositions, there are additional arguments Locke makes against innateness. First, practical propositions are not self-evident like speculative propositions—one could question why practical propositions could holdsociety, and receive a response. This, says Locke makes them even less likely to be innate. Moreover, because practical propositions can be broken by someone, somewhere—and because obedience to them can be worn down by exposure to customs and education—they cannot be innate. Locke states that innate principles prevent inquiry and exempted lazy people from the efforts deemed an expression of their collective understanding of further researchscientific methodology. [[CiteRef::Uzgalis Rogers (20161982)|p. 18]] |Major Contributions==== Locke on Sensation and Reflection ='s Empiricism === In Book Two the first book of his ''EssayConcerning Human Understanding'', Locke discusses how it is begins by arguing that people come to have knowledge, and from whence their there are no principles or ideas originate. He holds that are innate in the human mind is a blank sheet of paper. In seventeenth century England, such principles were widely held to exist and it comes to be written on through experience, necessary to the stability of religion and people’s understandings derive from their observationsmorality.[[CiteRef::Locke Uzgalis (2015b2016)|p. 18]] Experience"Nothing is more commonly taken for granted" he wrote, according to Locke, comes from sensation "than that certain principles both speculative and reflectionpractical are accepted by all mankind. '''Sensation''' is when a person’s senses Some people have argued that because these principles are applied to specific perceptible objects(they think) universally accepted, where the senses convey an object’s qualities they must have been stamped into the mind. [[CiteRef::Locke (2015b)|p. 18]] '''Reflection''' occurs when a person is able to perceive the operations souls of their own mind men from within their own mind, in a way that produces ideas which could not come from external objects. Reflection is when the mind is aware of what it is doingoutset. " [[CiteRef::Locke (2015b2015a)|p. 183]] While Locke holds He denies that the mind is a blank slate regarding contentwe hold such innate principles, he believes that people are born with faculties with which to manipulate said content. Through sensation and reflectionincluding innate ideas of God, the mind canidentity, firstor impossibility. This criticism was aimed widely, organize simple ideas into complex ideas—the independent existences of substances and the dependent existences of modes. The mind can also combine simple and complex ideas and regard them together without uniting the two—what Locke calls relations. Furthermorebut was directed, the mind can produce general ideas by extracting particulars in order to limit the application of that idea. Sensation and reflection can also give rise to other ideas like: numberspart, spaceat Cartesians, timewho held, power and moral relations. [[CiteRef::Uzgalis (2016)|p. 19]] ==== Locke on Primary and Secondary Qualities ==== Also in Book Twoamong other things, Locke also distinguishes between two kinds of qualities that objects or substances can we have. “Whatever the mind perceives in itself—whatever the immediate object of perception, thought, or understanding—I call an innate idea; and the power to produce an idea in our mind I call a quality if the thing that has that powerof substance.” [[CiteRef::Locke Rogers (2015b1982)|p. 28]] The first kind of qualities an object may have are primary qualities. These are qualities that are impossible to separate from the object, no matter how finely one divides it. Locke gathers maintained that these '''primary qualities''' are how people can observe the simple ideas if there were such as occupying space (extension)innate principles, having shapethey would be known to everyone, being in motion or at resteven "children, and having texture. The second types of qualities an object may have are called '''secondary qualities'''; theseidiots, according to Lockesavages, are objects’ abilities to produce in and illiterate people sensations that occur through people’s interactions with the objects’ primary qualities. These sensations consist of: color, sound, taste and smell.  Locke also discerns a third kind of quality: tertiary qualities", which is defined as object or substance’s power to affect another object, like fire melting waxwas clearly not the case.[[CiteRef::Locke (2015b2015a)|p. 8]] He maintains that objects produce ideas in the minds of people through physical impact upon themMathematical truths likewise cannot be innate, through small particles—corpuscles—that travel from the object to the mind of the personas these must be discovered by reason.[[CiteRef::Locke Uzgalis (2015b2016)|p. 29]] === Locke's Scientific Knowledge ===

The Aristotelian conception In the second book, Locke begins his positive account of scientific how people acquire knowledge prevailed prior . "Let us suppose", he writes, "the mind to have no ideas in it, to Locke’s work stated be like ''white paper'' with nothing written on it. How then does it come to be written on?...To this I answer, in one word, from ''experience''". Locke's belief that scientific all knowledge concerned certain knowledge of necessary truthscomes from sense experience is '''empiricism'''.[[CiteRef::Locke (2015b)|p. 18]] Unlike Descartes, Lockedoes not seriously entertain the possibility that his senses are fundamentally unreliable. He writes that, "We certainly find that pleasure or pain follows upon realization that the application to us of certain objects whose existence we perceive (or dream we perceive!) through our senses; and this demand certainly is as great as we need for practical purposes, which are the only purposes we ought to have". [[CiteRef::Locke (2015d)|p. 202]] When our senses are applied to particular perceptible objects, they convey into the mind perceptions of scientific knowledge was too strict for those things. This '''sensation''' is the source of most of our ideas. We can also perceive the experimental science workings of his timeour own mind within us, which gives us ideas of the mind's own operations such as "perception, thinking, doubting, believing, reasoning, knowing, developed a new conception that was more appropriatewilling, while retaining and all the Aristotelian scientific knowledge as an idealdifferent things our minds do", a process which Locke calls '''reflection'''.[[CiteRef::Kochiras Locke (20142015b)|p. 418]] According to Simple ideas produced by these processes can be grouped into complex ideas, such as those of substances and modes. '''Substances''' are independently existing things like God, angels, humans, animals, plants, and constructed things. '''Modes''' are dependently existing things like mathematical and moral ideas, which form the content of religion, politics, and culture. Note that while Lockedoes not believe that we are born with ideas, there he believes we are two kinds born with faculties to receive and manipulate them. [[CiteRef::Uzgalis (2016)]] Locke rejected Descartes contention that thinking was an inherent property of scientific knowledgethe mind. He wrote that "To ask, at what time a Man has first any ideas, is to ask, when he begins to perceive; having ideas, and they differ in their degree of certaintyperception being the same thing. Intuition I know it is knowledge understood instantlyan opinion, that the soul always thinks, and that it has the actual perception of ideas in itself constantly, as long as it exists; and demonstration that actual thinking is as inseparable from the soul, as actual extension is knowledge understood from the body; which if true, to enquire after the beginning of a set man's ideas, is the same, as to enquire after the beginning of intermediate steps. Both intuition and demonstration are forms of certain knowledgehis soul".[[CiteRef::Kochiras Rogers (20141982)|p. 8]]

Locke’s conception As a corpuscularist, Locke took all observable bodies to be composed of scientific knowledge concerned certain kinds of objects: real essences and the connections that flowed between theminvisibly small material particles called corpuscles. Such particles interacted primarily by direct physical contact, which could convey motion. Locke drew however, did accept Issac Newton's concept of gravitation, believing this attraction at a distinction between real and nominal essencesdistance to be a special property added to matter by God. While [[CiteRef:: Kochiras (2014)]] Material bodies had certain '''nominal essencesprimary qualities''' consisted in the observable qualities used to describe including size, shape, texture, and organize a thingmotion, the which were impossible to separate from them. They also had '''real essencesecondary qualities''' is what makes , which were the object's abilities to produce sensations of color, sound, taste, and smell in human beings when they interact with bodies or particles with the thing what it isappropriate primary qualities.[[CiteRef::Kochiras (2014)|p. 9]] To Unlike Descartes, Lockeallowed that it was possible that the soul might be material. In book IV of his Essay, people have scientific knowledge he wrote that "anyone who will allow himself to think freely...will hardly find reason directing him firmly for or against the soul's materiality". He argued that the materiality of the soul was consistent with "the great ends of a thing if they know both its real essence religion and morality", since God might effect the necessary connections between material resurrection of the real essence and other qualitiesdead on Judgment Day.[[CiteRef::Kochiras Locke (20142015b)|p. 10205]] This also holds for scientific knowledge in natural philosophy. However, says Locke, accessing either is impossible for people, due to the fact that real essences escape them.

Later=== Locke on Scientific Methodology ===The Aristotelian scholastic approach to knowledge saw scientific knowledge as certain knowledge of necessary truths, with conclusions deduced from premises that were self-evident. Like many others of his times, Locke saw did not believe that this conception, too, sort of knowledge was strictgenerally possible in natural philosophy, so though he relaxed his condition continued to hold it as an ideal. He sought to replace such stringent demands with ones more compatible with the new experimental science, such as that practiced by the Royal Society. He took knowledge must to be absolutely certain"nothing but the perception of the connection and agreement, or disagreement and held that although genuine incompatibility, of any of our ideas", with our ideas derived ultimately from sensations. [[CiteRef::Locke (2015d)|p. 196]][[CiteRef::Kochiras (2014)]] Locke distinguished between two sorts of knowledge was absolutely certain, lack knowledge of certainty did not entail ignorance '''nominal essences''' which are the set of observable qualities we use to classify a thing, and knowledge of '''real essences''' which are the causal grounds of a substance's perceivable qualities. When knowing truth via intuition or demonstration is not possibleIt was this latter sort of knowledge that Locke thought was, for the most part, people can still judge it true or falsebeyond human reach.[[CiteRef::Osler (1970)|p. 15]]

=== For Locke's Influence ===, knowledge of the real essences of material substances and the necessary connections of these essences to qualities flowing from them was the deepest sort of knowledge one might, in principle, have in natural philosophy. He imagined this to be knowledge of the corpuscles that make up matter and their sizes, shapes, and arrangements. Given such fundamental knowledge, we could deduce the tertiary qualities of substances; their powers to produce certain effects in other substances. Just as a locksmith knows that a particular key opens one lock but not another, we could know that opium produces sleep, and hemlock causes death and the reasons why.[[CiteRef::Locke (2015d)|p. 212]][[CiteRef::Kochiras (2014)]]

Locke’s ''Essay'' posited an argument But Locke supposed that such knowledge was, for rejecting the oldermost part, scholastic model beyond human faculties because corpuscles are too small to be discerned by human senses. He wrote that "But while we lack senses acute enough to discover the minute particles of knowledge bodies and to give us ideas of their fine structure, we must be content to be ignorant of their properties and science ways of operation, being assured only of what we can learn from a few experiments. And what we can learn for sure in favor that way is limited indeed." [[CiteRef::Locke (2015d)|p. 212]][[CiteRef::Anstey (2011)|pp. 31-45]] In making this case about the limits of our knowledge of his empirical onea corpuscular world, Locke nonetheless felt confident in relying on the corpuscular hypothesis itself "because that’s the theory that is thought to go furthest in intelligibly explaining those qualities of bodies; and I fear that the human understanding hasn’t the power to replace it was very successful..." [[CiteRef::Uzgalis Locke (20162015d)|p. 77208]] Although Locke’s ''Essay'' contained much While knowledge of Cartesian thoughtreal essences, was, for the most part, inaccessible to humans, Locke’s work Locke imagined that it was seen not inaccessible to other epistemic agents with different or more acute senses, such as refutation of DescartesGod, the angels, and moved philosophy toward thatthe inhabitants of other planets.[[CiteRef::Chapelle Kochiras (2014)]][[CiteRef::Locke (19942015d)|p. 261211]]

Locke’s arguments against innate ideas Locke supposed that human knowledge was limited to what he called '''sensitive knowledge'''; knowledge of nominal essences that comes every day within the notice of our senses. [[CiteRef::Kochiras (2014)]][[CiteRef::Osler (1970)]] Like Francis Bacon, he maintained that an important part of his support the methodology of natural philosophy is the construction of natural histories giving systematic accounts of phenomena. Hypotheses played only a minor role in natural philosophy, though he did accept the value of the importance theories expressed in Newton's ''Principia''. [[CiteRef::Anstey (2011)|p. 70]] He wrote that "We should not take up any one [hypothesis] ''too hastily'' ... till we have very well examined particulars and made several experiments in that thing we would explain by our hypothesis, and see whether it will agree to them all". [[CiteRef::Rogers (1982)|p. 231]] Like Newton, he supposed that knowledge could be obtained by observation, experiment, and inductive generalization. Locke’s ''Essay'' came to be considered the start of “free '''British empiricism''', with contributions by subsequent Anglophone thinkers including Berkeley, Hume, Mill, Russell and autonomous inquiry”Ayer. [[CiteRef::Chappell (Ed.) (1994)|p. 261]]|Criticism=In some quarters, Locke’s ''An Essay Concerning Human Understanding'' was heavily criticized. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) responded, point-by-point, to Locke’s work in a book length rebuttal, ''New Essays on Human Understanding'', which he finished in 1704, but wasn't published until sixty years later. [[CiteRef::Look (2017)]] Leibniz rejected Locke's claim that the senses were the ultimate goal was source of all our ideas and that there were no innate ideas. He wrote that "Experience is necessary...if the soul...is to show his readers take heed of the ideas that they are within us. But how could be experience and the senses provide the ideas? Does the soul have windows? Is it similar to writing tablets or wax? Clearly, those who take this view of the soul are treating it as fundamentally corporeal", a possibility that Locke was willing to countenance, but Leibniz found abhorrent. [[CiteRef::Look (2017)|p. 40]]

"free from Leibniz rejected Locke's claim that the burden mind was initially devoid of tradition and authorityideas, like a blank sheet of paper, because this would make new minds identical, both in theology and knowledgebut separate, a possibility ruled out by showing his Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles.[[CiteRef::Look (2017)]] Although he allowed that contingent truths might be learned with the entire grounds assistance of our right conduct in the world can be secured by senses, logically necessary principles, like the truths of pure mathematics, logic, and some areas of metaphysics and ethics could not come from the experience senses because no number of specific experiences could demonstrate their necessity. [[theyCiteRef::Look (2017)]] may gain by Therefore, he concluded that, "the proof of them can only come from inner principles, which are described as innate faculties and powers ". [[theyCiteRef::Leibniz (2017a)|p. 3]] are born withTo explain why everyone doesn't have access to these innate ideas, he wrote that "It would indeed be wrong to think that we can easily read these eternal laws of reason in the soul...without effort or inquiry; but it is enough that they can be discovered inside us if we give them our attention: the senses provide the prompt, and the results of experiments also serve to corroborate reason, rather as checking procedures in arithmetic help us to avoid errors of calculation in long chains of reasoning". [[CiteRef::Chapelle Leibniz (19942017a)|p. 2523]] Leibniz's criticisms of Locke touched off a prolonged debate between empiricists, who maintained, with Locke, that all knowledge derives from experience, and rationalists like Leibniz, who maintained that some knowledge is derived by means other than experience, and must therefore be innate. [[CiteRef::Markie (2015)]]

Locke’s George Berkeley (1685-1753) questioned Locke and Descartes'conception of a corpuscular mechanistic material world. Drawing on Locke'Essay'' was also considered the start of British empiricisms distinction between mind-dependent secondary qualities and mind-independent primary qualities, which became the preferred mode of philosophy among future Anglophone thinkers he questioned whether primary qualities such as Berkeleysize, Humeshape, Milltexture and motion were, Russell and Ayer.[[CiteRef::Chapelle (1994)|p. 261]]|Criticism=Locke’s ''An Essay Concerning Human Understanding'' was heavily criticized. Gottfried Leibniz respondedindeed, pointmind-by-pointindependent. Denying the existence of material substance, Berkeley attributed intersubjective agreement about the perceived world and its apparent stability to Locke’s work in his rebuttal, ''New Essays on Human Understanding'', where he disagreed with Locke’s rejection of innate ideas. Leibniz writes that there is no way all our ideas could come from experience since there are no real causal interactions between substances. In addition, Locke’s claim that the mind was a blank paper at birth violated Leibniz’s Principle action of God rather than to the Identity properties of Indiscerniblesinvisible material corpuscles.[[CiteRef::Cook Downing (2013)]] Fellow empiricist George Berkeley was also critical of Locke’s distinction between primary and secondary qualities—Berkeley claimed that primary qualities as well as secondary qualities were a product of the human mind, and not a part of the object.[[CiteRef::Turbayne Berkeley (1957)]]Berkeley's criticism of corpuscular matter had a strong influence on subsequent thinkers, including David Hume (1711-1776) and Immanuel Kant (1724-1804).|Page Status=Needs EditingEditor Approved