John Locke Empiricism Analysis

John Locke (1632-1704) was an English Empiricist. Empiricists’ belief was that origin of knowledge is experience. Empiricism is defined as a theory that suggests that sense experience is the origin of consciousness. The theory emphasis the role played by evidence and experience, a mainly sensory perception in idea formation. A majority of empiricists discount the innate idea. However, Locke differs with this approach. His baseline argument is that a human mind is known to operate on insights that are gained and reflection is a reference to the consciousness of such operations. The paper will discuss John Locke empiricism and critique his presentation
Lockey sought to come up with empiricism philosophy that was simpler and one that disagreed …show more content…
There exist two types of sensations according to an analysis done by Posner on Locke’s empiricism; those that correspond to the primary and secondary qualities. The primary qualities are same as the properties. Locke explains this concept by stating that when the human sense takes in specified sensible objects, they create the perception in the mind through sensation (44). Yellow color, for example, is viewed as a sensible object that produces a perception of yellow in mind. Descartes equated primary qualities with rational introspections like shape, size, and quantity. Secondary qualities according to Descartes correspond to qualia like emotions, sound, and color. However, Locke used the inverted spectrum to highlight errors in the secondary qualities. He accepted that people do not directly observe the external world. However, he did not view qualia as proof that there exists a non-physical substance in mind, or the inexistence of external world. Locke instead advocated for casual realism with the view that people can derive the existence of external objects from the invoked qualia. Locke believed that the primary qualities of an object are in its true nature and it is these qualities that induce the experienced secondary attributes. Thoughts of Locke were that human beings are not able to understand how external objects results in …show more content…
The reflections generate ideas that are not directly from sensation, instead of their reliance ultimately on the perceived external objects. From Locke’s understanding of empiricism particularly on reflection and sensation, he seems to have denied that there exists any potential in the human being, anything that is not consciously being perceived. I tend to disagree with him because there are a lot of people that are not externally sourced. Human beings are innate in themselves, so to speak and it includes being, duration, substance, perception, pleasure, and action. These ideas, even though they are not perceived consciously, are present. They are innate through habits, natural inclinations, disposition, and potentialities. I wonder why people should be made to believe that everything is acquired through external influences and nothing within an