John Locke (1632-1704) was a British philosopher who wrote essays about people (Human Nature). One of Locke's basic ideas was that, at birth, the human mind was empty of experience (like a blank piece of paper). according to Locke, as the human child grows, he or she experiences (understands, perceives) the world through the senses (sense perception) of seeing, hearing, tasting, feeling. These experiences are 'written' onto the 'blank page' of the mind and become the basis for the individual life we know as a person.
Often, John Locke's work is contrasted with the writings of Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) and David Hume (1711-1776). Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was strongly influenced by Locke, the source of Kant's notion that the senses are the 'spectacles' (eyeglasses) of the mind. Through these lenses, each of us views and understands the world differently.
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