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by setting up reasons, as well as responses, to why he believes there are no innate notions or principles of the speculative (descriptive) or practical (moral, prescriptive) kinds. Locke treats innateness—the theory that there are innate notions—as a hypothesis and proceeds to provide arguments against it. [[CiteRef::Uzgalis (2016)|p. 15]] He first rejects 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 of men from the outset." [[CiteRef::Locke (2015a)|p. 3]]
identifying the defect wherein that universal agreement does not entail innateness, as well as the fact that the argument from universal consent can be turned into evidence for a lack of innateness.
Locke states that speculative principles cannot be innate simply because ‘children 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’ as ‘perception.’ He entertains a response that innate propositions could be capable of being perceived under certain circumstances, and until those circumstances occurred, the propositions would remain unperceived. However, Locke responds that this account fails to distinguish between innate propositions and any other propositions that a person may come to know. [[CiteRef::Uzgalis (2016)|p. 16]]
Locke also considers the account that people "know and assent to these truths when they come to the use of reason," [[CiteRef::Locke (2015a)|p. 5]] and that this is sufficient to prove those truths innate. He considers two version of the phrase, “use of reason” and argues how both are incorrect. Firstly, he takes it to mean that people use reason to discover innate propositions. 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 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 propositions. Locke says this, too, is incorrect, as “we observe ever so many instances 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 hold, 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 of further research. [[CiteRef::Uzgalis (2016)|p. 18]]
==== Locke on Sensation and Reflection ====
In Book Two of ''Essay'', Locke discusses how it is that people come to have knowledge, and from whence their ideas originate. He holds that the mind is a blank sheet of paper, and it comes to be written on through experience, and people’s understandings derive from their observations.[[CiteRef::Locke (2015b)|p. 18]]
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Locke became personal physician to Anthony Ashley Cooper (1621-1683) (Lord Ashley), a leading political figure during the 1670's and 1680's. [[CiteRef::Dunn (2003)]] He was an early member of the Royal Society and knew most of the major English natural philosophers, including [[Isaac Newton]] (1643-1727) and some continental ones as well. This community was concerned with arguing for the reliability of observation and experiment as a means of acquiring knowledge as opposed to Aristotelian intuition or Cartesian rationalism. [[CiteRef::Uzgalis (2016)|p. 4]] Locke's most important contribution to this argument was his ''An Essay Concerning Human Understanding'', published in 1689. Locke and Newton became directly acquainted while Locke was finishing this work. When Locke read Newton's ''Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica'', published in 1687, he found epistemological views similar to his own. Both had absorbed the views current in the Royal Society. Locke's essay received its warmest reception from the members of the society, and can be deemed an expression of their collective understanding of scientific methodology. [[CiteRef::Rogers (1982)]]
|Major Contributions==== Locke's Empiricism ===
In the first book of his ''Essay Concerning Human Understanding'' Locke begins by arguing that there are no principles or ideas that are innate in human beings. In seventeenth century England, such principles were widely held to exist and to be necessary to the stability of religion and morality. [[CiteRef::Uzgalis (2016)]] "Nothing is more commonly taken for granted" he wrote, "than that certain principles both speculative and practical are accepted by all mankind. Some people have argued that because these principles are (they think) universally accepted, they must have been stamped into the souls of men from the outset." [[CiteRef::Locke (2015a)|p. 3]] He denies that we hold speculative innate principles, innate ideas of God, identity, or impossibility. If there were such principles, he supposes, they would be known to everyone, even ‘children"children, idiots, savages, and illiterate people’people". [[CiteRef::Locke (2015a)|p. 8]] Mathematical truths likewise cannot be innate, as these must be discovered by reason. [[CiteRef::Uzgalis (2016)]]
In the second book, Locke begins his positive account of how people acquire knowledge. "Let us suppose", he writes, "the mind to have no ideas in it, to 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''". [[CiteRef::Locke (2015b)|p. 18]]
Experience, according to Locke, comes from sensation and reflection. '''Sensation''' is when a person’s senses are applied to specific perceptible objects, where the senses convey an object’s qualities into the mind. [[CiteRef::Locke (2015b)|p. 18]] '''Reflection''' occurs when a person is able to perceive the operations of their own mind 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 doing. [[CiteRef::Locke (2015b)|p. 18]]
