Locke's Arguments For Innate Knowledge

Innate knowledge claims that all human beings are born with knowledge and truths, in comparison to gaining knowledge empirically through the senses. Philosophers who hold the view that we acquire knowledge independently from sense experience are known as rationalists. Whereas Philosophers, such as Locke, who believe we obtain knowledge through our senses are known as empiricists. I shall be critically analysing arguments for innate knowledge from rationalists and comparing those to arguments from empiricists.
I will begin by assessing Plato’s standpoint on the matter of innate knowledge. As a rationalist, Plato put forward an argument for innate knowledge on the grounds of a priori knowledge. He believed that truths about reality were not …show more content…
If something is said to be universal, it means that a view is agreed upon amongst all people. It is one way to suggest a notion as having truth and Locke uses this to tackle arguments for innate knowledge, such as Plato’s. Arguments for innate knowledge differ across various philosophers, for example Plato argues from the realm of the forms whereas Descartes argues from God. If both rationalists believe in innate knowledge for different reasons then although rational thought and logic is said to be universal, it in fact is not. This limits the reasons in which to agree for innate knowledge if it is not …show more content…
Descartes came to the conclusion that, since we are either deceived or trusting unreliable senses, the only truth we have is that we exist. This can be argued as even if we were being deceived by an evil demon, for us to be deceived, we must exist. He then goes to relate the link between us and the physical world. It appears, most clearly to Descartes that, the senses pass information to from the world to our minds. Thus what we believe to be true from our senses is representative and we do not fully trust what our senses tell us. We use our innate rational nature to piece together the