Locke's theory of mind is often cited as the origin of modern conceptions of identity and the self, figuring prominently in the work of later philosophers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, David Hume, and Immanuel Kant.
He postulated that, at birth, the mind was a blank slate, or tabula rasa. Contrary to Cartesian philosophy based on pre-existing concepts, he maintained that we are born without innate ideas, and that knowledge is instead determined only by experience derived from senseperception, a concept now known as empiricism.[17]
^David Bostock (2009). Philosophy of Mathematics: An Introduction. Wiley-Blackwell. p. 43. All of Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume supposed that mathematics is a theory of our ideas, but none of them offered any argument for this conceptualist claim, and apparently took it to be uncontroversial.
^John W. Yolton (2000). Realism and Appearances: An Essay in Ontology. Cambridge University Press. p. 136.
^Grigoris Antoniou; John Slaney, eds. (1998). Advanced Topics in Artificial Intelligence. Springer. p. 9.
^Vere Claiborne Chappell, ed. (1994). The Cambridge Companion to Locke. Cambridge University Press. p. 56.
^Cite error: The named reference sep was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^Hansen, Hans V.; Pinto, Robert C., eds. (1995). Fallacies: classical and contemporary readings. University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press. ISBN978-0-271-01416-6. OCLC30624864.
^Grave tablet from 1705:
... That he was born on the 29th of August in the year of our Lord 1632, and that he died on the 28th of October in the year of our Lord 1704, this tablet, which itself will quickly perish, is a record.
See also: R. Woolhouse, Locke. A Biography, NY 2007, p. 1.
^Hirschmann, Nancy J. (2009). Gender, Class, and Freedom in Modern Political Theory. Princeton: Princeton University Press. p. 79.
^Sharma, Urmila; S. K. Sharma (2006). Western Political Thought. Washington: Atlantic Publishers. p. 440.
^Korab-Karpowicz, W. Julian (2010). A History of Political Philosophy: From Thucydides to Locke. New York: Global Scholarly Publications. p. 291.
^Becker, Carl Lotus (1922). The Declaration of Independence: a Study in the History of Political Ideas. New York: Harcourt, Brace. p. 27.
^"Foreword and study guide to" John Locke's Two Treatises on Government: A Translation into Modern English, ISR Publications, 2013, p. ii. ISBN978-0906321690