John Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding was his argument against earlier philosophers‘, such as Rene Decartes, rationalist theory of knowledge, which proposed that ideas are innate in us and that we discover the knowledge through reasoning and deduction. Locke was a proponent of empiricism, which is the theory that the mind starts off as a blank slate - except for having certain mental processes - and that we gain knowledge through our experience of the world around us.
The idea of the blank slate, or tabula rasa, dates all the way back to Aristotle. This view states that the mind is formed with certain mental capacities, but is overall devoid of ideas or knowledge. This contrasted with the rationalist view that ideas are innate and put into our minds by a higher power. According to Locke, our sensory perception is responsible for our experience of facts and evidence in the world, which we then interpret into knowledge. He went on to suggest that, not only does the blank slate leave the individual free to acquire knowledge, it also leaves him free to form his personality, his identity.
Source: NIU/NWE
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