Locke Cogito Dream Dotto

In the cogito argument, Descartes said,"I think, therefore, I am." In book II, Locke starts to talk about ideas, perception, and retention. He says we get these interpretations from our senses and experiences. He also says that there is nothing beyond the conscious mind, which I do not agree with. Although our dreams are based on actual occurances, how would Locke explain the events and abnormal occurances in our dreams if there was no unconscious part of our mind? For example, latent learning is unconsciously formed and can often show up in our dreams. However is imagination limited to our experiences?

locke god dotto

Locke's rejection of innate ideas brings up the question of whether he is afraid of accepting the ideas of "innateness" because he does not want people to think that we can just rely on ourselves to know what it right and wrong. Could it be possible that Locke wants us to leave the acceptance of moral principles and facts to God? Does he want us to think of God as responsible for our knowledge? Many people do not believe in God. For those who do, they consider God to be a fact. To many other people, God is the complete opposite, so wouldn't this idea of God be contradictory to his idea of God being the only thing that is innate? We are not born knowing that God exists. A baby would not say "God" as his first word unless his parents told him to, and even if he did, he does not know what it means. Could the desire of a child to stay with his or her mother at all times be an innate knowledge?

Locke 1 Dotto

Locke completely rejects the idea of innate principles because no matter what, there will always be one person who does not agree with, or a lacks a certain knowledge. If Locke says that there is no knowledge beyond the conscious mind and it is obtained through our experiences and nothing else, then how does he explain our memories? Locke basically says that there is no such thing as latent memories, or latent learning, which is defined as things(principles and ideas) we are unaware of. I disagree with his rejection of innate knowledge. I think that it's possible that these ideas do exist, and we choose to reject or accept them.Our memories come into the conscious mind when stimulated to do so. We cannot always be aware of every single memory we have had, our brain would overload with too much information. If there is nothing in our minds other than what we are aware of, as Locke says, then how do we remember or learn things?

Meditations 1- art

Descartes starts to believe that the basic eyes, head, hands, and body are true. This is because he finds that artists will paint many creatures and imaginary things but they will still contain eyes, head, hands, and a body. Whether it is from different animals or made up things there always seems to be these parts of the body. I find this kind of interesting because Descartes always seems to question himself and everything around. He is very doubtful and I think he is starting to find out some truths..

Meditations 1- paragraph 20

In paragraph 20 of meditations one, Descartes compares physics, astronomy, and medicine and says that they can have some kind of false. As for arithmetic and geometry there are no questions asked. It is almost common sense in some cases or just a "natural reaction" to these questions. I think this is because when we are you we are all taught the basics of arithmetic, geometry, etc. It just seems right that two plus three make five and a square has no more then four sides as Descartes says. Any comments?

Meditations 1

I think that Descartes finds himself to doubt some of the truths that he believed in the past. He says that over several years he had built more knowledge but everything always falls back to the beginning or foundation. In my opinion he is starting to reveal more truthes but at the same time he always questions himself in even the simplest things like his own body, hand, or head. I think that this all has to do with his experiencing throughout life and this will only take time to acknowledge more truthes..