132
type of knowledge, in their view,
can be gained without any direct
sensory experience, in the way
that it is possible to devise a
mathematical formula by using
nothing more than the powers of
reason and logic. René Descartes,
for example, declares that although
he believes that we all have an idea
of God imprinted in us—like the
mark that a craftsman makes in
the clay of a pot—this knowledge
of God’s existence can only be
brought into our conscious mind
through a process of reasoning.
Locke’s objections
Locke was against the idea that
human beings possess any kind
of innate knowledge. He takes
the view that the mind at birth
is a tabula rasa—a blank tablet or
a new sheet of paper upon which
experience writes, in the same
way that light can create images
on photographic film. According
to Locke, we bring nothing to the
process except the basic human
ability to apply reason to the
information that we gather through
our senses. He argues that there is
not the slightest empirical evidence
to suggest that the minds of infants
are other than blank at birth, and
adds that this is also true of the
minds of the mentally deficient,
stating that “they have not the least
apprehension or thought of them.”
Locke, therefore, declares that any
doctrine supporting the existence
of innate ideas must be false.
Locke also goes on to attack
the very notion of innate ideas by
arguing that it is incoherent. In
order for something to be an idea
at all, he states that it has to have
been present at some point in
somebody’s mind. But, as Locke
points out, any idea that claims
to be truly innate must also be
claiming to precede any form of
human experience. Locke accepts
that it is true, as Gottfried Leibniz
states, that an idea may exist so
deep in a person’s memory that
for a time it is difficult or even
impossible to recall, and so is not
accessible to the conscious mind.
Innate ideas, on the other hand,
are believed to somehow existJOHN LOCKE
somewhere, before the presence
of any sort of mechanism that is
capable of conceiving them and
bringing them into consciousness.
The supporters of the existence
of innate ideas often also argue
that as such ideas are present in
all human beings at birth, they
must be by nature universal,
which means that they are found
in all human societies at all points
in history. Plato, for example,
claims that everyone potentially
has access to the same basic
body of knowledge, denying any
difference in that respect between
men and women, or between
slaves and freemen. Similarly,
in Locke’s time, the theory was
frequently put forward that because
innate ideas can only be placed in
us by God, they must be universal,
as God is not capable of being so
unfair as to hand them out only
to a select group of people.
Locke counters the argument
for universal ideas by once again
bringing to our attention that a
simple examination of the world
around us will readily show that
they do no exist. Even if there
were concepts, or ideas, which
absolutely every human being inIt seems to me a
near contradiction to
say that there are truths
imprinted on the soul,
which it perceives or
understands not.
John LockeLocke believed the human mind is
like a blank canvas, or tabula rasa, at
birth. He states that all our knowledge
of the world can only come from our
experience, conveyed to us by our
senses. We can then rationalize this
knowledge to formulate new ideas. Theory
Tabula RasaExperience