This debate is almost like the scientific one about nature vs. nurture.

Descartes is on the side of nature with his innate ideas and the fact that everything relies on you and your reasoning skills. Locke leans a little more towards the nurture side his blank slate theory combined with his empiricism stating that everything we are comes from our experiences and sensory input. Descartes was a rationalist a position in which reason is the primary source of all knowledge, superior to sense evidence. In other words, he believes that only reason can save us from the illusions that surround us so that we may see reality clearly giving meaning to our experiences. Rationalists also believe in innate ideas or a priori. These ideas are achieved through reasoning as well - no need to observe something to know that its true. Theres even a truth test coherence theory of truth for all new and unclear ideas. Descartes standard of truth states that to recognize something clearly and distinctly is to know that it is true - it comes off as something entirely subjective. Descartes fancied himself a bit of a remodeler. Not the kind who uses his hands, but the kind who tried to reinvent his own mind. He set out to examine the heart of the most basic beliefs and using his fancy reasoning skills he tried to rid his mind of anything he thought might be a mistake. Then Descartes wanders into what seems like classic paranoia - except he can get away with it because hes a philosopher. He is simply proposing that maybe this is all a dream and our senses could just be deceiving us into thinking that this is all real. It could all be one long hallucination, according to Descartes. It gets better - he then theorizes that God could just be a evil genius. Yes! Atheists will rejoice in that little tidbit! God isnt some good, truthful being, hes an evil genius who has devoted all his time and energy to deluding us. He does a damn fine job with the world he creates in our minds, though, Ill give it that. Now, Descartes has to get out of this imaginary world somehow. He realizes that in order to be deceived, he has to exist to be deceived. Descartes Cogito, ergo sum theory is one of the most

recognizable theories in philosophy. I think, therefore I am is quoted everywhere and we all know what it means. He uses this to get out of the evil genius world. He goes on to think of God as an infinite, perfect being so I guess its not just paranoia. The way he gets to this conclusion is that if he could imagine this perfection, then it must exist. He couldnt possibly come up with this idea himself either he believes that since he is less than perfect, he couldnt have a perfect idea. He then uses that to get completely out of bizarro world and he says God couldnt possibly be deceiving us so our world must be real. Locke is a skeptic is a person who demands clear, observable, undoubtable evidence before accepting any knowledge as true. Our definition today is a bit update with a person who questions the validity or authenticity of something purporting to be factual. Its interesting how little we actually question for evidence when people tell us things when you think about it. In philosopher talk, these are known as epistemological issues issues with the nature and possibility of knowledge. Empiricists go back on the other philosophers saying all we have is our sense and our experiences to go on. John Locke was the first of the British Empiricists and laid the groundwork for the movement. He uses being blind as his example. The blind can obtain the sensation of circularity through drawing it and using his imagination, but since he can never experience color, he cant really have any idea what its like. Locke also came up with the correspondence theory of truth his truth test that holds that an idea/belief/thought is true if whatever it refers to actually exists. What if I cant prove something exists though? I know it to be true, but I cant recreate the circumstances/evidence that led me to this conclusion does that mean its a false idea? I bet this is how religious people feel. The only thing they have on their side is numbers by that I mean so many of them have the same beliefs. Anyway, Locke goes on to attack the rationalists by saying that their innate ideas dont hold up. He compares the mind at birth to a clean slate, which means everything we acquire

about knowledge is based on our experiences which is totally against the rationalists argument because thats what steered them away from their paranoia of the Matrix. He wasnt a big fan of some of Descartes ideas. He did agree with him on the idea that something substantial underlies most of our experiences. He goes on a long rant about substance and how complicated it is and that we only understand it in general. He also says that objects have primary and secondary qualities. Primary qualities are the objective parts of any substances and arent really open to interpretation and exist in the object itself shape, size etc.. Secondary qualities are the subjective qualities of substances and exist only in our minds - sound. Both Descartes and Locke have holes in their theories but its the nature versus nurture argument at the core. Its one of those on-going conflicts that will never really be solved but Im going to be on the side of Locke here. I want the best of both worlds rationalist with the sense that our experiences shape and contribute to our knowledge just as much as reason. Im siding with Locke because I just cant go with Descartes. Not only do I not agree with using God to get out of your paranoia the idea that knowledge only comes from reason in our minds really doesnt sound like its true knowledge. Our brains can lie to us in crazy way and descending into the paranoia is an example of such. Locke takes the route that everything comes from your experiences in the world and the idea of primary and secondary qualities actually makes sense and seems a bit more grounded in reality than Descartes. Ive always been a bigger fan of nurture anyway. I really dont support either theory whole-heartedly. Descartes and his rationalist thinking goes a little off the deep end and Lockes empiricism isnt very substantial. Its a tough call to make, but I think Locke wins this one.