John Locke On Identity Analysis

One of the most famous philosophers of the 17th century was a man by the name of John Locke. Locke, often known for the founding of school of thought known as British Empiricism was very essential in theology, religious toleration and educational theory dealing with human understanding. “A person is a thinking, intelligent being which has reason and can consider itself as itself” (167). This quote, by philosopher John Locke, is influential when discussing his views on identity. In Locke’s Essay, book II, chapter 27, he goes into great depth on two theories dealing with the identity of objects as well as the personal identity of humans. The first of the theories, which expands of the identity of objects, plays a role in our everyday lives

In fact, Descartes felt there were two forms of substance in the universe. The first, is thinking substance that has to do with mind or the soul, and the second, the body. Within these two substances Descartes divides the thinking substance into infinite thinking, which has to do with god, and finite thinking that deals with the mind or the soul. The mind or soul are distinguishable by their non-spatial ability to think. The body on the other hand, is considered spatial and therefore non-thinking. There are a few faults in this claim however. Descartes touches on body connected to thought. However, substances are those that do not share common features. If this is the case, how is it that the body is to be presented with thought? The body and thoughts do not share the attributes and are very distinguishable from each

He felt as if bodies should be split up into two sub-divisions. The first, being a particle, also known as an atom, and the second, a mass, which is essentially a collection of atoms. Locke believed that there were no innate ideas. The way Locke justifies this is by refuting the strongest argument of the theory of innate ideas, that of the innate logical principle of non-contradiction, identity, and excluded middle. In Locke’s view, to kids, idiots and people who never practiced this form of thinking, these ideas are therefore unknown. He believes there are abilities for knowledge acquisition, which are innate, not to knowledge itself, because we only come to know them after we have had experiences with them and have practiced thinking. With this being said, he feels that since there are no innate ideas then all the ideas must be caused by something that of external. Locke believed in causation in the sense that a specific thing could only be the cause of other things. For example, the way we think or have thoughts are only triggered by other thoughts and experiences we have during thinking about those specific