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Descartes First Meditation John Locke Analysis

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One of Descartes’ many critiques was that of fellow philosopher John Locke. Using Locke I will argue that many of Descartes claims in his meditations on innate knowledge and reality show problematic. I do not totally agree with his proposition that only the mind can produce certain knowledge and that our senses are always under the attack of the devil that deceives us. I do however agree with Locke’s argument which opposes Descartes concerning doubt in the first meditation. During Descartes first meditation the focus was placed on doubt and how knowledge is innate in each of us. Next, Descartes highlighted that idea and further explained that our senses can be considered as doubtful or deceiving. Therefore, any knowledge that was acquired through the senses is doubtful and the knowledge that we have gained is from innate ideas or concepts we create in our mind. Descartes believed that we are in a state of dreaming. In this state, our senses deceive and fool us in believing …show more content…

Descartes started his argument by saying that the knowledge of God is again innate in us. Again we see ta major problem here in the statement of Descartes. Experience will teach us the moral principles and the background needed to understand and have the knowledge about God. How can Descartes explain that God can be innate in us if experience gained from the senses would be the basis for us to understand and have a notion about God. His contradictions can only lead to confusion and back tracking. “If the objective reality of any of my ideas is found to be so great that I am that I am certain that the same reality was not in me…” (Descartes 29). John Locke considered our minds during infancy as a clean slate. During that time knowledge is added to the mind by the use of our sense experience and not by mere innate ideas. I did not have the innate idea of the stove being hot as a

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