Leibniz Theory of Knowledge

Knowledge and nature

In the grammatical sense, a person is like a subject for Leibniz. The subject already contains the
predicate in any true phrase. As a result, Leibniz asserts that "in each true statement, I discover
that every predicate, necessary or contingent, past, present, or future, is encompassed in the
concept of the subject." Similarly, in objects, all substances are, in a sense, subjects, and the
things they perform are their predicates.

Leibniz distinguished between reasoned and factual truths. For him, the truth of reason is entirely
logical, whereas the reality of facts is based on experience. For him, the only way to test the truth
of reason is via contradiction, and the only way to test the reality of facts is through adequate
reason. Truths of reason are tautologies because the predicate merely repeats what is already
there in the subject. There is no need for additional proof concerning the truth of the predicate if
the subject is clearly recognized. Truths of reason do not need or confirm the existence of the
proposition's subject.

Truth of Facts These truths have been discovered by experience. They are not required
propositions. Their opposites are seen to be feasible without contradiction, and as a result, their
reality is contingent.

Although assertions relating the world of facts are synthetic, or require experience and proof, if
we are to know their reality, these propositions are analytic from God's perspective. Only God
can deduce all the predicates of any substance. And it is only our ignorance that keeps us from
seeing all of the predicates associated with a certain person.

A person already contains his predicates, such that if we truly knew the entire concept of a
person, we might derive these predicates, such as "the quality of king, which belongs to
Alexander the Great." Logic, thus, is a key to metaphysics for Leibniz.

We have intrinsic notions, self-evident facts. A child does not know all these facts all at once but
must wait until maturity and certain periods in experience when these thoughts are summoned.
Such ideas are almost natural because we only encounter them on rare occasions.

Locke’s theory of Knowledge

Locke set out "to examine into the origin, certainty, and limit of human knowledge," and
concluded that "knowledge is restricted to ideas," which are thoughts created by objects we
encounter rather than rationalist concepts. According to Locke, all our ideas come to us from
experience. This indicates that each person's mind begins as a blank sheet of paper on which only
experience may later write knowledge.

No innate ideas

Locke must reject the innateness hypothesis if he believes that all our thoughts are created by
experience. He also believed that if this concept was abused, it may be a harmful instrument.
Ralph Cudworth belonged to the Cambridge Platonism school of thought, which maintained that
reason, like Plato, was the ultimate criterion of knowledge. Locke countered the premise of
intrinsic concepts with two arguments. According to those who argued for the notion of intrinsic
thoughts, people generally affirm the truth of many rational conceptions. Two of these are the
principles of identity and non-contradiction. The principle of identity is "what is, is," while the
principle of non-contradiction is "it is impossible for the same item to be and not be." For Locke,
the concept of intrinsic thoughts was superfluous since it included nothing that he couldn't
explain using his empirical explanation of the beginnings of ideas.

Simple and Complex Ideas

According to John Locke, discovering the basic components from which knowledge was formed
may explain it. According to Locke, experience provides us with two forms of ideas: sensation
and reflection. Our senses give us with a wide range of distinct sensations, and as a result, we get
acquainted with things outside of ourselves. Sensation, on the other hand, is the "primary source
of most of the ideas we have," but reflection is a cerebral activity that generates ideas by
studying prior concepts supplied by the senses. According to Locke, all our thoughts may be
traced back to either perception or reflection, and these conceptions might be basic or
complicated.

• Simple ideas are the fundamental source of raw materials from which our knowledge is
constructed. It is the creation of knowledge that occurs. These thoughts are passively received by
the mind via the senses. When we observe something, ideas flood into our minds in a single
stream. When both the hardness and coldness of ice are perceived by touch, separate properties
may be perceived through the same sense. Simple thoughts emerge first from feelings, then from
reflection, but some emerge from both.

• Complex ideas, on the other hand, are built by our thinking as a compilation of simple
ideas rather than passively acquired. The mind's activity is highlighted in three ways: 1.) the
mind mixes thoughts, 2.) the mind groups ideas but maintains them unique, and 3.) the mind
abstracts. When our mind separates concepts "from all other ideas that follow them in their true
existence," like when we separate the notion of man from John and Peter, "all its general laws are
created."

Primary and Secondary Qualities

Locke focuses his attention on how thoughts are linked to the thing that creates them to better
understand how we obtain our ideas. Do our thoughts generate the identical objects that we see?
Locke asserts that objects have qualities, describing a quality as "the ability [of an item] to create
any thought in our mind" and attempts to distinguish between basic and secondary
characteristics. The first are those that "truly do exist in the bodies themselves," approximating a
certain characteristic intimately tied to the thing.

While they are secondary, they produce ideas in our brains that do not have a precise counterpart
in the thing. The basic qualities include the thing's solidity, extension, figure, motion or rest, and
the number of traits that belong to it. Colors, sounds, tastes, and fragrances are secondary
attributes that do not belong to or create bodies and exist just to produce these conceptions for us.

The contrast between these two traits is that Locke tried to discern between appearance and
reality through them.

Substance

Locke approached the topic of substance from a logical standpoint. Solidity and expansion are
significant characteristics for him, and they may be found in the material. He regarded substance
as an explanation for sense, stating that matter creates experience by containing the energies that
give our thoughts regularity and consistency. It is also a sensitive knowledge item. The simple
logic of the situation compelled him enormously. If there is motion, there must be something
moving. We have conceptions of matter and thinking, but "we shall never be able to know if any
mere material item thinks or not," thus there must be something that thinks if there is thinking.
The idea of substance, as "something we don't know," begs the challenge for Locke. As a result,
if there is thinking, there must be something thinking. According to Locke, the idea of substance,
defined as "something we don't know," begs the question of how far our knowledge extends and
how much validity it has.

The Degrees of Knowledge

The relationships between our thoughts, according to Locke, define how far our knowledge
travels and how much validity it has. Finally, he defined knowledge as "the awareness of the
relationship between any of our beliefs' agreement, disagreement, and repugnancy." Once a
thought has entered our brains, it may be related to other concepts in several ways. The item we
meet determines its connection. Our imagination can recreate both basic and complex concepts
to our liking. The three types of perception are intuitive, demonstrative, and sensitive, and each
one leads to a different level of comprehension of reality.
Intuitive - We may know that we exist because it is immediate, leaves no question, and is "the
clearest and most definite that human frailty is capable of." "Experience thus persuades us that
we have intuitive awareness of our own existence, as well as an internal infallible viewpoint of
who we are."

Demonstrative - happens when our minds try to find out if two notions agree or disagree by
calling attention to another idea. While this is true in certain situations, Locke argued that
demonstration is a sort of perception that leads the mind to a knowledge of some form of existent
reality.

Sensitive - is not knowledge in the strict sense; it only "passes under the impression of
knowledge." Locke had no doubt that objects outside of himself exist; otherwise, where would
we get our basic ideas? This type of knowledge does not give assurance and does not cover a
broad range of topics. Experience, according to Locke, is a tremendous conductor of our
knowledge since it makes us aware of characteristics, but we have no confidence of the links
between qualities. Overall, this form of knowledge provides us with some degree of assurance
but not absolute certainty.