Western Civilization II / Unit 19 WC2 1822 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Drill 8: What the Quotation Means for Knowledge
The idea
The eighth question asks which statement best reflects the quotation's significance, and offers the traditional Judeo-Christian answer to how humans know, knowledge inherently imprinted at birth, knowledge gained through practical contact with and observation of events, a mind fixed and unshapeable by education, and extreme skepticism about any knowledge. The course's reading at 0428 supplies the test: if the mind begins as white paper, then everything on it was written by experience, sensation and reflection, so knowledge comes from contact with the world. Eliminate. Imprinted at birth is innate ideas, the doctrine the passage denies. A mind fixed and unshapeable is the reverse of paper that anything can write on; Locke's point made education all-powerful. Extreme skepticism doubts that experience yields knowledge; Locke says it is the only thing that does. The Judeo-Christian answer, revelation, is not in the passage. The answer is knowledge through observation, and entry 0424 shows why the Enlightenment took it as its charter.
In practice
Paper written by experience means knowledge from observation; not innate, not fixed, not doubted, not revealed.
Where people slip
The fourth option is the trap, since "blank" sounds like "empty" and "empty" like "limited". Blank means writable.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
Builds on
Unlocks
- Nothing yet depends on this.
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