The Philosophy Book

130

NO MAN’S

KNOWLEDGE HERE

CAN GO BEYOND

HIS EXPERIENCE

JOHN LOCKE (1632–1704)

IN CONTEXT

BRANCH

Epistemology

APPROACH

Empiricism

BEFORE

c.380 BCE In his dialogue,

Meno, Plato argues that we

remember knowledge from

previous lives.

Mid-13th century Thomas

Aquinas puts forward the

principle that “whatever is

in our intellect must have

previously been in the senses.”

AFTER

Late 17th century Gottfried

Leibniz argues that the mind

may seem to be a tabula rasa

at birth, but contains innate,

underlying knowledge, which

experience gradually uncovers.

1966 Noam Chomsky, in

Cartesian Linguistics, sets out

his theory of innate grammar.

J

ohn Locke is traditionally

included in the group of

philosophers known as the

British Empiricists, together with

two later philosophers, George

Berkeley and David Hume. The

empiricists are generally thought

to hold the view that all human

knowledge must come directly or

indirectly from the experience of

the world that we acquire through

the use of our senses alone. This

contrasts with the thinking of the

rationalist philosophers, such

as René Descartes, Benedictus

Spinoza, and Gottfried Leibniz,

who hold that in principle, at least,

it is possible to acquire knowledge

solely through the use of reason.