Lockeing it down!

The presentations this week were very efficient and great for the purpose of covering a great deal of rhetoric in a small period of time. The presentation that Johanna gave on Vico was especially good as I wanted to understand more about his three stages of "nature, manners, law and the government: the ages of Gods, Heroes, and Man" (Maiullari 2). I do, however, see how another one of our rhetoricians, Locke, and Vico would have absolutely gone to battle over the ideas of human knowledge according to the ages, and Locke's "blank slate" ideal.

According to Vico, humans are predisposed to a particular knowledge and we can only rarely access the knowledge of the heroes. How then, do heroes become heroes? Are they predisposed to a different realm of understanding? Did Odysseus know more than the average human, and can he then access the knowledge of the Gods on rare occasion? We are privy to certain information just because of our birth. Knowledge such as survival, reproduction, and defense is in my mind, bred into our brains, and it is built upon through experience.

Locke believed that humans were born with a blank slate and everything we learned was through experience. If this is the case, then how do people who have never been stuck in the snow come out alive? There has to be some predisposed knowledge on survival. What about someone who has never fought. I, for one, have not been in a fight, but my first human instinct is to cover my pretty face and protect my vital organs from hits. Is there an experience that teaches us this? According to Locke, we would use our senses to determine these reactions. I, personally, would prefer to avoid getting punched before deciding whether or not to experience it again.

We are privy to certain information because of our nature, and we are then supposed to build on this base as we go -- through reflection? Through the senses? I'm not sure how we all grow in our knowledge base, but we surely do. We do, however need to be wise in our learning because, according to both, wisdom is key in obtaining knowledge.

Unless of course you use a syllogism...