Description
Lockes view is the opposite of Descartes view.
- Descartes is a rationalist (who thinks all knowledge comes from reason, conception, and thinking) and idealist (who thinks all knowledge comes from ideas)
- John Locke is an empiricist (who believes all knowledge comes from sensory experience like touch, sight, taste, smell) and a materialist (who believes there is some material or substance outside of us that all of these sensory things reside in.)
What experiences have you had that make your thoughts or your senses seem the more real?
If Locke’s sensory knowledge is right, does that mean in fact that objects can “make us” think of certain things? When I look at a table, do I unavoidably think, Oh, it’s flat on top, it’s brown, it’s got four legs; without having any choice in the matter? Does that make it seem like objects have too much control of our minds?
(Keep in mind one of Locke’s major distinctions, that “primary” qualities must be “in the object” itself, because they are necessary for the object to be what it is; but that “secondary” qualities are only in us, our mind, because of our preferences. An example of this would be a table that is brown in color. The table’s flatness is primary quality, because it must be flat to be a table, but the table’s color brown is secondary, because it could be any color and we perceive color in certain ways because of our senses… even if we are color blind, the table is still a table because of its shape.)
