Locke Rejected Innate Ideas as a Defense of Arbitrary Aut...

The first target against which he directed his criticism was the doctrine of innate ideas. Since Locke s position was that all knowledge is derived ultimately from experience, it was altogether natural that he should repudiate this Platonic doctrine; but there was another reason for his determination to discredit it. The doctrine of innate ideas had become a weapon for the defense of arbitrary authority, of superstition, and of ridiculous theories. Men in authority argued that their actions w...

 Locke Divided Experience into Sensation and Reflection

In his exploration into the nature of belief, seen from the psychological point of view Locke divided experience into two categories—first, sensation, or perception of external objects, and second, reflection, the activity in which the self observes its own state of mind, its own feelings and thoughts. According to Locke all human experience is embraced in these two categories; but the second, reflection, is based in and arises from the first, sensation. Sense impression of the external wor...

 Bacon's Inductive Method

Bacon s adaptation of traditional methods was to begin with observation of discrete facts, and then from observed similarities in many separate events, to arrive at generalizations—and thus he formulated his inductive method. This method ofinduction enabled him to derive rational generalizations from his observations of disparate facts. Bacon's method was influential in the development of modern science, which was already in the process of development during his life-time. Bacon did not di...

 Cartesian Methodology Applied to Personal Intellectual Gr...

...Cartesian methodology calls for intellectual individualism; it emphasizes reason as the common possession of all men. The reason that people disagree is that their reason has been perverted by the wrong kind of education, or poisoned by superstition, or vitiated by preoccupation. Descartes held that all men had equal and natural ability to make sound judgments, and to distinguish the true from the false, until and unless these abilities were crippled or stunted by improper education or by ...

 How Descartes Broke With Classical Thinking

Classical thinking had assigned different natures to different things—minerals had one nature, stars another, plants another. But Descartes discarded these distinctions and looked upon all things as being equal in nature. The mystical distinction among the natures of things thus disappeared. For example, respiration in the human body and the circulation of blood were no longer inexplicable, or virtually magic phenomena; both could now be treated in terms of extension and motion. The circula...

 Aristotle Considered Experiential Knowledge of Lower Value

Aristotle gave the name experience to change which is irregular, and differentiated this from scientific knowledge, or rational knowledge. The only changes that could come within the scope of science were those which moved in the direction of, and which were governed by, final cause——the chick and the oak, again. Typical of the things which Aristotle regarded as certain, and therefore admissible to the realm of science, were the stars of the heavens which could be counted and which moved ...

 Aristotle Categorized Species as Immutable, the Theory of...

Aristotle noted three characteristics of his concept of species. First, each species is a whole. It is comprehensive, representative of all the objects embraced within it, and any one of these objects may be used as an example of all others. The species tree, for example, embraces all trees whether they are used for timber or for firewood; and any given tree may exemplify the species which includes all trees. Second, any one species comprises objects which have common or identical elements o...

 Chess VS Go

The philosophy behind chess is to win decisively. For the winner, victory is absolute, as is defeat for the loser. In chess, both players have the same clear and overriding objective―capturing the opposing king―and accomplish this objective by decimating whatever opposing forces are standing in the way. In go, total victory usually happens between two mismatched players. That kind of victory, as Sun Tzu puts it, is not the pinnacle of excellence. In a go game between two well-matched play...

 Heterogametic Sex Hypothesis

In mammals, including humans, sex is generally determined by the X and Y chromosomes. If a baby has a pair of X chromosomes, she’s a girl. If the baby inherits an X chromosome and a Y chromosome, he’s a boy. In birds, however, the situation is reversed. Female birds have a pair of unlike sex chromosomes while males have the like pair. (In this sort of sex-determination system, scientists use the letters W and Z, and talk about a ZW pair for female birds and a ZZ pair for males.) The “...

 How to Not Fear Death

Some old people are oppressed by the fear of death. In the young there there is a justification for this feeling. Young men who have reason to fear that they will be killed in battle may justifiably feel bitter in the thought that they have been cheated of the best things that life has to offer. But in an old man who has known human joys and sorrows, and has achieved whatever work it was in him to do, the fear of death is somewhat abject and ignoble. The best way to overcome it—so at least ...