Rene Descartes, a Frenchman who lived between 1596–1650, was considered the most important philosopher of the seventeenth century and is thought of as the “Father of Modern Philosophy.” A rationalist, while serving in the army, Descartes developed the idea of changing the way human thought was formulated.
He was frustrated with all previous studies of philosophy and believed there was not one philosophical school of thought that could not be disputed. As a mathematician, he wanted to create the same foundation of certainty in philosophy in that existed for mathematics. Descartes began reformulating thinking by putting “self” at the center of the philosophy through the Cogito Argument or ‘I am thinking, therefore I exist’ – where self is
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Locke argued that the basis for knowledge comes from experience, not intuitive reasoning or innate ideas. Consequently, experience you receive is what creates your knowledge and therefor the more divergent the experiences, the greater the reserve of knowledge is created. According to Locke, the human mind is blank when born which he called tabula rasa or “blank slate.” He described empiricism in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.
While not quite contemporaries, Locke and Descartes did represent a clear departure from traditional philosophies and both established schools of thought that considered human cognizance the most important element. According Descartes, the rationalist, knowledge depends on absolute certainty. Definite knowledge cannot come from the outside world via the senses since human perception is unreliable. He also believed experience and deduction are only two ways of discovering knowledge. If knowledge didn’t come from within then it must come from experience of the outside world. He also believed in contrast to perception, that deduction “can never be performed wrongly by an intellect which is in the least degree rational” . Accordingly, as long as deductive knowledge is undertaken by a sound mind, then it is acceptable as the only certain
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According to Locke, the mind at birth is a blank slate, or table rasa, which is subsequently written upon by cumulative sensory experience. He believed that innate ideas cannot do anything for knowledge. He suggested it was ridiculous to assume that there was certain knowledge based some mysterious or hidden the part of the mind. The real cause of Locke’s dismissal of innate ideas was his rejection of anything that could be considered as “mystical”. His logic was that if you claim to have any knowledge, you must be prepared to explain where it comes from. For Locke, the origin of all ideas comes from experience.
As Locke was not concerned with certainty, as were the Scholastics, he did not need to dismiss ideas that came from perception. His view was that all knowledge relies on the senses and observations, which is gained through experience. Locke said “Men, barely by the use of their natural faculties, may attain to all the knowledge they have, without the help of any innate impressions; and may arrive at certainty, without any such original notions or