John Locke's Argument For Innate Ideas

developed and the challenges facing the handicap do not allow them to fully explore the extent of their minds for innate ideas. By presenting the “children and idiots” argument, Locke only confirms that the young and handicap do not possess the resources necessary to explore their minds and find the innate ideas which lie hidden from them. An empiricist like Locke may object and say that for an idea to exist it must be known to that person. However, this is untrue. To use Locke’s own argument against him, he claims that there are two forms of ideas, simple and complex. He then goes on to say that complex ideas are often formed by a combination of simple ideas. Think of the school bus example from earlier, when you see a school bus do you think “yellow, long, big, wheels” or do you simply think “school bus”? For many people, although they know the qualities and ideas which comprise a school bus, they don’t consciously explore their minds for those ideas. In a sense, the simple ideas such as “yellow and long” are there, but they remain hidden implicitly within the larger complex idea of “school bus”. Thus it is obvious that a person could be unaware of all the ideas that they possess. Furthermore, had Locke been correct and the mind a blank slate at birth then we would all be incapable of

From this essay it is obvious there is much disagreement between two of philosophy’s powerhouse thinkers. Rene Descartes, an advocate for the existence of innate knowledge, claiming that there are ideas which we are born with such as infinity and existence and John Locke, an advocate for the concept of “tabula rasa”, claiming that humans are born blank slates and acquire all knowledge through experience and our senses. Although both theories are very thought provoking and interesting, I find Descartes argument for innate knowledge to be the most accurate on the basis that there ideas we possess that are engraved on our minds at