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|Summary=Locke was a champion of '''empiricism''', arguing that all knowledge was derived 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 that all knowledge comes from experience. Locke also wrote on religious toleration and social contract theory. He opposed authoritarianism and argued that individuals should use reason to discover the truth.|Historical Context=Locke was born into an English Puritan family of modest means, but was able to obtain an excellent education by way of his father's connections. [[CiteRef::Dunn (2003)]] In 1647, at the age of fifteen, he began studies at Westminster School, considered London's best. At twenty, he began studies at Christ Church College, Oxford. His studies focused on logic, metaphysics, and languages taught within the framework of '''Aristotelian scholasticism''', for which he developed an intense dislike. [[CiteRef::Uzgalis (2016)| pp. 3-4]][[CiteRef::Milton (1994)]] This was more than a century after Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543) had posited his '''heliocentric cosmology''' in 1543, more than a century earlier. Forty and forty years earlier, after Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) published his observations with the telescope in 1610. These developments had cast Aristotelianism into doubt. [[CiteRef::Westfall (1980)|p. 6]] Like many ambitious students of the time, Locke sought alternative resources outside the formal curriculum, which 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 '''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', known simply as the '''Royal Society'''. The Royal Society became a formal institution in the 1660's and England's main society for the promotion of natural philosophy, the Royal Society became a formal institution in the 1660's. The society would set itself in opposition to the Aristotelian scholasticism of the universities, advocating the study of nature rather than of ancient texts. [[CiteRef::Uzgalis (2016)|p. 4]] Locke's notebooks indicate a strong interest in medicine and chemistry. He attended the lectures of the great anatomist Thomas Willis (1621-1675) and took careful notes. [[CiteRef::Rogers (1982)|p. 217]][[CiteRef::Anstey (2011)|p. 6]]

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 the human beingsmind. 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 such innate principles, including innate ideas of God, identity, or impossibility. If This criticism was aimed widely, but was directed, in part, at Cartesians, who held, among other things, that we have an innate idea of substance. [[CiteRef::Rogers (1982)]] Locke maintained that if there were such innate principles, he supposes, they would be known to everyone, even "children, idiots, savages, and illiterate people", which was clearly not the case. [[CiteRef::Locke (2015a)|p. 8]] Mathematical truths likewise cannot be innate, as these must be discovered by reason and are learned from others by most people. [[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''". Locke's belief that all knowledge comes from sense experience is '''empiricism'''.[[CiteRef::Locke (2015b)|p. 18]] Unlike Descartes, Locke does not seriously entertain the possibility that his senses are fundamentally unreliable. He writes that, "We certainly find that pleasure or pain follows upon the application to us of certain objects whose existence we perceive (or dream we perceive!) through our senses; and this 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 those things. This '''sensation''' is the source of most of our ideas. We can also perceive the workings of our own mind within us, which gives us ideas of the mind's own operations such as "perception, thinking, doubting, believing, reasoning, knowing, willing, and all the different things our minds do", a process which Locke calls '''reflection'''. [[CiteRef::Locke (2015b)|p. 18]] 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 Locke does not believe that we are born with ideas, he believes we are born with faculties to receive and manipulate them. [[CiteRef::Uzgalis (2016)]] Locke rejected Descartes contention that thinking was an inherent property of the 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 perception being the same thing. I know it is an opinion, that the soul always thinks, and that it has the actual perception of ideas in itself constantly, as long as it exists; and that actual thinking is as inseparable from the soul, as actual extension is from the body; which if true, to enquire after the beginning of a man's ideas, is the same, as to enquire after the beginning of his soul". [[CiteRef::Rogers (1982)]]

As a corpuscularist, Locke took all observable bodies to be composed of invisibly small material particles called corpuscles. Such particles interacted primarily by direct physical contact, which could convey motion. Locke however, did accept Issac Newton's concept of gravitation, believing it this attraction at a distance to be a special property added to matter by God. [[CiteRef:: Kochiras (2014)]] Material bodies had certain '''primary qualities''' including size, shape, texture, and motion, which were impossible to separate from them. They also had '''secondary qualities''', 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 appropriate primary qualities. [[CiteRef::Kochiras (2014)]] Unlike Descartes, Locke accepted the possibility allowed that it was possible that the soul might be material. In book IV of his Essay, 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 religion and morality", since God might effect the material resurrection of the dead on judgment dayJudgment Day. [[CiteRef::Locke (2015b)|p. 205]]

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 did not believe that this sort of knowledge was generally possible in natural philosophy, though he continued to hold it as an ideal. He sought to replace these such stringent demands with ones more compatible with the new experimental science, such as that practiced by the Royal Society. He took knowledge to be "nothing but the perception of the connection and agreement, or disagreement and 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, knowledge of '''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. It was this latter sort of knowledge that Locke thought was, for the most part, beyond human reach.[[CiteRef::Osler (1970)]]

For Locke, the deepest sort of knowledge one might have in natural philosophy would be knowledge of the real essences of material substances and the necessary connections of these essences to qualities flowing from themwas 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)]] But Locke supposed that such knowledge was, for the most part, 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 bodies and to give us ideas of their fine structure, we must be content to be ignorant of their properties and ways of operation, being assured only of what we can learn from a few experiments. And what we can learn for sure in that way is limited indeed." [[CiteRef::Locke (2015d)|p. 212]] In making this case about the limits of our knowledge of a 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..." [[CiteRef::Locke (2015d)|p. 208]] While knowledge of real essences, was, for the most part, inaccessible to humans, Locke imagined that it was not inaccessible to other epistemic agents with different or more acute senses, such as God, the angels, and the inhabitants of other planets. [[CiteRef::Kochiras (2014)]][[CiteRef::Locke (2015d)|p. 211]] Locke supposed that human knowledge was limited to what he called '''sensitive knowledge'''; knowledge that comes every day within the notice of our senses.

Locke believes supposed that there are certain epistemic agentshuman 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 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 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, such as God and inductive generalization. Locke’s ''Essay'' came to be considered the angelsstart of '''British empiricism''', with contributions by subsequent Anglophone thinkers including Berkeley, Hume, Mill, Russell and 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 source of all our ideas and that there were no innate ideas. He wrote that "Experience is necessary...if the soul...is to take heed of the ideas that are capable within us. But how could 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 such knowledgethe soul are treating it as fundamentally corporeal", a possibility that Locke was willing to countenance, but that humans are notLeibniz found abhorrent. [[CiteRef::Look (2017)|p. 40]]

wledge prevailed prior to Locke’s work stated Leibniz rejected Locke's claim that the mind was initially devoid of ideas, like a blank sheet of paper, because this would make new minds identical, but separate, a possibility ruled out by his Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles.[[CiteRef::Look (2017)]] Although he allowed that scientific knowledge concerned certain knowledge contingent truths might be learned with the assistance of the senses, logically necessary principles, like the truths. Lockeof pure mathematics, logic, upon realization that this demand and some areas of scientific knowledge was too strict for metaphysics and ethics could not come from the experimental science senses because no number of his timespecific experiences could demonstrate their necessity. [[CiteRef::Look (2017)]] Therefore, developed a new conception he concluded that was more appropriate, while retaining "the Aristotelian scientific knowledge proof of them can only come from inner principles, which are described as an idealinnate".[[CiteRef::Kochiras Leibniz (20142017a)|p. 43]] According To explain why everyone doesn't have access to Lockethese innate ideas, there are two kinds he wrote that "It would indeed be wrong to think that we can easily read these eternal laws of scientific knowledgereason 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 they differ the results of experiments also serve to corroborate reason, rather as checking procedures in arithmetic help us to avoid errors of calculation in their degree long chains of certaintyreasoning". [[CiteRef::Leibniz (2017a)|p. Intuition is 3]] Leibniz's criticisms of Locke touched off a prolonged debate between empiricists, who maintained, with Locke, that all knowledge understood instantlyderives from experience, and demonstration rationalists like Leibniz, who maintained that some knowledge is knowledge understood after a set of intermediate steps. Both intuition derived by means other than experience, and demonstration are forms of certain knowledgemust therefore be innate.[[CiteRef::Kochiras Markie (20142015)|p. 8]]

Locke’s George Berkeley (1685-1753) questioned Locke and Descartes' conception of scientific knowledge concerned certain kinds of objects: real essences and the connections that flowed between thema corpuscular mechanistic material world. Drawing on Locke drew a 's distinction between real mind-dependent secondary qualities and nominal essences. While '''nominal essences''' consisted in the observable mind-independent primary qualities used to describe and organize a thing, the '''real essence''' is what makes the thing what it is.[[CiteRef::Kochiras (2014)|p. 9]] To Locke, people have scientific knowledge of a thing if they know both its real essence and the necessary connections between the real essence and other he questioned whether primary qualities.[[CiteRef::Kochiras (2014)|p. 10]] 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 saw that this conceptionsuch as size, too, was strict, so he relaxed his condition that knowledge must be absolutely certainshape, texture and held that although genuine knowledge was absolutely certainmotion were, lack of certainty did not entail ignorance. When knowing truth via intuition or demonstration is not possibleindeed, people can still judge it true or falsemind-independent.[[CiteRef::Osler (1970)|p. 15]] === Locke's Influence === Locke’s ''Essay'' posited an argument for rejecting Denying the older, scholastic model of knowledge and science in favor existence of his empirical onematerial substance, and it was very successful.[[CiteRef::Uzgalis (2016)|p. 77]] Although Locke’s ''Essay'' contained much of Cartesian thought, Locke’s work was seen as refutation of Descartes, and moved philosophy toward that.[[CiteRef::Chappell (1994)|p. 261]] Locke’s arguments against innate ideas was part of his support of Berkeley attributed intersubjective agreement about the importance of “free perceived world and autonomous inquiry”. Locke’s ultimate goal was its apparent stability to show his readers that they could be  "free from the burden action of tradition and authority, both in theology and knowledge, by showing that God rather than to the entire grounds properties of our right conduct in the world can be secured by the experience [they] may gain by the innate faculties and powers [they] are born withinvisible material corpuscles."[[CiteRef::Chappell Downing (19942013)|p. 252]] Locke’s ''Essay'' was also considered the start of British empiricism, which became the preferred mode of philosophy among future Anglophone thinkers such as Berkeley, Hume, Mill, Russell and Ayer.[[CiteRef::Chappell Berkeley (19941957)|p. 261]]|Criticism=Locke’s Berkeley''An Essay Concerning Human Understanding'' was heavily criticized. Gottfried Leibniz responded, point-by-point, to Locke’s work in his rebuttal, ''New Essays s criticism of corpuscular matter had a strong influence on Human Understanding''subsequent thinkers, 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 of the Identity of Indiscernibles.[[CiteRef::Cook including David Hume (20131711-1776)]] 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::Berkeley Immanuel Kant (19571724-1804)]].|Page Status=Needs EditingEditor Approved