PHIL2605: Short Paper, 1000 Words, Brendan Burnett (311202969): Option 1: Locke is one of the
great British empiricists. Explain what the empiricist aspects of his theory of mind and knowledge
are. Evaluate whether the concept of empiricism captures the intent of his philosophical programme.
John Locke (1632-1704) believed that the human mind begins as a tabula rasa or
‘blank state’ with innate abilities or powers by which to be able to perceive the world by
means of sense experience through which various ideas are imputed into the blank sheet of
the mind to be conceptually organised into bodies of perceptual knowledge by means of a
priori reflection. Empiricism, broadly defined, is the view that all knowledge comes through
sensory experience. In this essay, I will argue that Locke is an Empiricist, but in a qualified
way, where, although sense experience is taken to be the primary vehicle through which we
come to interact with the world of external physical objects, nevertheless this is
conceptualised in such a way as not to devalue or negate the need for some form of a priori
or rational-conceptual reflection, but rather to place human reason in its proper context
alongside sensory experience in order to produce knowledge.
Jonathan Bennett has characterised Locke’s metaphysical theory of mind as a form of
property dualism influenced by the substance dualism of the French Rationalist philosopher
René Descartes.1 Descartes divided man into two consubstantial parts—the body and the
mind—which Descartes believed could be distinguished by their respective essential
properties of physicality or extension, and thought or thinking. This consequently raised the
question of how body and mind might possibly interact for Descartes’ intellectual inheritors.
Locke’s philosophy of mind divided the mind into two primary functions to try to answer the
Cartesian question. The mind exercises both ‘perception’ (i.e. thought) and ‘volition’ (i.e. the
will). Human beings incline their volitions toward some object where certain material facts
surrounding the apprehension of perceptual objects like colours, tables, chairs and other
physical objects engender perceptions. Perception or the act of perceiving is for Locke a
1
Jonathan Bennett, ‘Locke’s philosophy of mind’ in Vere Chappell, The Cambridge Companion to Locke (1994),
p.89.
1
PHIL2605: Short Paper, 1000 Words, Brendan Burnett (311202969): Option 1: Locke is one of the
great British empiricists. Explain what the empiricist aspects of his theory of mind and knowledge
are. Evaluate whether the concept of empiricism captures the intent of his philosophical programme.
purely material process which creates or causes to imprint on the blank slate of the mind
immaterial ideas like Hot, Cold, Wet, Dry, Round, Green, Blue, Divine, etc. in the mind of
the perceiver. The perceiver then uses his reason to derive knowledge by the rational
organisation of more basic concepts into greater composite concepts and objects of perceptual
knowledge.
Of first importance for Locke is the primacy of the human experience of those objects
that they perceive. Scholars agree that Locke’s enterprise starts with the necessity of sensory
experience. Roger Woolhouse, interacting with Locke’s famous Essay, demonstrates how for
Locke experience forms the “fountain” or fundamental source of knowledge.2 And Peter R.
Anstey’s introduction to Locke’s philosophy of science shows how Locke, drawing from
what the Early Modern philosophers characterised as the ‘experimental tradition’ (roughly
what the modern tradition calls ‘Empiricism’), believed that our knowledge of bodies (i.e.
physical objects) can be produced “only through experience.”3 This provides support for our
calling Locke an Empiricist and his philosophical programme thoroughly empirical.
However, it is illegitimate simply to categorise the philosophy of John Locke without
noting its subtle distinctions. For Locke did not believe that experience alone is sufficient for
knowledge as such. Experience does play a sufficiently crucial role in Locke’s philosophy for
us to be able to characterise it as empirical epistemology, but it would be a mistake to
therefore infer that Locke’s view is only empirical. Woolhouse characterised Locke’s view on
experience as the “fountain” or source or foundation of knowledge, but not as the sole source
or foundation of knowledge. According to Woolhouse, Locke did not believe that all
knowledge is derived from our sensory apparatus. Rather, Locke seems to have believed that
2
Roger Woolhouse, ‘Locke’s Theory of Knowledge’ in Vere Chappell, The Cambridge Companion to Locke
(1994), p.148; cf. John Locke, Essay II.i.2.
3
Peter R. Anstey, ‘Locke on method in natural philosophy’ in Peter R. Anstery (ed.), The philosophy of John
Locke (2003), pp.26-27; emphasis added.
2
PHIL2605: Short Paper, 1000 Words, Brendan Burnett (311202969): Option 1: Locke is one of the
great British empiricists. Explain what the empiricist aspects of his theory of mind and knowledge
are. Evaluate whether the concept of empiricism captures the intent of his philosophical programme.
there is a form of a priori knowledge in certain instances, especially in the case of
mathematical or geometrical knowledge. One’s comprehension that ‘3’ is an odd number, or
that the sum of the three angles in a triangle is equal to the sum of two right-angles is not
obviously experientially derived, but is rather a matter of a priori reflection.4
Indeed, for Locke, all ideas are produced in our tabula rasa or blank mind state by
experience, and these are not themselves empirically verifiable. Rather, ideas are concepts in
the mind, which are organised according to our reason or understanding to form our
knowledge of objects. So, for example, I, as perceiver, perceive the teacup perhaps for the
first time. Through experience and physical facts about light etc., my mind ‘takes in’ all kinds
of ideas through perception—roundness, circularity, cylindricality, solidity, etc. Then, on
simple reflection, my reason or understanding brings all these properties together into a
composite whole to form the complex concept of ‘the teacup.’ I then have knowledge of ‘the
teacup’ because I first experienced the teacup through physical sense-perception, and then my
reason formulated the various ideas I learned through perception in the right way to form a
coherent whole. In these cases, both experience and reason have cooperated with each other
to produce knowledge. As Woolhouse rightly observes:
“This insistence [by Locke] on the point that the use of reason is in some way involved in the
acquisition of knowledge is one thing that shows the need for caution about the common
characterisation of Locke as an empiricist.”5
What we therefore seem to have in the Lockean enterprise, then, is a form of
4
Roger Woolhouse, ‘Locke’s Theory of Knowledge’ in Vere Chappell, The Cambridge Companion to Locke
(1994), pp.155-156.
5
Ibid. p.149.
3
PHIL2605: Short Paper, 1000 Words, Brendan Burnett (311202969): Option 1: Locke is one of the
great British empiricists. Explain what the empiricist aspects of his theory of mind and knowledge
are. Evaluate whether the concept of empiricism captures the intent of his philosophical programme.
Empiricism that is qualified in such a way as to provide a coherent description of the
explanatory mechanism of how we come to know things through experience which is not
completely dependent on sensory experience alone. We may therefore characterise Locke as
an Empiricist insofar as he places the primacy and necessity of the dependency of knowledge
on sense experience. But we are also apt to note the further necessity of a priori rationalconceptual reflection and organisation of ideas for the production of knowledge on Locke’s
account of our perception and knowledge of objects.
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PHIL2605: Short Paper, 1000 Words, Brendan Burnett (311202969): Option 1: Locke is one of the
great British empiricists. Explain what the empiricist aspects of his theory of mind and knowledge
are. Evaluate whether the concept of empiricism captures the intent of his philosophical programme.
Bibliography.
Anstey, Peter R. (ed.). The Philosophy of John Locke: New perspectives (Routledge,
2003).
— Peter R. Anstey, ‘Locke on method in natural philosophy’ in ibid. pp.2642.
Chappell, Vere (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Locke (Cambridge University
Press, 1994).
— Jonathan Bennett, ‘Locke’s philosophy of mind’ in ibid. pp.89-114.
— Roger Woolhouse, ‘Locke’s theory of knowledge’ in ibid. pp.146-171.
Locke, John. An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding (London, 1690).
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