According to Locke, humans are capable of learning knowledge without the requirement for innate concepts because we have all outlets of knowledge such as eyes, hearing, and others. For example, because the eyes are the natural means of perceiving color, there is no requirement for innate color knowledge. Furthermore, he contends that since the acclaimed speculative and practical concepts are supposed to speak to both and agree with all people, then they should be shared by all human beings, negating the necessity for intrinsic ideas. Also, the fact that some people like small children and idiots still have principles in their minds it never always becomes knowledge.
Question (3)
What does Locke mean by “primary qualities”? What does he mean by “secondary qualities”? Give examples.
Primary qualities are descriptives to how ideas are made of their size, shape, and motion. For example, the wheat grain still retains its qualities regardless of breaking it into very small sizes. Arguing further that therefore, primary qualities still hold true even if we reduce the size of something since it is like they have been inbuilt and cannot be changed by physical interventions since they have been inherited.
On the other hand, Secondary qualities, e.g. a tree, only hold its qualities like the production of aroma, and when it is cut down, this quality is no longer there. Again, a tree is only attractive in its complete form and whenever some of the branches are removed they lose the attraction held before. Unlike primary qualities, secondary qualities can be destroyed.
Response to Classmate: Question (9)
How does Hume undermine our ability to make predictions?
The fact that Hume believes as human beings are wrong to make future predictions we have not seen or felt since many things variables hold and may change before the future comes makes it unreasonable predicting the future.
The classmate agrees to this argument by saying that “I get that in some cases you might get lucky and predict the winner of a basketball game because there are only two outcomes to a game your team wins or your team loses. However, there are so many things that are unpredictable that you can never predicate and I think that outweighs the time you get lucky and predict things. Just think about all the things in your life that you didn’t expect to happen”
I agree with the classmate’s response. Many are the times when the weather forecasters have made predictions about future climatic occurrences only for the people to be left wondering when those predictions fail despite they have been conducted with a lot of precision.
