Essay Concerning Human Understanding

Essay Concerning Human Understanding


In John Locke’s “Essay Concerning Human Understanding”, he tries to determine the limits of human understanding by developing the empirical theory of knowledge and refuted Descartes’ theory that ideas are innate in the human intellect. He also believed all knowledge comes through experience from internal and external sources of sensation and reflection, and the human mind at birth is a blank slate. He argued that if innate ideas existed they would be present in children, those who have not had any education. All Knowledge comes to us through experience, no mans knowledge can go beyond his experience. Locke argues that everything in our mind is a idea, and that all ideas take one or two routes to arrive in our mind, either they come in through the senses or else they come through our minds reflection on its own operation. The basis for understanding Locke is that he sees all people as having natural God given rights. As Gods creations, this denotes certain equality, at least in a abstract sense. This religion acts as the foundation for all of Locke’s theories, including the theories of individuality, private property, and the state. He believed that humans were autonomous individuals who although lived in a social setting, could not be articulated as a herd or social animal. Locke believed a person to stand for , a thinking intelligent being , that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself as itself , the same thinking thing in different times and places, which it only does by consciousness which is inseparable from thinking. [continues]

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