Difference Between John Locke Innate Ideas and Rene Descartes Innate Ideas

Traits such as culture, language, appearance and ancestral inherited sway all act as primary and obviously controlling attributes in which help to define a person's individualism and differences from other groups and communities. This is to say that, everyone is different and unique in some form or another to many different extents. However, there is a belief that claims some human attributes, thoughts, and even the most minor of details are in fact innate to each and every person. Almost as if these traits were encoded in the very basic DNA of human form. Rene Descartes believed strongly on this assumption, and went to base many theoretical conclusions around the idea. One such conclusion being that an idea such as the knowledge of a greater being, that being god, is innate to all beings from birth. The controversy over the innate ideas has often, in simpler terms, been described as nature versus nurture, in other words the rationalists verse the empiricists. Descartes believes humanity is born with a preset understanding of certain cognitive issues. Whereas on the other side of this controversial theory stands, primarily, the philosopher John Locke. John Locke is in complete disagreement of the innate idea theory and claims that humans gain common knowledge and understandings through life experiences. This was meant to show that the mind is a blank sheet of paper when humans are born, and the familiarity of fact is derived from the basic senses and experiences in life, which in turn provides an understanding towards cognitive knowledge. Gottfried Von Leibniz, another philosopher of rationalistic thinking, had an outlook towards the doctrine of innate ideas that acted very similar to that of Descartes, only Leibniz takes a more scientific approach in his definitions and reasoning. Leibniz believes that innate ideas do exist and all humans carry from birth a basic understanding of common themes and reasoning skills, the most recognizable of these being the basics

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