The Student Room Group
Uni students - Complete our survey >>
Uni students - Complete our survey >>
Uni students - Complete our survey >>

This discussion is now closed.

Check out other Related discussions

Locke, Representative Realism, Criticisms

Hi, I'm doing AS philosophy and am currently reading through Hamilton's "Understanding Philsophy". On page 47, it gives criticisms of Locke's argument that there are things outside us.

I'm a bit stuck on the third criticism: "God could be the cause of the fact that "Our Senses....bear witness to the truth of eachother's report", as Locke puts it."

Could someone break that down for me? :confused:

Does it mean that God is making sure our mind is thinking/believing our senses are all working harmoniously together to give us the impression that there is a physical world?

Thanks to anyone who can give any imput!
Beth
Reply 1
Avatar for monty mike
monty mike
Well, if you look at the criticisms prior to part C, you'll notice it says ... God could make us see what we see, without there being any material objects. This would imply that some sort of omnipotent being (namely God) would have the power to make us all see whatever he so desires. As such, if he desired that we all saw the same physical world, then he could ensure that this was the case.

Idealism was born as a solution to Locke's representative realism which inevitably lead to scepticism, purely because it couldn't prove that the external world existed. Berkeley, therefore solved this problem by denying that the external world existed at all, and that everything was an idea in our mind. You can see how the criticisms of Locke lead to Idealism (page 51) :wink:

Does this help? I think you were on the right lines. Just remember that these criticisms may seem absurd and unlikely, but then the sceptics who posed them are unlikely to have actually believed in their reality, rather it's a way of testing a theory against doubt, and Locke's seems to have failed :wink:

Related discussions

Latest

Trending

Trending

Articles for you