LOCKE

Tabula Rasa

Assumes we are born as if with a blank slate or white paper. All knowledge is learned from experience.

No innate knowledge Ergo., no a priori necessity.

Denies Innateness

Descartes uses the notion of an innate idea of god to argue that there is a physical world

Without this argument Berkeley is able to argue that a physical world of Matter introduces an unneeded complexity provided that we can rely on law like regularity.

The challenge is to affirm Matter while denying innateness.

Against Innate Ideas

Locke argues that innateness is false Assuming perceptual experience,

representation and recombination is enough to infer matter.

Primary – extension, solidity, time Secondary – color, smell, etc.

Knowledge is on a continuum

Certainty is relative. Absolute certatianty is unnecessary.

General terms & names – define concepts via conventions and grammar.

Perception is to ideas as Motion is to objects, i. e.,

not essential merely an operation.

Empiricism

Locke is the Modern father of empiricism, the notion that knowledge can be arrived at through sensory experience and induction.

Deductive reasoning is secondary and parasitic on knowledge gained from sensory experience.