Scrutinizing John Locke’s Theory of Ideas, Propositions, Faculties, and Knowledge

Nde Paul Ade

doi:doi:10.11648/j.ipa.20220601.11

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Scrutinizing John Locke’s Theory of Ideas, Propositions, Faculties, and Knowledge

Nde Paul Ade

Published in International and Public Affairs (Volume 6, Issue 1)

Received: 13 January 2022 Accepted: 4 February 2022 Published: 16 February 2022

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Abstract

This paper is geared at dissecting the essential aspects comprising Locke’s theory of knowledge. Emphatically, it unveils and explores the origin, degrees, nature, extent, and limits of human knowledge. Systematically, through an analytico-critical method, it reveals the origin of knowledge, develops, and evaluates the limits of human knowledge, understanding, as well as critically examines what is knowable with more emphasis on certain and probabilistic grounds. Certainty is attainable through two principal means comprising the use of the human senses and adoption of abstract reasoning. The sources of human knowledge are significant in easing and enhancing our knowledge of God as it facilitates the justification of his existence, portraying orderliness in the world, and positing mankind as part of God’s creatures expected to implement moral lifestyles through the appeal to reasoning as a law of nature, even when in a state of nature. The value of this principle is evident for self-preservation, including an essential moral obligation for the preservation of everybody. The ethical basis of the state of nature featuring both moral and natural laws, signals the natural moral nature of man as determined by a rational order designed by a rational and knowable God. The underpinnings of epistemology involve experience (sensation) as manifested through the functions of ideas, propositions, and human faculties serving as guarantors and catalysts of certainty and truth. Innate ideas are unreliable, untrue, and condemned to qualify as dependent sources of knowledge because they are void of proper demonstration for the attainment of true knowledge. Locke’s theory of knowledge embodies four principal concerns which include, first, the belief that knowledge is derived from experience, focused on knowledge of the senses to unveil reality. Second, the human mind creates ideas and transforms them into propositions. Third, through perception, the mind portrays agreements or disagreements of propositions and fourth, knowledge originating from perception (Intuitive or demonstrative), is referred to as certain. The fragmentation of ideas and rigorous evaluation of various degrees of knowledge, constituting intuitive, demonstrative, and sensitive forms of knowledge, are issues of interests that contribute immensely to equip, enrich, complete, and to render Lockean theory of knowledge more influential, comprehensible, prescriptive, applicable, and valuable.

Published in	International and Public Affairs (Volume 6, Issue 1)
DOI	10.11648/j.ipa.20220601.11
Page(s)	1-7
Creative Commons	This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright	Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Experience, Locke, Ideas, Propositions, Faculties, Truth, Innateness, Understanding

References

[1]	Nde, P. A. (2020). “The Church and the State: A Critical Reading of John Lockes’s Theologico-Political Thought”, International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development, Volume 5, Issue 1, URL.: www.ijtsrd.com/papers/ijtsrd38332.pdf.
[2]	Locke, J. (1959). An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, New York, Dover Publications, p. xvi.
[3]	Richard, F. B. (1876). The Life of John Locke, New York, Harper & Brothers, pp. 2, 94, 100.
[4]	Gregory, R. (1909). “A Study of Locke’s Theory of Knowledge”, PhD Dissertation, Ohio State University.
[5]	Hobbes, T. (2010). Leviathan, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
[6]	Montesquieu, B. (1948). Lettres Persanes, Paris, Librairie Droz.
[7]	Locke, J. (1958). The Reasonableness of Christianity, London, A & C Black Limited.
[8]	Strauss, L. (1988). What is Political Philosophy? Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
[9]	Nde, P. A. (2022). “Dissecting the Epistemological Underpinnings of Lockean Thought: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding Perspective”, Journal of Advances in Education and Philosophy, Scholars Middle East Publishers, Volume 6, Issue 1, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, pp. 30-36.
[10]	Descartes, R. (1970). Discourse on Method, Paris, PUF.
[11]	Nde, P. A. (2020). “John Locke on Reason”, International Journal for New Economics and Social Sciences (IJONESS), Volume 2, Issue 1, pp. 407-416, DOI. 10.560.4/01.3001.0014.3557.
[12]	Calkins, M. W. (1905). Locke’s Essay: Selections, La Salle, The Open Court Publishing Company.
[13]	Gibson, J. (1917). Locke’s Theory of Knowledge and its Historical Relations, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, p. 36.
[14]	Nde, P. A. (2021). “Locke, Natural Law, and the Basis of Religious Sincerity”, International Research Journal of Social Sciences, Volume 10, Issue 1, pp. 52-57.
[15]	Locke, J. (1936). An Early Draft of Locke’s Essay, Oxford, The Clarendon Press.
[16]	Locke, J. (1931). An Essay Concerning the Understanding, Knowledge, Opinion and Assent, Cambridge, Harvard University Press.
[17]	Nicholas, W. (1994). “John Locke’s Epistemological Piety: Reason is the Candle of the Lord”, Faith and Philosophy, Volume 11, Issue 4, pp. 572-592.
[18]	Goldie, M., Soulard, D. (2020). The Early Lives of John Locke, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
[19]	Hans, A. (1994). Locke’s Influence, The Cambridge Companion to Locke, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp. 252-289, DOI: 10.1017/CCOLO521383714011.
[20]	Gillepsie, M. (2008). The Theological Origins of Modernity, Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
[21]	Laslett, P. (2009). “Introduction”: Two Treatises of Government, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
[22]	Dunn, J. (1969). The Political Thought of John Locke, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
[23]	Tully, J. (1980). A Discourse on Property: John Locke and his Adversaries, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
[24]	Arsleff, H. (1969). “The State of Nature and the Nature of Man in Locke”, John Locke: Problems and Perspectives, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp. 99-136.
[25]	Devine, D. (1978). “John Locke: His Harmony between Liberty and Virtue”, Modern Age, pp. 246-257, http://www.mmisi.org/MA/22-03/devine.pdf.

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Nde Paul Ade. (2022). Scrutinizing John Locke’s Theory of Ideas, Propositions, Faculties, and Knowledge. International and Public Affairs, 6(1), 1-7. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ipa.20220601.11

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Nde Paul Ade. Scrutinizing John Locke’s Theory of Ideas, Propositions, Faculties, and Knowledge. Int. Public Aff. 2022, 6(1), 1-7. doi: 10.11648/j.ipa.20220601.11

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Nde Paul Ade. Scrutinizing John Locke’s Theory of Ideas, Propositions, Faculties, and Knowledge. Int Public Aff. 2022;6(1):1-7. doi: 10.11648/j.ipa.20220601.11

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@article{10.11648/j.ipa.20220601.11,
  author = {Nde Paul Ade},
  title = {Scrutinizing John Locke’s Theory of Ideas, Propositions, Faculties, and Knowledge},
  journal = {International and Public Affairs},
  volume = {6},
  number = {1},
  pages = {1-7},
  doi = {10.11648/j.ipa.20220601.11},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ipa.20220601.11},
  eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ipa.20220601.11},
  abstract = {This paper is geared at dissecting the essential aspects comprising Locke’s theory of knowledge. Emphatically, it unveils and explores the origin, degrees, nature, extent, and limits of human knowledge. Systematically, through an analytico-critical method, it reveals the origin of knowledge, develops, and evaluates the limits of human knowledge, understanding, as well as critically examines what is knowable with more emphasis on certain and probabilistic grounds. Certainty is attainable through two principal means comprising the use of the human senses and adoption of abstract reasoning. The sources of human knowledge are significant in easing and enhancing our knowledge of God as it facilitates the justification of his existence, portraying orderliness in the world, and positing mankind as part of God’s creatures expected to implement moral lifestyles through the appeal to reasoning as a law of nature, even when in a state of nature. The value of this principle is evident for self-preservation, including an essential moral obligation for the preservation of everybody. The ethical basis of the state of nature featuring both moral and natural laws, signals the natural moral nature of man as determined by a rational order designed by a rational and knowable God. The underpinnings of epistemology involve experience (sensation) as manifested through the functions of ideas, propositions, and human faculties serving as guarantors and catalysts of certainty and truth. Innate ideas are unreliable, untrue, and condemned to qualify as dependent sources of knowledge because they are void of proper demonstration for the attainment of true knowledge. Locke’s theory of knowledge embodies four principal concerns which include, first, the belief that knowledge is derived from experience, focused on knowledge of the senses to unveil reality. Second, the human mind creates ideas and transforms them into propositions. Third, through perception, the mind portrays agreements or disagreements of propositions and fourth, knowledge originating from perception (Intuitive or demonstrative), is referred to as certain. The fragmentation of ideas and rigorous evaluation of various degrees of knowledge, constituting intuitive, demonstrative, and sensitive forms of knowledge, are issues of interests that contribute immensely to equip, enrich, complete, and to render Lockean theory of knowledge more influential, comprehensible, prescriptive, applicable, and valuable.},
 year = {2022}
}

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Nde Paul Ade

Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, University of Bamenda, Bamenda, Cameroon

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Nde Paul Ade. (2022). Scrutinizing John Locke’s Theory of Ideas, Propositions, Faculties, and Knowledge. International and Public Affairs, 6(1), 1-7. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ipa.20220601.11

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ACS Style

Nde Paul Ade. Scrutinizing John Locke’s Theory of Ideas, Propositions, Faculties, and Knowledge. Int. Public Aff. 2022, 6(1), 1-7. doi: 10.11648/j.ipa.20220601.11

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AMA Style

Nde Paul Ade. Scrutinizing John Locke’s Theory of Ideas, Propositions, Faculties, and Knowledge. Int Public Aff. 2022;6(1):1-7. doi: 10.11648/j.ipa.20220601.11

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@article{10.11648/j.ipa.20220601.11,
  author = {Nde Paul Ade},
  title = {Scrutinizing John Locke’s Theory of Ideas, Propositions, Faculties, and Knowledge},
  journal = {International and Public Affairs},
  volume = {6},
  number = {1},
  pages = {1-7},
  doi = {10.11648/j.ipa.20220601.11},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ipa.20220601.11},
  eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ipa.20220601.11},
  abstract = {This paper is geared at dissecting the essential aspects comprising Locke’s theory of knowledge. Emphatically, it unveils and explores the origin, degrees, nature, extent, and limits of human knowledge. Systematically, through an analytico-critical method, it reveals the origin of knowledge, develops, and evaluates the limits of human knowledge, understanding, as well as critically examines what is knowable with more emphasis on certain and probabilistic grounds. Certainty is attainable through two principal means comprising the use of the human senses and adoption of abstract reasoning. The sources of human knowledge are significant in easing and enhancing our knowledge of God as it facilitates the justification of his existence, portraying orderliness in the world, and positing mankind as part of God’s creatures expected to implement moral lifestyles through the appeal to reasoning as a law of nature, even when in a state of nature. The value of this principle is evident for self-preservation, including an essential moral obligation for the preservation of everybody. The ethical basis of the state of nature featuring both moral and natural laws, signals the natural moral nature of man as determined by a rational order designed by a rational and knowable God. The underpinnings of epistemology involve experience (sensation) as manifested through the functions of ideas, propositions, and human faculties serving as guarantors and catalysts of certainty and truth. Innate ideas are unreliable, untrue, and condemned to qualify as dependent sources of knowledge because they are void of proper demonstration for the attainment of true knowledge. Locke’s theory of knowledge embodies four principal concerns which include, first, the belief that knowledge is derived from experience, focused on knowledge of the senses to unveil reality. Second, the human mind creates ideas and transforms them into propositions. Third, through perception, the mind portrays agreements or disagreements of propositions and fourth, knowledge originating from perception (Intuitive or demonstrative), is referred to as certain. The fragmentation of ideas and rigorous evaluation of various degrees of knowledge, constituting intuitive, demonstrative, and sensitive forms of knowledge, are issues of interests that contribute immensely to equip, enrich, complete, and to render Lockean theory of knowledge more influential, comprehensible, prescriptive, applicable, and valuable.},
 year = {2022}
}

Copy | Download

TY  - JOUR
T1  - Scrutinizing John Locke’s Theory of Ideas, Propositions, Faculties, and Knowledge
AU  - Nde Paul Ade
Y1  - 2022/02/16
PY  - 2022
N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ipa.20220601.11
DO  - 10.11648/j.ipa.20220601.11
T2  - International and Public Affairs
JF  - International and Public Affairs
JO  - International and Public Affairs
SP  - 1
EP  - 7
PB  - Science Publishing Group
SN  - 2640-4192
UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ipa.20220601.11
AB  - This paper is geared at dissecting the essential aspects comprising Locke’s theory of knowledge. Emphatically, it unveils and explores the origin, degrees, nature, extent, and limits of human knowledge. Systematically, through an analytico-critical method, it reveals the origin of knowledge, develops, and evaluates the limits of human knowledge, understanding, as well as critically examines what is knowable with more emphasis on certain and probabilistic grounds. Certainty is attainable through two principal means comprising the use of the human senses and adoption of abstract reasoning. The sources of human knowledge are significant in easing and enhancing our knowledge of God as it facilitates the justification of his existence, portraying orderliness in the world, and positing mankind as part of God’s creatures expected to implement moral lifestyles through the appeal to reasoning as a law of nature, even when in a state of nature. The value of this principle is evident for self-preservation, including an essential moral obligation for the preservation of everybody. The ethical basis of the state of nature featuring both moral and natural laws, signals the natural moral nature of man as determined by a rational order designed by a rational and knowable God. The underpinnings of epistemology involve experience (sensation) as manifested through the functions of ideas, propositions, and human faculties serving as guarantors and catalysts of certainty and truth. Innate ideas are unreliable, untrue, and condemned to qualify as dependent sources of knowledge because they are void of proper demonstration for the attainment of true knowledge. Locke’s theory of knowledge embodies four principal concerns which include, first, the belief that knowledge is derived from experience, focused on knowledge of the senses to unveil reality. Second, the human mind creates ideas and transforms them into propositions. Third, through perception, the mind portrays agreements or disagreements of propositions and fourth, knowledge originating from perception (Intuitive or demonstrative), is referred to as certain. The fragmentation of ideas and rigorous evaluation of various degrees of knowledge, constituting intuitive, demonstrative, and sensitive forms of knowledge, are issues of interests that contribute immensely to equip, enrich, complete, and to render Lockean theory of knowledge more influential, comprehensible, prescriptive, applicable, and valuable.
VL  - 6
IS  - 1
ER  -

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