John Locke

Research papers on John Locke show he is generally regarded as an empiricist. The research paper illustrates that the way by which a person comes to know is by experience of the external world, by contact with the things of the world particularly. It is by one's senses that one gains knowledge. The senses convey, so to speak, data--or qualities--about the world into the mind. In this conveyance, or process which a John Locke research paper develops in detail, perception forms the qualities of the objects of the world which have affected the senses so that the mind comprehends them, thus gaining knowledge. John Locke research papers show that the things of the external world have two kinds of qualities, primary and secondary.

As an empiricist, however, a John Locke research paper has surprisingly little to say about experience or the external world. Although according to Locke, one gains knowledge by contact with the objects of the external world, one gains little knowledge about the external world. And even the knowledge one does gain according to John Locke, namely primary and secondary qualities, seems arbitrary. A John Locke research paper has little to say about processes of the world--organic or chemical processes for example; and little to say about phenomena such as gravity or change, for example, which are obviously and fundamentally aspects of the world, and which one also experiences. Because John Locke has so little to say about such aspects of the external world which for him is the source of knowledge, John Locke's theory of knowledge offers little for a method or theory of science; whereas a empirical theory of knowledge would be expected to furnish a solid ground for science, or at least be relevant to science. Apart from the adequacy of John Locke's theory of knowledge regarding experience and his theory's relevance to science, his theory has flaws within it which make it problematic.