One of the most interesting threads that ran through last night's presentations was an attack on foundational knowledge. This can be directly seen in Locke, but is also present the readings on Hume and Vico.
In his article on Hume, David Wooten discusses how Hume used source criticism to expose the party myths of Whigs and Tories. Each political party used an interpretation of historical events to establish their authority, to illustrate why they were the correct party. Hume believed that these myths should be "subject to impartial criticism." (288) In other words, Hume questioned the historical knowledge knowledge that formed the basis of party authority and "provid[ed] evidence that decisively undermin[ed] the rhetoric of political extremists." (288)
Locke questioned foundational knowledge in a much more direct way. By stating that people are "born into the world without any innate ideas," Locke takes direct aim at the concept of foundational knowledge. (425) Foundation knowledge implies that there is a one scheme of ideas that is correct and universal. How would these ideas be communicated if the "human mind acquires all its knowledge through experience?" (425) If each person experiences through senses, than each person much experience in a slightly different manner. Through this theory, Locke denied the existence of foundational knowledge, which had important political and religious implications.
Like Hume and Locke, Vico questioned foundational knowledge, but came to a different conclusion. Rather than undermine it completely like Hume and Locke, Vico implied that there was a need to adapt it to a modern scheme of education. His tree of wisdom theory seems to be based on the idea that a universal truth exists. If "human beings are excluded from direct knowledge posessed by the 'gods' and from the indirect or partial knowledge of the 'heroes,'" then there must some intangible truth for humans to be excluded from. Even though Vico did imply that some sort of foundational knowledge is necessary, he did make an argument for supplementing it with more modern sciences. Vico participated in a debate between contemporary and ancients scholars and found that "the inclusion of the study of new sciences and and arts would eventually bring the system advocated by his contemporaries to be superior to the methods of the ancients." (6). Thus, Vico states that some form of foundational knowledge exists, but that it is not necessarily the one that was espoused by the ancients.
Political power and authority was addressed in nearly all of the presentations, as was the importance of foundational knowledge. In order to change political power and opinions, Hume, Locke, and Vico attacked the beliefs that formed the basis of political authority.