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John
Locke
Born: August 29, 1632 Wrington, Somerset, England
Died: October, 28, 1704 Oates, Essex, England
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Famous For:
He was trained in the medical arts and
was active in the English political arena with the Earl of
Shaftesbury. He founded the school of empiricism. He
wrote an unused constitution for the proprietors of the Colony of
Carolina in 1669.
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Humanist Idea:
For Locke, "all objects of
understanding" can be called ideas which are in the mind.
The origin of these ideas comes from human experience. The
mind understands these experiences through ideas of it's own
operation. "When the mind acts, it has an idea of
its action, that is, it is self-conscious, and as such, is assumed
to be an original source of knowledge." These ideas come
in two different varieties. Simple ideas come from sensation
or observation of mental operations as these sensations take
place. Complex ideas come from the "processes of
combination and abstraction carried out by the mind."
These ideas have primary and secondary qualities. He sees the
simple idea as a test and standard of reality.
"All relation terminates in, and is
ultimately founded on, those simple ideas we have got from sensation
or reflection."
(Essay Bk 2:28:18) "General
and certain truths, are only founded in the habitudes and relations
of abstract ideas."
(Essay Bk 4::12:7) |
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Noted Sayings:
"Let us then suppose the mind to be as we say, white paper,
void of all the characters, without any ideas; How comes it to be
furnished....To this I answer, in one word, from Experience. In
that, all our knowledge is founded and from that is ultimately derives
itself."
(An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
Bk II, ch I, p 104)
"I think nobody can, in earnest, be so sceptical as to be
uncertain of the existence of those things which he sees or
feels." (An Essay
Concerning Human Understanding
Bk IV, ch II, sec. 3, p 631)
"Thinking consists in being conscious that one thinks."
(An Essay Concerning Human Understanding Bk II, ch I, sec 19)
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