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The John Locke’s Theory Of Perception
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LOCKE’S EMPIRICISM
Locke decided that before one could move directly
into such a subject as the principles of morality and revealed religion,
it was necessary we examined our own abilities, and see what our
understandings were, or were not fitted to deal with. From this
examination Locke eventually composed his Essay on Human Understanding,
which became the foundation of empiricism in Britain.
According to
Locke, knowledge is restricted to ideas, not platonic ideas or forms,
but ideas that are generated by objects we experience thus debunking the
claim of the rationalists that reason is the primary source of
knowledge (Copleston, 1964: 72).
The origin of ideas is experience,
and experience takes two forms, sensation and reflection. Without
exception, all our ideas come to us through the sense, whereby we
experience the world external to us, and through reflection upon these
ideas, which is an experience internal to us. He tried to clarify that
we cannot experience the world external to us, and through reflection
upon these ideas, which is an experience internal to us. He clarifies
that we cannot have the experience of reflection until we have had the
experience of sensation. For reflection simply means the mind taking
notice of its own operations but its operations begin when the mind is
provided with ideas, and these ideas come through the senses (Locke,
1985: 182).
MEANING OF PERCEPTION
Perception is the process by
which organisms interpret and organise sensation to produce a meaningful
experience of the world. Sensation usually refers to the immediate,
relatively unprocessed result of stimulation of sensory receptors in the
eyes, ears, nose, tongue, or skin. In practice, sensation and
perception are virtually impossible to separate, because they are part
of one continuous process (www.wikipedia.com).
PROBLEM OF PERCEPTION
John
Locke in his theory of knowledge laid great emphasis on experience as
the primary source of indubitable knowledge. However, Locke failed to
take into cognizance the fact that, objects of experience are dynamic
and fallible. Heraclitus of Ephesus, an ancient Greek philosopher posits
that, ‘Things in this world are in a state of flux, constantly changing
(Armstrong, 1977: 23).’
Following in this postulation of Heraclitus,
how then can our experience or senses grasps reality or true knowledge
as the case may be, in a constantly changing world?
In the footsteps
of Heraclitus, Socrates through his method of dialectics was able to
discover that, true knowledge cannot be derived from perception,
relegating it as the least reliable and this is aptly captured in his
statement that, ‘Perception does not give us true knowledge; therefore,
knowledge cannot be acquired through perception’ (Armstrong, 1977: 24).
Scrutinizing
the theory of knowledge by Locke, one will discover that it has a lot
of problems to contend with, among whom are, the problems of perception
and that of appearance and reality. Though there seems to be a
similarity between the former and the latter.
The problem of
perception can be said to arise as a result of human state of affairs at
a material time. Perceiving a green table in a room may give varying
impressions, in different thought, depending on their state at that
particular time. In other words, a green table might for instance appear
yellow in the eyes of a man suffering from jaundice. Also, the amount
and type of light focused on the same green table might give an onlooker
the cause to refer to it as purple.
Similarly, the timing of the
perception of the green table may also affect its colour. For instance,
if the green table is perceived in the night around 10.00pm with the
moonlight, the green table might appear black or brown.
Hence, it can be said that, true and infallible knowledge cannot be achieved through this means.
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