How do we achieve knowledge? Do we just use intuition and get the information or is it from experience? The issue under consideration is empiricism and whether is the better basis for achieving knowledge. The other option to be considered is rationalism. Empiricism states that all knowledge goes through experience and rationalism is the opposite which states all, some or most beliefs come without the need for experience but rather with intuition. In this paper I discuss Locke's conception of empiricism what in fact causes or knowledge to be justifiable in our eyes. Locke gives us a birds eye view of his thoughts on empiricism and allows us to see first hand what knowledge is and where it may come from.
The position that I support is empiricism and that all knowledge is gained through experience therefore it is justified. One cannot truly grasp the concept just based on intuition. Some individuals like myself are hands on and would not be able to completely understand just by reading what the pages on a book have. A mechanic may learn about parts and pieces to a car from a technical school by what they teach them but do not know how that vehicle works. That person sees the true difference once they see what makes them click, until they get under the hood and sees for them self. This kind of experience shows how the knowledge can be justified not by only seeing what is written and told to you but shown to you so your senses take over and you can see and touch.
John Locke is an empiricist and well known for support of empiricism and says "the mind is a blank slate, through experience, nature writes upon it." Everyone gains their knowledge through experience therefore making it justifiable and John Locke supported this. The reason I support empiricism after reading John Locke's An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. MDCXC he shows some great examples of why we require the experience in order to make the knowledge we get justifiable.
In Locke's reading he states "First, our Senses, conversant about particular sensible objects, do convey into the mind several distinct perceptions of things, according to those various ways wherein those objects do affect them. And thus we come by those IDEAS we have yellow, white, heat, cold, soft, hard, bitter, sweet and all those which we call sensible qualities; which when I say the senses convey into the mind I mean, they from external objects convey into the mind what produces there those perceptions. This great source of most of the ideas we have, depending wholly upon our senses, d erived by them to the understanding, I call SENSATION." ( An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. MDCXC). What this passage reflects to me, is that only with the senses that we have are we truly able to understand what something may be such as we would not be tell a candy was sweet without the taste of a piece of candy or how bitter a lemon is just based of us looking at it or someone telling us how it tastes. Us tasting food and allowing our senses to give our mind the knowledge of how they may taste is the justification