John Locke's Theory Of Mind Essay

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John Locke was a highly influential English Philosopher during the 17th century (1632-1704) and had ideas of political philosophy that happen to carry its relevance in today's time. He had a wide variety and range regarding the topics of which he discussed and was knowledgeable in such as epistemology, political philosophy, and religious philosophy. One of Locke's biggest theories, was the theory of mind which is also known as "Tabula Rasa", which translates from Latin to "blank slate" in English. In this theory, he believed that we are born as "blank slates", essentially meaning that we are nothing until we experience things and learn from those occurrences that happen in our life. The analogy I came up with while trying to mull over the definition …show more content…

The thought of things not actually existing, just the properties, gave people extreme confusion since they have never had this perspective before. The example that can be used to further explain this theory to people is to think the properties of a Granny Smith Apple: round, green, shiny, smooth, firm, and sour. Now, try to imagine the apple without any of those properties, the apple eventually goes into non-existence since there is nothing to see, feel, touch, taste, or smell. The properties simply are there because that is the way the apple projects itself into existence in the world. Hume also applied this to many other things as well, one being the existence of …show more content…

This completely opposed the famous quote from Descartes, "I think, therefor I am". This is because Hume used the same process of breaking down an object until there are no properties to prove its existence. Descartes thought that he existed because of the fact that he was thinking that he existed, but Hume used the counterargument that him having that thought did not physically prove that he existed, it only proved that he had senses; which further proved his beliefs that we only experience things through sensory