External WorldFor philosopher John Locke, knowledge about external world comes from experience. Our senses play a major role in perceiving and understanding objects and transforming them into ideas we have about external world. For myself the proof of existence of external world comes from sensation. If I can see, hear, touch, smell, tasteand feel objects, than my perception of external world is real.The perception means the power to know something. When this power reaches an object, it moves to actuality. In other words when perception takes place, we come to know what the object of perception is and from knowing a thing we come to awarene ...view middle of the document...
I agree that there's nothing in the world that makes a table a real table. The concept of "table" is something that's constructed by our minds. But I don't see how that indicates there's no external reality. Maybe there's just a collection of matter out there in a certain arrangement; we perceive the matter, and our minds organize them into concepts (table, chair), which allow us to understand them. You can deny that "tables" are externally real without denying that the external world exists, can't you? So, if I can't perceive anexternal world for I am not the external world I perceive only my reality. To the perceiver who is myself my perception is existence and reality. So the "self" is really a perception that we are all the same, but seen from different angles. Just because that 's how I perceive my reality, does not make the Universe appear this way. What preconception would make the world appear to be external? What assumption do we have to confirm that the world appears outside of us? The perception that the world is external to me would mean that I am separate, independent and apart from it. What if the world may only appear external to us because of our perception that we are external to the world. We assume that we are inside looking out at the world, when in fact the world may be the rest of ourselves. I can go on assuming and wondering but I must stop before I start questioning things I rather not to...
