Whiteboard theory is Locke's inheritance and development of Aristotle's wax block theory, pointing out that when a person is born, his mind is like a blank sheet of paper or whiteboard, and only through experience can he have ideas in his mind, so experience is the only source of ideas. In the process of studying Locke, we find that Locke and the French philosopher Rousseau are closely related in thought.

Philosophically, it is based on materialism and empiricism. Locke put forward "whiteboard theory" and advocated empiricism; Rousseau advocated the theory of nature and pursued naturalism. Politically, everyone advocates liberalism and emphasizes freedom and equality. Locke thinks that freedom is the premise of equality, and Rousseau thinks that equality is the guarantee of freedom, but they both advocate constitutional monarchy or people's sovereignty through social contract.

Locke's Philosophical Thought

Locke is a pioneer of British empiricism, although he himself did not fully implement this philosophical thought. Locke believes that all human thoughts and concepts come from or reflect human sensory experience. He abandoned Descartes and others' natural concept theory, and thought that the human mind was like a blank sheet of paper from the beginning, and it was experience (that is, his so-called concept) that provided its spiritual content.

There are two concepts: the concept of feeling and the concept of reflection. Feeling comes from sensory perception of the outside world, and reflection comes from mental observation itself. Unlike rationalists, Locke emphasized that these two concepts are the only source of knowledge.

Locke also divided concepts into simple concepts and complex concepts, but did not provide appropriate standards to distinguish them. The only thing we can perceive is simple concepts, and we can form a complex concept from many simple concepts ourselves.

Locke also advocates that the nature of the senses can be divided into "primary nature" and "secondary nature". Locke thinks that the world is made of matter. The main properties of matter include those that are inseparable from matter, such as shape, motion or stillness, quantity, etc. Secondary attributes include other attributes, such as color, sound and smell.

Locke thinks that the first sex is in the object and the second sex is only in the perceiver. Locke followed Descartes' dualism on this issue and agreed that some properties can be understood by human reason.

Although Locke's philosophical thoughts were inconsistent (another British philosopher, Bertrand Russell, criticized Locke for "dealing with philosophical problems in a piecemeal way" in the 20th century) and full of loopholes, it had a great influence on later philosophers. The empiricism initiated by Locke has been further developed by george berkeley and david hume, and has become the two major philosophical trends in Europe.