Compare and contrast rationalism and empiricism Essay

Compare and contrast rationalism and empiricism - Essay Example He said that when look at a knife they think of pain. This is the quality of the knife, but the painful thought is the idea in their minds (Cuddy 1). Locke describes the difference between primary and secondary qualities in terms of the different ideas that they produce in the people’s minds. According to Locke, primary qualities of objects create ideas in people’s minds that resemble the matching qualities in the objects that caused people to have those ideas. The secondary qualities of objects create ideas in people’s minds that do not resemble the matching qualities in the objects that created those ideas in people’s minds. According to Locke, color, being red, is a secondary quality, as shape, being square is a primary quality (Cuddy 1). Locke’s concept on what a substance was not clearly understood. There were, however, two key views regarding what Locke meant. These views were that a substance referred to that what supported quality in an object. This is because Locke’s concept of a substance mainly consisted of bare particulars that lacked properties. The other thought of a substance, according to critics, is that a substance refers to a solid stuff that makes a material. The two philosophers believed that people perceive what they perceive. Their eyes do not lie since they cannot lie. They both agreed upon that it is the power the eyes to distinguish what their have seen for what it stands to be. They both used the example of Copernicus and Galileo to explain their theory. They said that it took Galileo and Copernicus to convince people that the world spins. That is a thought that people did not perceive. Sensible things, according to Berkeley, are things that are perceived by sense. He, however, states that the things that are perceived by senses are ideas. Hence, according to Berkeley, a sense is an idea. He connects the two by saying that mountains, houses, rivers among other objects are