Evaluate Locke’s Qualities

Evaluate Locke’s Qualities. Do you agree with his distinction between primary and secondary qualities?

Meghan Discussion post  Topic 9: Empiricism

Locke’s qualities come from simple ideas, the distinction between two qualities that include primary and secondary. Primary qualities include texture, number, size, shape, and motions of an object. These qualities exist in objects themselves. From the lecture, we know that primary qualities resemble their causes in the objects in the external world. Secondary qualities include color, sound, taste, and odor. The qualities come from the object and create an idea of them. In the lecture, we learned that secondary qualities, opposite of primary, do not resemble their causes in the objects in the external world. After learning about the two simple ideas of qualities, I do agree with Locke’s distinction between primary and secondary qualities. I believe that the primary qualities that exist in the objects themselves are facts. It’s something that can be determined and proven right. I agree that these qualities are primary and come first when analyzing objects. Secondary qualities are what give human sensations. I agree with this point because humans may have different sensations based on secondary qualities. Sound and taste may be perceived differently amongst the population, thus these qualities come secondary. Overall, I agree with Locke’s distinction because it creates a fine line between facts and sensations.

Victor post Do you agree with Rationalism?

I think that rationalism is a difficult concept to agree with because it focuses on reason alone. Rationalism discounts the concept of gaining knowledge from sense perceptions because sense perceptions can fail us. To say that knowledge is innate, which rationalism suggests, doesn’t make much sense because it is impossible to know everything through deductive reasoning and rational insight alone. I think a fair amount of knowledge comes from experience. Using the senses lead us to learn new things and acquire new knowledge. Listening to someone explain something can lead to gained knowledge. Innate knowledge probably does exist but for the more animalistic features of human beings (i.e. I have to eat to survive). Without this innate knowledge we would surely die but without experience we wouldn’t know what to eat and what not to eat. Some things can be poisonous and without experience, deductive reasoning can’t always lead us to the correct answer and true knowledge.

Evaluate Hume’s criticism of induction. Do you agree that we do not have a justification of its use?

Katelyn post  

As discussed in lecture, Hume’s criticism of induction is predicated on the idea that: to know, must include the experience of knowing across time and space. His resolution to an expectation of inductive practice is the practicality of systematic, scientifically notarized processes of meaning making. These processes of induction qualify deductive practices to be infeasible in their practicality.

A justification for the use of induction in epistemologically related reasoning includes the recognition that it is impossible to know external to the limitations imposed, or outlined; by space and time. How does a claim to ‘a priori’ knowledge complicate this expression?

Meghan post

Consider Hume’s epistemology and two kinds of knowledge. Do you agree with his distinction between relations of ideas and matters of fact?

Hume’s epistemology of knowledge consists of two different kinds of knowledge, relations of ideas and matters of fact. Relations of ideas are the knowledge of associations made within the mind. No experience is needed to relate these ideas, and the predicate is contained in the subject. I somewhat agree with this ideology of knowledge but don’t understand how knowledge can be reliable if it does not come from real experiences. I would not trust someone’s knowledge if their idea was a theory or made up, I would trust experience more. Matters of fact, from the lecture we know, are knowledge of empirically existing things. In other words, knowledge of things from the real world, experience from reality. I agree with Hume’s epistemology on matters of fact because they come from real experience and new information about the real world. It contains valid experiences, and changes as new experiences come along. Overall, I agree with the distinction made by Hume. I agree that not all experiences that produce knowledge are as valid or logical as others.