Salt Lake Community College

An argumentative Essay on John Locke

Vanessa Martin
S00873835
Introduction to Philosophy
Professor Alexander Izrailevsky
07/28/16

John Locke, the founding father of British Empiricism, was born in

the year 1632 in the U.K. He attended Westminster School located in
London during his adolescent years and later went on to attend Oxford.
During his time in Oxford, he studied Aristotles philosophy but he
wasnt too fond of it. Locke was more interested in natural philosophy,
which would later on be known as science. His interest in natural
philosophy was so great that he decided to become a Physician.

In

later years he decided to leave Oxford and move to London, which is

where he met Thomas Sydenham, another famous physician at the
time. Through Thomas he met Lord Ashley Cooper and he became Lord
Ashleys personal physician, close friend and his daughters tutor.
During this time, John Locke was heavily involved in English politics,
which would later help in his involvement with the constitution. Also at
this time, he would begin his project Essay Concerning Human
Understanding.

In

1675

he

wrote

Two

Treatises

Concerning

Government after returning to the U.K and realizing how much politics
had changed. Controversy surrounded Locke due to his ideas that were
different to what people believed back in the 1600s.
John Locke believed that we needed to comprehend where all of
our knowledge was coming from before we could analyze it. He also
believed that we needed to understand the limitations to our
understandings. This brings us to his understanding of ideas. For John
Locke, ideas were the objects of understanding in a persons thinking.

He categorized ideas into two categories, mental objects which was

the idea of the object of interest and mental actions, which obtains
perceptions on the object of interest. His philosophy is different from
Rene

Descartes,

especially

when

John

Locke

argued

that

our

knowledge was not innate because we acquire knowledge through our

experiences. John Locke disagrees with the idea of the whole is greater
than the part and the way that he argues against this idea is by
stating that not every human being has the same knowledge or ideas.
For example, in different parts of the world there are different ideas of
God, some people believe in him and some dont. John Locke argues
that if the idea of God was innate, every culture or person would
actually believe in God. He also believes that everyone has a
predisposition prior to any sensory experience. Locke quotes come to
the use of Reason; what this likely means is that with time our reason
develops which helps us discover what our predisposition is. Other
philosophers argue that what Locke is referring to is that there are
people who develop reason and others dont because thats their
predisposition.
John Locke categorizes ideas into three different categories:
substances, modes and relations. Substances and modes are what we
know as complex ideas and relations are what we know as simple
ideas. One of the most important ideas of Lockes philosophy is the
difference between substances and modes. Substances are the type of

ideas that exist independently, for example, a shoe. The idea of a shoe
is very complex to Locke. He asks what the shoe is made out of but he
keeps asking more questions. What is the material of the shoe made
out of? For Locke there are many questions that can be asked about
one simple substance. Modes are the type of ideas that could be better
understood as moral ideas. What are peoples thoughts on murder,
theft, etc? Relations are the types of ideas that revolve around the
ideas of substances. When a person thinks about a girl, they might be
thinking about their daughter, sister, girlfriend etc and not a girl in
general. Ideas revolving around relations are ideas within ideas and
they play a great role in developing a persons identity. For Locke,
ideas are categorized as good ideas when they are clear, well defined,
sufficient and accurate. Our ideas are categorized as bad ideas when
they arent clear, uncertain, insufficient and incorrect. According to
Locke, ideas revolving relations and modes are the best ones because
our mind knows what those ideas are or what they want to become
and it allows us to construct our ideas about one subject. Ideas
revolving around substances are not as good because they are
confusing and most of the time they are also false because our
perceptions of one single object can be very limited and therefore our
mind can mistake a subject for something else.
John Locke believes that the inaccurate use of language is one of
the greatest barriers in knowledge. For Locke, language is vital for

communication with other people because it is the way that we

express our ideas and what our minds are filled with. Although
language has many great benefits it also can be used to create
confusion among individuals because everyone has a different
interpretation. John Locke argues that many people misunderstand
their ideas that they decide to voice out but this only causes chaos
among humans. The misinterpretation of language can be the cause of
many debates in science, psychology or philosophy because one
simple word or idea can have different meanings to people.
John Locke believes that there are different ways to fix the
problems that arise with language. The first way that this problem can
be fixed is by using words that we actually know the meaning to. For
example, if you dont know the meaning of government, dont use it. If
you dont have a clear understanding of your ideas its better to not
use

them

when

you

interact

with

others

because

you

will

miscommunicate your idea. The second way to fix problems in

language is to communicate what a word means to us to other people.
The reason why we should communicate these definitions is so that
people dont get confused when a different word is used to describe a
similar subject. John Locke believes that the way that we know
something is true is by comparing it to something different. For
example, fire and water. The reason why we know that fire isnt water
is because the idea of water disagrees with the idea of fire.

John

Lockes

political

philosophy

included

favoritism

revolving around religious toleration and the limitation of the

government. Currently these types of ideas are common in our society
but during John Lockes era it was almost radical to think this way.
Locke argued that before political power, humans were from state of
nature meaning that every human being had to have his/her natural
born rights. Locke stated that the world had to supply humans with
everything that was necessary to have great enjoyment of life. He also
believes that while doing labor we are also owning what we are doing
labor for. An example would be if a person picks apples from a tree
they end up owning those apples. Even though we have ownership
rights, we should know our limits and not be wasteful because he
wants humans to leave enough resources for others. Lockes political
philosophy can be explained in his work Two Treatises Concerning
Government, when he quotes

Reason teaches all Mankind

that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in
his Life, Health, Liberty or Possessions.
When it comes to theology, Locke believes that the idea of
Christianity is not as far-fetched as it appears to be. There are
numerous humans who have stated that they have a sort of divine
revelation. For Locke, the fact that there is more than one person
stating that God exists is proof enough for him to believe in
Christianity. If there is anything that we can know for certain it is the

statement that God exists. Locke believed that the bible was important
but he also believed that people had different interpretations of it and
that it would confuse some of them. Therefore, Locke believed that the
most essential truth to believe in was the one that stated that Jesus is
the Messiah. People were truly saved only if they believed that Jesus
was the Messiah. These types of ideas made Locke even more radical
to Theologians because many believed that you needed to do more
than just believe in Jesus.
John Lockes ideas are very complex and hard to comprehend at
some points. While researching John Locke, I couldnt help but find
myself intrigued with his philosophy because it almost reflects how our
society runs today. I can now see how much the Constitution was
influenced by John Locke. I agree with him and his idea of liberty even
though we live in a society that runs on government. As human beings
we are entitled to have some freedom and happiness that comes from
that freedom but I also agree that there should always be a limit to the
amount of liberty we get. I agree with Locke on the issue of religion to
an extent because I believe that there should be more than just
believing that Jesus is the Messiah. I personally think that everything in
the bible is important, but that doesnt necessarily mean that I
completely agree with everything on it.
The reason why John Lockes philosophy makes the most sense
to me is because of how science based our society is at the moment.

When it comes to the idea that all ideas are not innate I agree but I
also disagree. The reason why I disagree with this idea is because not
everything is learned through experience. There are things that we
learn without experiencing like being nice to a person or why killing is
wrong. We dont need to experience these things to understand that
they are morally wrong. All together, John Locke is definitely very
influential in our society and his ideas are definitely still present in
todays world.

Work Cited:
-Philosophy, I. E. of. Internet encyclopedia of philosophy. Retrieved July
14, 2016, from http://www.iep.utm.edu/locke/
-Uzgalis, W. (2012, July 10). John Locke. Retrieved July 12, 2016, from
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke/
-Powell, J., Machan, T. R., Thompson, G., Fulda, J. S., & Siegan, B. H.
(1996, August 1). John Locke: Natural rights to life, liberty, and
property | Jim Powell. Retrieved July 12, 2016, from
https://fee.org/articles/john-locke-natural-rights-to-life-liberty-andproperty/
-An essay concerning human understanding. Retrieved July 15, 2016,
from
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/en/locke.
htm
-