John locke essay 2 essay

However, John Locke was the main antagonist to the concept of innate ideas. 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 is often classified as the first of the great English empiricists. This reputation rests on Locke’s greatest work, the monumental An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. The most important of his goals is to determine the limits of human understanding.

The candidate who submits the best essay overall will be awarded an honorary John Locke Institute Junior Fellowship, which comes with a US$10,000 scholarship to attend one or more of our summer schools and/or gap year courses. The judges' decisions are final, and no correspondence will be entered into.

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.