John locke the blueprint essay

Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding was first published in 1690. It is really the first attempt in the new scientific age to work out a psychological theory. Locke’s views were under influence of two his contemporaries Descartes and Newton.

Locke argued that the mind is in fact devoid of all knowledge or ideas at birth, a blank sheet or tabula rasa. He argued that all ideas do in fact come via empiricism. Locke also attacked the idea that an innate idea can be imprinted on the mind without the owner realizing it.

I will go deeper into the philosophy of self later into my essay. John Locke held that the mind or soul was a tabula rasa which means blank slate. Locke believed that knowledge commenced from our sense experience, which is the last step in evaluating the preciseness of ideas.

There is a prize for the best essay in each category. The prize for each winner of a subject category, and the winner of the Junior category, is a scholarship worth US$2000 towards the cost of attending any John Locke Institute programme, and the essays will be published on the Institute's website.