Rationalism In John Locke's Argument Of Human Knowledge

Philosophers have long debated as to what is the origin and extent of human knowledge and the certainty of that knowledge. Two main branches of thought have arisen over the centuries that have tried to answer this question: Rationalists and Empiricists. The Rationalists argue that humans can acquire knowledge outside of the senses and experience; the French philosopher Descartes falls into this category. While the other branch, The Empiricists, argue that all knowledge is dependent on the senses and experience; the English Enlightenment Philosopher John Locke argues in favor of this view. The subject of Innatism, specifically innate ideas, which is the belief that the human mind is born with certain ideas. Clearly, this view favors the Rationalists
His first reason for disproving innate ideas is that just because an idea is agreed upon by everyone in the world doesn’t prove that its innate. He writes, “If it were true in matter of fact that there were certain truths in which all mankind agreed, it would not prove them innate, if there can be any other way shown how men may come to that universal agreement in the things they do consent in, which I presume may be done,” (pg.319). What he means here is that just because an idea is widely (universally) agreed upon doesn’t make that idea necessarily innate because there could be another explanation as to why these ideas are so highly
According to Descartes ideas that are innate are ideas that we would believe in even if nothing else existed other than ourselves. These ideas don’t require external stimuli in order to exist and any rational mind would believe in them. He considers God to be innate, because the idea of god is one that everyone has. Descartes describes the idea of god as something that is infinitely perfect, and because he himself is not perfect he could not be the cause of the idea. Therefore, he knows that he is not the only thing that exists in the universe, there has to be something else, a god (pg.336). Descartes writes, “Since I am a thinking thing with the ideas of God in me, my cause, whatever it may be, must be a thinking thing having in it the idea of eery perfection that I attribute to God,” (pg.