Introduction
John Locke is one of the renowned philosophical thinkers of his time, and his thoughts on the acquisition of knowledge are particularly enlightening. One of the most popular ideas presented by Locke was the understanding on how people acquire knowledge. These ideas were developed in his quest to negate the sentiments presented by Descartes, who claimed that knowledge in people is innate. Descartes argued that for people to assent to specific truths in nature, they must have acquired the knowledge of the concerned ideas innately. His argument never acquired tangible proof because he had set out to prove innateness by highlighting a single idea that would acquire universal assent. Locke, on the other hand, was convinced that Descartes’ ideas were misleading and quite far from the truth about knowledge in people. According to Locke’s theory, learning in human beings cannot be entirely innate. He concurred with Descartes that some knowledge could be innate, but the innateness can only be achieved through experience. The human senses are the basis of acquiring knowledge, and the theory of innateness should not be considered.
Innateness of knowledge
Locke (1996, p. 28) stated, “No proposition can be said to be in the mind which it never yet knew…”. In his argument, it is clear that Locke used a logical line of thought to claim that the human mind starts out as a clean sheet of paper or an empty cabinet. Judging from his example of children and idiots, Locke seemed to be convinced that it would be impossible for Descartes to prove his theory of innate knowledge. Locke proved that Descartes would not have the slightest chance to find anything in the world that would achieve universal assent among the people. Universality in assent could not possibly be attained with the existence of children and idiots who cannot comprehend any of the ideas that Descartes would have used. With this short argument, Locke managed to demystify Descartes’ ideas.
Acquiring knowledge through the senses
Locke’s argument was deeply grounded in the belief that people can only comprehend ideas if they have had prior interaction with the constituents of the ideas. He claimed that for a person to understand something, experience is a big factor. Locke described the process of acquiring knowledge as the use of sensory organs to imprint ideas in the blank brain, and then memory would serve as a referencing point for the brain in subsequent encounters with similar ideas. His argument is plausible because the theory of learning has proved that the human mind only learns through experience. Looking back at the examples used to discredit the theory of innate knowledge, the children and the idiots would have to interact with the objects and ideas around them to feed their brains with knowledge.
Reasoning
According to the argument presented by Descartes about innateness of knowledge in people, it is apparent that he was suggesting that people naturally know every that should be known. He meant that people would only become aware of the innate knowledge they possessed after encountering situations that required them to reason. By reasoning out ideas that they had not perceived before, this would be proof for the innateness of knowledge. Locke (1996, p. 27) disagreed with this notion by stating, “…the capacity to know X is not at all the same as innate knowledge of X.”. Locke stated that if people were to treat their minds as a white paper without any characters on them, they would understand that no knowledge can exist in the mind without experience.
Universal assent
Descartes’ theory clutched tightly at universal assent as proof of its validity; hence, Locke used universal assent to negate the ideas presented by Descartes. First, he challenged the proponents of Descartes’ ideas to attempt achieving universal assent for anything in the world. He then clearly proved that this would be impossible; hence, he negated the theory, but he did not stop there. He made it clear that the lack of universal assent is a product of people having different experiences. According to his reasoning, people disagree about similar things because they are individually subjected to different experiences. Seeing that knowledge is acquired through experiences propagated by the senses, it is impossible for people with different experiences to attain universal assent on all ideas.
Conclusion
John Locke’s thoughts on how knowledge is acquired in human are valid on the basis that the senses are the primary avenues that people perceive things. One has to see something to remember it in a subsequent encounter with the object or a specific idea. The interactions between the senses and the mind lead to the acquisition of knowledge in people. Locke termed these interactions as experience, and he comprehensively managed to whitewash the ideas of innate knowledge in people. In essence, the senses convey ideas to the mind, and the mind converts the ideas into sensible knowledge that can be used in reasoning. Indeed, the human senses are the basis of acquiring knowledge.
List of References
Locke, J 1996, ‘The Senses as the Basis of knowledge: John Locke, Essay concerning Human Understanding*’ in Leibniz, GW (eds), Leibniz: New Essays on Human Understanding (Cambrigde Texts in the History of Philosophy), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 26-31.