Reading
Questions for Locke
As
you read the following lesson on Locke,
use the following questions to guide you. You won’t be asked to turn in
your answers to these questions, but these questions, or questions very similar
to them, may appear on a quiz – and you will be allowed to use your notes,
including your answers to these questions, on the quiz.
1. Was Locke a
foundationalist?
2. What is empiricism? Was
Locke an empiricist?
3. What is Locke’s test for
foundationality?
4. According to Locke, are
you justified in taking as foundational the belief that your body exists? Why
or why not?
5. According to Locke, are
you justified in taking as foundational the belief that your roommate, whom you
last saw this morning, exists? Why or why not?
6. Locke gives four
arguments to show that we aren’t hallucinating, that our sensory ideas are produced by the interaction between our sensory
organs and objects in the external world. Can you recognize the problems with
each argument, when presented with them?
7. Explain why Locke changed his epistemological objective from probable
truth to useful belief.