PP111 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Firm Foundation, Hypotenuse, Fallacy
Document Summary
John locke 1689 for empiricism: (i) all ideas originate in experience. (ii) knowledge (justification) is based on sensory experience. Rene descartes 1643 for rationalism: (i) at least some ideas are innate. (ii) knowledge (justification) is based on reason. Innate ideas: socrates: we all have the answers inside us the teachers job is to make you realize them. Let us suppose the mind to be white paper, void of all characters without any ideas: To this i answer, in one word, from experience. (108) Simple ideas : those ideas in the reception of which the mind is only passive, which are those simple ones received from sensation, whereof the mind cannot make one to itself. (108). Complex ideas : ideas thus made up of several simple ones put together, i call complex. (109) [the mind constructs complex ideas from the simple ideas acquired directly from perceptual experience. ] Since we do have such ideas, they must be innate .
