Growing up there are certain things that must be taught so that they are known.

The oven is hot

and can burn so learning to stay away from it no matter if it is on or not just becomes a known

thing. When things that have a certain mass, levels fall they make a sound. This is learned

because, unless unforeseen things happen, when things that are heavy enough fall they will make

a sound. This essay reviews a saying that has been around for many years: colon “If a tree falls in

the forest and there's no one around to hear it, does it make a sound?” The knowledge that

something is true based on belief and not opinion helps answer the question when reasoning that

things can happen when someone is not around to witness or hear it because once something is

known then it will always be known until new evidence shows otherwise. This question can be

answered by using epistemology and how John Locke might answer it as well.

An epistemological problem is how we define truth, and the knowledge that

supports those truths. The philosophical puzzle: “If a tree falls in the forest and there's no one

around to hear it, does it make a sound?” is one of these such problems. This puzzle raises the

question of how a subjective experience, such as sound, relates to what can be known of reality.

It uncovers the limits, of what we claim to be known based on sensory, and experience. Sound is

a sensation that occurs only in our minds. Therefore, if no one is around to hear the sound, does

it really occur? This philosophical puzzle is considered an epistemological problem because it

deals with how it is known if a tree does in fact make a sound when it falls in the forest. The

puzzle of whether a tree will make a sound when it falls in the forest and there is no one to hear it

can be answered by evaluating how we attain our knowledge of sound, and the nature and limits

of such knowledge concerning sound. The puzzle requires us to find out the limits of what we

can know based on sensory experience, specifically our sense of hearing.

 The senses that are given to a person allows the navigation of the world. Understanding

that certain things are all ways going to be the same gives that sense of familiarity. The sense of

touch teaches that when heat is felt staying away keeps us from being harmed. The sense of sight

teaches that when seeing dark clouds in the sky usually means that bad weather is approaching.

The sense of smell teaches that when something is bad for the body it will smell unappetizing to

help avoid it. These senses develop as a way of allowing the knowledge that certain things

happen no matter if there to witness or not. The fire will be hot no matter if a person is there to

witness it or not. The dark clouds will bring bad weather no matter the observation of it by a

person. A tree is a heavy object that when it falls a sound is made. This is a known thing because

it has been witnessed over and over. When something takes on being a known thing it takes on

the qualities that make up the definition of epistemology. Dictionary.com defines epistemology

as “a branch of philosophy that investigates the origin, nature, methods, and limits of human

knowledge.” (Dictionary.com) So by this reasoning because the tree falling makes a sound the

assumption is that a sound is made no matter who is there to hear it.

John Locke was a British philosopher who became known for showing what a human can

understand. He wrote a paper titled An Essay Concerning Human Understanding which would

later become widely used by others. The paper gives the reader the knowledge of “one of the first

great defenses of empiricism and concerns itself with determining the limits of human

understanding in respect to a wide spectrum of topics. It thus tells us in some detail what one can

legitimately claim to know and what one cannot.” (Uzgalis) Locke being a medical researcher as

well has his own view on whether a tree falling in the forest does makes a sound or not. In his

paper An Essay Concerning Human Understanding he gives his answer to this question along

with why he came to this conclusion. His medical training makes Locke take the approach to
things with the idea in his mind that for something to be true it needs to be experienced. The

action must engage any of the five senses that a person is given.

Locke has stated that when a tree falls in the forest no sound is made. His reasoning is

that when something makes a sound it in fact makes vibrations that are felt in the ear as

vibrations. These vibrations cause the sound that is perceived when the tree falls. This gives the

person the knowledge that a tree makes a sound when it falls but only if they are there to hear it.

If a person is not there to hear the vibrations when the tree falls then it does not make a sound at

all. Locke has shown in his paper that for the brain to perceive that the tree makes the sound, no

matter who is there to witness it, it must come from them taking in what they know and giving it

a place where they do not know. “After the same manner that the ideas of these original qualities

are produced in us, we may conceive that the ideas of secondary qualities are also produced by

the operations of insensible particles on our senses.” (Feinberg, Shafer-Landau, and Regents

Professor of Philosophy Joel Feinberg) Basically this means that when a tree falls it creates a

sound and that sound is made no matter who is there to hear it.

Locke believed that because sound must be passed through an auditory medium for it to

exist. This puts into view how Locke took his understanding of how humans work. He showed

over and over in his work that the human mind can only take in simple ideas. The mind gathers

multiple simple ideas throughout life and once in the mind are shaped into complex things. The

mind is the reason the consensus is that a tree makes a sound when it falls no matter what. The

brain makes the points that why would the tree not make a sound just because no one is around

to hear it. Why does the presence of a person determine if a sound is made by an object or not?

“A disturbance propagated through a medium by longitudinal waves. Strictly the term applies

only to those waves that are audible to the human ear, i.e. with frequencies between about 20 and
20 000 hertz, those with frequencies above 20 000 hertz being called ultrasound and those below

20 hertz infrasound. Sound is propagated by vibrations of molecules in the medium, producing

fronts of compression and rarefaction.” (The Macmillan Encyclopedia)

Sound is only defined when it can be heard by the human ear. If it does not register to the

human ear, then scientist do not conclude that it is audible sound. While there are other sounds

that are created on different frequency levels that can be picked up by different things they are

given a different classification. The sound that is known to the population is that which is heard

by them when the action that causes it occurs. Without this level of sound being made Locke

stated that the sound does not exist. Locke stipulated that because of the simple ideas that are

collected by a person mold into a complex idea of the sound existing no matter who is there to

hear it. The idea that when a tree falls a sound is made because the tree is heavy and that weight

creates a sound as it hits other things. The idea that the falling of the tree remains that same no

matter what is around it is another. These simple ideas combine and give the complex idea that a

sound is made because that is what the brain stipulates.

The philosophical puzzle: “If a tree falls in the forest and there's no one around to hear it,

does it make a sound?” By using the epistemology approach to this age old question the answer

would be a yes. The sound is created because the entire act of the tree falling remains the same.

The sound that would be heard by a person is still created even if a person is not there to witness

it. Locke does not agree with this assessment and gives a no to the question. The sound that is

made must go through the auditory medium of a person for the sound to be classified as

happening. If the sound is not heard, then it in fact does not actually exist. The mind just

perceives that the sound would be created because why would a sound not exist depending on the

witness of it. While these are two views on the question that has been asked by people for many
of years it depends on the person’s personal perspective. No one can answer a question correctly

when there is a multiple of correct answers that could be given. With the information that is

provided only one thing can be asked. What is your answer to the question “If a tree falls in the

forest and there's no one around to hear it, does it make a sound?

Work Cited

Feinberg, Joel, Russ Shafer-Landau, and Regents Professor of Philosophy Joel Feinberg. Reason

and Responsibility: Readings in Some Basic Problems of Philosophy. 15th ed. Boston,

MA, United States: Wadsworth Publishing Co, 2012. Print.

Locke, John. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Ed. Peter H. Nidditch. New York:

Oxford University Press, 1979. Print. https://books.google.com/books?

hl=en&lr=&id=cjYIAAAAQAAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=john+locke&ots=BLTJLpMC

GF&sig=VckefiREEvvWqZEmeTfMUPipHyI#v=onepage&q=john%20locke&f=false

Lowe, E. J. Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Locke On Human Understanding. London:

Taylor & Francis [CAM], 1995. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 28 Oct. 2016.

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direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=73470&site=ehost-live&scope=site

"Sound." The Macmillan Encyclopedia, Market House Books Ltd, 2003. Credo

Reference, http://ezproxy.apus.edu/login?url=http://search.credoreference.com.ezproxy2.

apus.edu/content/entry/move/sound/0. Accessed 21 Nov 2016.

Suchting, Wal. "Epistemology." Historical Materialism 14.3 (2006): 331-345. Academic Search

Premier. Web. 20 Nov. 2016.

Uzgalis, William, "John Locke", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2016

Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.) Web. 28 Oct. 2016., URL =

http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2016/entries/locke/