Locke v. Berkeley
The philosophers John Locke and George Berkeley offer stark contrasts on the issue of various matters. Locke's whose viewpoint can best be classified as based in relativism. He believed that all knowledge come from the senses. As every man's senses are unique, no two individuals will sense the same experience the same and, therefore, all knowledge is different in each individual. By extension, there is no such thing as better beliefs or true beliefs. Everyone's beliefs are their own and based on their individual experience. George Berkeley's viewpoints offer a sharp contrast to those of Locke. In fact, their individual careers ran concurrently and they spent most of that time being contrasted and possessing viewpoints that were diametrically opposed. Berkeley's was an empiricist but one who also possessed a certain idealist twist. Berkeley viewed experience as the source of most knowledge. According to Berkeley's form of empiricism, objects, regardless of what they are, are only ideas in the minds of those observing them and, as a result, do not exist without being perceived.
Of the two viewpoints, those of Locke seem to have better application. Locke's view that everyone's mind is a blank slate (tabula rasa) at birth and that all knowledge is acquired thereafter through one senses provides a logical explanation for the differences between individuals. As our senses are the source of all knowledge and understanding, it is clearly logical that everyone's sense experiences differ and, therefore, everyone's knowledge is also different. Unlike Berkeley, Locke did not believe that there was anything innate in anyone and that all concepts, ideas, and thoughts were the result of sensory experience. According to Locke, there is no such thing as innate knowledge.
Locke's greatest contribution to the field of philosophy and to generalized knowledge is his development of the idea of relativism. Because he believed that all human knowledge is sensually based there is no thing as perfect knowledge or understanding. Each person's experience is relative and there is no true or perfect knowledge. This is not to say that certain ideas or knowledge are more objectively sound but, unlike...
George Berkeley's principal metaphysical position is idealism; nothing including material objects, exists apart from perception; external objects are ultimately collections of ideas and sensations. From his earliest writings in the philosophical commentaries, Berkeley's idealism is evident. Taking into consideration his thoughts as taken from The Empiricists when he contends that his belief is that apples, trees, mountains exist out there, unperceived by any mind. Some may view this as a
Objects had primary qualities of an independent of the observer, like mass, motion, texture, etcetera, as opposed to subjective qualities like color, taste, and smell. As the Matrix world was wholly subjective, it was therefore a false world and one should seek to escape it, as it shut a person out from full participation in a world of external substances, including God, and also the primary qualities of other
5. Kant's "Copernican Revolution" in philosophy is in his genius use of the positive aspects of Rationalism (Descartes and so on) and Empiricism (Locke, Berkeley and Hume). How can you argue this out with the help of the "Critique of Pure Reason"? The human experience of negotiating the universe as it seems to be presented to us is one governed by a great many assumptions. Our education of this process, and
Scandal in Philosophy In Soccio's account of Immanuel Kant's philosophy, Immanuel Kant saw as a "Scandal in Philosophy" the basic disjunction between western philosophical schools, such that indicated both sides were in part mistaken about their premises. There are several important mediating figures here, whom we must understand first if we wish to understand Kant's own identification of this problem, his "Scandal in Philosophy," and Kant's means of correcting it.
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Empiricism is fundamentally the belief that all knowledge is eventually resultant from the senses and experience, and that all conceptions can be linked back to data from the senses. John Locke, George Berkeley, and David Hume are considered to be three of the most persuasive empiricists in philosophy. The key aspects that the philosophies of these three empiricists have are that knowledge develops from sensory experience. However, it is imperative
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