On Locke's Critique Of The Concept Of Natural Ideas

My thesis consists mainly of the following parts,namely,the historical development of the theory of innate ideas,Locke’s critique of innate ideas,the impact of Locke’s criticism of the theory of innate knowledge,and the significance and shortage of Locke’s criticism of the theory of innate knowledge.Next,I will briefly introduce one by one.The definition of innate ideas.Innate ideas was originally described by ancient Greek philosophy.The word of ideas was first created by Socrates,Plato and others philosophers.Later,Socrates’ epistemology provided skeletal structure for ideas.Then,Plato transfused ideas with fresh blood through the injection of knowledge and memories.But in a real sense,a complete description of innate knowledge was given by Cartesian.In other words,Descartes is the primary contributor of innate ideas.Descartes claimed that human mind is born with all axioms,knowledge of God,human understanding.They are placed into human minds at birth.They could not be affected by other objective items and exist in the minds of all human beings.Descartes instilled innate ideas with a notion that innate ideas,which different from person to person,exists in everyone,which makes the concept of innate ideas have certain arbitrariness.From another level,this also makes the theory of innate ideas become more specific.Leibniz tried to persuade empiricism in a mild way.He imposed those things that happen potentially or accidentally with the concept of innate.Attempting to prove them by using the theory of "lines of marble".But in fact,it has reached an opposite effect.It can be said that the theory of innate ideas reached its culmination by Leibniz,but also was stereotyped by him.In a word,the concept of innate ideas was various,which reflected the subjective consciousness of different rationalists.As a result,the concept of the inherent effect,which makes the theory have a strong personal bias.The definition of the criticism of innate ideasIn contrast to the theory of innate ideas,empiricism denies the existence of any form of innate ideas.As regarding the concept of ideas,the definition of ideas was originally set forth by Bacon.Later,Gassen Di and Hobbes began to clarify the errors of the theory of innate ideas by pointing out that no one was born with a strong power.Those who implanted the concept of innate ideas by using politics or authority could not get the concept in the end.Gathen Di and Hobbes refuted the innate ideas from the angle of human beings.Although their startingpoints and the structure of critique was good,the effect of their criticisms was limited due to the criticisms were not clear,firm and perfect.Actually,a real sense of criticism of the theory of innate ideas was come from Locke.Locke directly criticized innate ideas from different perspectives,ranging from the speculative and rational discovery and other subjective factors,to practice and interpersonal relations and so on.It can be said that Locke is first person who objected directly to the theory of innate ideas.The main target of his criticism was the theory of innate ideas represented by Descartes.Locke critiqued innate from different aspects with strong evidences and high accuracy,which went beyond Hobbes and Gassen Di.Then,the criticism of innate ideas Russell and other critics were also reached a certain level.As regarding later comments,the most accurate comments were from Marx,Engels and others on Locke.The critique of innate ideas could be dated to Bacon and other modern empiricists.Later,Locke found a real backbone and critical direction,Then,Russell,Kant,Marx made it perfect.In a word,the of criticism of the concept of innate ideas is a doctrine which based on empiricism and fought against the subjective assumptions of the innate ideas.From the perspective of the criticism of the innate ideas,its ideas are clearer than innate ideas.From a critical point of view,all rationalists did not put experience into the innate ideas.We cannot consider which is better than the other,rationalists or empiricists.Both of them are very important.Without each of them,innate ideas and the criticism of innate ideas would have not well developed.