Locke and the Problem of Epistemology
Locke and the Problem of Epistemology The Essay is chiefly concerned with issues in what would today be called epistemology (or the theory of knowledge), metaphysics, the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of language. As its title implies, its purpose is to discover, from an examination of the workings of the human mind, just what we are capable of knowing and understanding about the universe we live in. Locke's answer is that all the materials of our understanding come from our ideas - both of sensation and of reflection (that is, of outward' and 'inward' experience respectively) - which are worked upon by our powers of reason to produce such 'real' knowledge as we can hope to attain. The structure of the Essay and its place in Locke's work LOCKE'S LIFE AND WORK 5 Beyond that, we have other sources of belief--for instance, in testimony and in revelation—which may afford us probability and hence warrant our assent, but do not enlitle us to certai...