Philosophy 1020 Lecture Notes - Old-Growth Forest, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Tabula Rasa
6 Nov 2013
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Through sensation or sense perception: before sense perception happens, the mind is a tabula rasa - a shaved. Locke wants to defend the view that there are not. It was commonly thought that there were some innate ideas. Descartes, for example thought that the idea of god was innate. Descartes" argument - the idea of god is the idea of the infinite being, and we have no experience of infinite beings, so god must be innate. Innate -in=in , natus = born: an opposing argument: certain speculative principles. Many people think that there are certain speculative principles that are so universally shared they must be innate. Example: it is possible for the same thing to be and not be. Locke"s answer: the fact that such principles are universally held would not at all show that they are innate. All off our ideas come from sensation and reflection: simple and complex.
