JOHN LOCKE ON REASON
JOHN LOCKE ON REASON

Summary/Abstract: This paper is a study of John Locke’s process of reasoning, defined as the investigation and discovery of the agreement or disagreement existing among ideas. Reason has four principal duties to fulfill which include: First, the highest goal of reason is the discov-ery of truths such as the existence of an eternal being. Second, in understanding, rea-soning eases the arrangement of ideas in order to portray and facilitate the agreement or disagreement among them. Third, reasoning perceives the connection of ideas in mental propositions. The fourth and final role of reason is that, it facilitates the mak-ing of right decisions and conclusions. Emphasizing on these four main functions of reason guarantees the basic objective of understanding which is geared towards the attainment of knowledge, judgment and truth. Through argumentation, reasoning fulfills the arrangement of ideas and operates through two major capacities being: First, it ascertains knowledge by determining intuitive or demonstrative knowledge. Last, it moderates judgment and assents by inferring opinions in probabilities.

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