The Christian Vanguard

The following is an essay I had to submit for my British Empiricism class.  John Locke is a cornerstone of empiricism. This essay will examine the foundations and justifications of his empiricism and its limits. In contradistinction to his empiricism, we will consider some rationalist critiques from Rene Descartes and some possible responses, and further responses to his project in general. A classical way of summarizing the empiricism of Locke is as follows: all simple ideas originate in experience. This will be analyzed into its parts. Experience here specifically means sensation and reflection (II.1.2). Sensation is the observation of external sensible objects, and reflection is the observation of the internal operations of our minds (II.1.2). Observation of external sensible objects would be things like soft, bitter, and hot (II.1.3). Operations of the mind are things like doubting, thinking, willing, and reasoning (II.1.4) Ideas are the objects of the understanding (I.1.8) ...

The problem, according to Richard Swinburne, with the body theory is that one part of the body, the brain, seems to be of crucial importance for determining the characteristic behavior of the rest, which isn’t true of other body parts. You could have a heart or liver transplant and be the same person, but the same cannot be said of the brain. So the brain would have to be “the core” of the body and not the body simpliciter. This makes it susceptible to duplication problems. If you were to split the brain of some Person P1 into its two hemispheres and put each hemisphere into an empty skull, both hemispheres would seem to have a claim of being P1. So if the brain is the core of the person, and the brain can be split into two, then it seems you can have two of the same persons, which would fail the criterion of identity. The problem with memory theory is that it also has duplication problems. Suppose someone claiming to be Guy Fawkes claims to have done all the things Fawkes has done a...

This was an essay I turned in for class. Locke’s Argument for God Locke’s argument comes in two stages. In the first stage, he argues for a first cause, and in the second stage, he argues for identifying that cause as God. It can be summarized thusly: 1. There are beings that have a beginning 2. All beings that have a beginning have been produced by something eternal 3. Therefore, something eternal exists In support of the first premise, Locke points to our own existence as a thing that exists. His reasoning here is that if one truly does not exist, then one is nothing. Yet at some point, Locke is confident, that the one claiming he is non-being will eventually be hungry or have pain, which is only possible to being, not to non-being. This may sound like a practical argument, and practical arguments are not always the strongest arguments, but Locke also says that non-being cannot produce being. Non-being cannot have properties, sensations, passions, or anything whatsoever, predicated...