Encyclopedia Britannica
Understanding John Locke with new eyes
LIFE AND WORKS
JOHN Locke was born on August 29, 1632, the oldest child of a respectable Somersetshire family of puritan sympathies. His father was a lawyer, small land owner, [1]who at the same time of the puritan revolt became a petty officer in the army of the notorious Cromwell. Locke lost his mother while he was yet very young.[2] Locke’s early education was carefully tended by his father at their rural home at beluton, near Bristol; and it was probably the influence of the elders Locke’s parliamentary patrons that he obtained a place Westminster School, where he remained from his fourteenth to his twentieth year. In 1652 he won a scholarship to Christ Church College, Oxford.
At that time Locke entered oxford, Cromwell was chancellor, and the puritans were in control. The curriculum, however, was still the traditional one of grammar, rhetoric, logic, geometry, and moral philosophy. Locke later declared that he had lost a great deal of time at the commencement of his studies, because the only philosophy then known at oxford was the peripatetic, and his friend, Lady Masham, reported that he often told her that he had so small satisfaction there from his studies., that this discouragement kept him from being any very hard student.” Nevertheless, after taking up his bachelor’s degree in 1656, he remained at oxford to obtain his master’s degree and then became successively lecturer in Greek, reader in rhetoric, and finally in 1664 censor of moral philosophy. But such activity did fully occupy his attention. Until he was able to read the writings of Descartes, which gave him a relish of philosophical things, and the founding at Oxford of the royal society led him to begin experimenting in chemistry and meteorology. Soon afterwards he began the study of medicine and by 1666 he was encaged in occasion practice, although he never took up a doctor’s degree. In 1667 he abandoned the academic life for the political world of London and the society of great wits and ambitious politicians. This action came about largely as a result of an accidental meeting and ensuing of friendship with Lord Ashley, who persuaded Locke to enter his household as his personal physician, general adviser and confidant. For the 16th years Locke served his patron in various capacities. When Ashley made as first earl of Shaftesbury and Lord Chancellor 1672, Locke became ‘’secretary of presentations” and secretary of the council of trade. However, all of these things did not hinder him in pursuing his scientific and philosophical interests. His medical studies provided him with meeting and befriended of Sydenham. He kept up his early interest in chemistry with his friend Robert Boyle. On one such occasion when meeting with five or six friends, a question arose concerning the ‘’limits of Human understanding.” Locke undertook to provide an answer, and what was thus begun by change chance, was continued by entreaty, written by incoherent parcels after long intervals of neglect resumed again as humor and occasions permitted, and published after almost twenty years as an Essay Concerning Human Understanding.
Locke’s fortune generally was closely linked with those of Shaftesbury, and when the earl fell from power in 1675, Locke withdrew from public life. He went to France, where he remained four years, during which he sought to restore his health, which had never been good, and to work upon his essay. At montpollier he was the neighbor of the earl of Pembroke, later also the patron of Berkeley, to whom he dedicated his work. When Shaftesbury again arose to power in 1679, Locke retuned to England and resumed his former activities. Although he seems to have played little part in Shaftesbury’s plotting with Monmouth against the king who led to the exile and death, he fell under royal suspicion, and in 1683 he found more safety to seek refuge in Holland. Fearing that he would be arrested by the English government, he lived at first in Amsterdam under the assumed name of Dr. Van der linden. He rapidly formed congenial associations, especially the remonstrant, with which Spinoza had also lived, and settled down to complete the Essay. In 1687 he made his first appearance as an author by publishing an abstract of it in the Bibliotheque Universelle of his friend, Le Clerc. It seems likely that he was involved to some extent in planning the revolution of 1688. He had friend among the English refugees, he was known to William of Orange, and he returned to England in 1689 in the same ship which carried William’s wife, Princes Mary.
Although Locke was offered several responsibilities in the new regime, he preferred to devote himself to his writings and accepted only the comparatively light task of commissioner of appeals. Within four years he completed his works. The Letter Corning Toleration, which had been written and publish in Latin in Holland, appeared in English the year of his return. In 1690 the two Treatises On Civil Government and three years later, the Thoughts on Education.
Prompted by ill-health and dissatisfaction with course of public affairs, Locke retired in 1691 to Oates Manor in Essex, the home of Lady Masham, daughter of Ralph Cudworth, the Cambridge Platonist. He continued to work at the essay and in 1694 published a second edition; a third and fourth edition were also brought out during his life time. The Essay and Letter Concerning Toleration involved him in a long series of controversies regarding the religious implications of his teaching. In 1696 to 1700, Locke was attack by illness, and the last years of his life were spent quietly in retirement at Oates it is also the time when he wrote some letters of his friend Isaac Newton. He occupied himself with biblical studies and wrote a commentary on St. Paul’s Epistles. He was in the midst of writing a Fourth Letter on Toleration when he died on October 28, 1704. He was buried near Oates by the parish church of High Laver. [3]
EXTERNAL AND CRITICAL WAY OF UNDERSTANDING LOCKE
Now we will try to see how the events in Locke’s life played a great part in his philosophical inquiry. In fact, it is inevitable that traditional Scholasticism as a system and method lingered on in oxford for many years.[4] Then with this certain fact, we can say that scholasticism has also something to do with how Locke view things, may it be in the way Scholastic view things or in another way around. Yet, if we try to scrutinize so much about his life in oxford we can see how Locke during his university career, conceived a great aversion for Scholasticism. Thus we can say that Locke was a self made philosopher. He read, no doubt, all the system that fell on into his hands. Thus it is not surprising to know that he read Descartes when he was still in oxford. Moreover, of those who influenced Locke the first most obvious is Descartes, whose Discourse on Method was published in 1637, five years after Locke’s birth, followed by the meditations in 1641 and the principles in 1644; it is likely too that Locke was familiar with Regulae which, though not published until eleven years after the essay, had for long been circulating in Holland in manuscript copies. We have Locke’s own acknowledgment to Descartes that he owed to him the great obligation of my deliverance from the unintelligible way of taking the philosophy in use in Schools in his time. And this is borne out by ample internal evidence in the essay itself e.g., the terminology clear and distinct ideas and perception, the account of intuitive and of demonstrative knowledge, and of the fourfold function of reason in demonstration. Even though Locke took many opportunities of attacking the academic exercises of oxford philosophy, he still continued with the language of substance, modes, essences, and accidents, and like Descartes he accepted the necessity of the causal principle as something that could not be doubted. But it is so interesting for us to know that while he owed much to Descartes, he was far from being a Cartesian.[5] In the first part of his Essay we can see how Locke denied the doctrine of innate ideas. He rejected Descartes two cardinal principles, that thought is the essence of mind, and that extension is the essence of the body, and most important of all, he disagreed with Descartes view that mathematics provides the idea for all of knowledge.
On the other hand, Locke was not just influenced by Descartes, for he was also influenced by Gasendi, the author of the fifth set of objections to Descartes’ Meditations, and by Robert Boyle, the chemist, who was directly involved in the inception of the essay. While Locke never met Gasendi, nor acknowledge his influence he was well acquainted with his works, including his objections to Descartes; and the similarly of Gassendi’s views too much so that Leibniz labeled Locke as a Gassendist. That the human mind starts as a Tabula Rasa is the same as Locke’s statement that the mind starts as a white paper void of all characters, or as an empty cabinet; further more, Locke was influence by the epicurean doctrine that there is nothing in the mind which was not previously in the senses corresponds to one of Locke’s twin sources of ideas; that all other ideas are formed by the construction and elaboration of these is Locke’s doctrine of composition and abstraction. And many other of Locke’s view are to be found very similarly expressed in Gassendi: the impossibility of discovering the real essences of material objects; and the refutation of Descartes’ methodological supposition that all so called waking experiences might be a dream.
Yet it is also worth noting that not only Gassendi influenced Locke. Because it is Boyle’s influence to Locke that is so personal and direct. For the fact that they were friends and Locke was not only intimately acquainted with Boyle’s scientific work, but undertook some of it for him. They were both also both members of a group whose interests in and discussions of the new experimental science led to the formation of the Royal Society, of which Boyle was one of the foundation members, Locke being elected a few years later. It was such discussion held in London in 1607-1 that they idea of the Essay was born,[6] when a question arose concerning the limits of human understanding. [7] Locke’s acquaintance with Boyle stimulated nor only his interest in natural science, but also his conviction that the empirical method of careful and accurate observation must be applied to philosophy, in contrast of the rationalist procedure of the Cartesians. To see clearly the influence, let’s try to see one of the principal doctrines of the Essay, the distinction between primary and secondary qualities, had been expressed, even in the terminology, in Boyle’s The Origin of Forms and Qualities (1666). Boyle’s corpuscular physics runs throughout the Essay, and Locke’s emphasis on the need to recognize the limitations imposed on the possible extent of human knowledge had been anticipated by him. In minor matter, Locke repeated an unvaried use of gold as his example, whatever writing in the essay of the defining properties of a material object, may well have been connected with touching confidence in Boyle’s claim to have discovered a formula for the alchemical production of gold.[8] This is in fact, a proof that Locke’s views are also mixed up with the people around him. Thus, if we try to dig it deeper we can see some lines that connect to the thoughts of those who influenced him. One of the vivid examples is Locke’s acceptance that sensitive knowledge is not knowledge in the strict sense of the term; it only passes under the name of knowledge, for it does not give us certainty, nor does it extend very far. For the reason that if we sense that we see another man and have no doubt that he exists, but when he leaves us, we are no longer sure of his existence. For if I saw a collection of simple ideas is wont to called man, existing together one minute since, and am now alone, I cannot be certain that the same man exist now, since there’s o necessary connection of his existence a minute since with his existence now. And therefore while I am alone, writing this, I have not that knowledge of it which we strictly call knowledge; though the great likely hood of it put me to doubt.[9] This claim of Locke can be trace to Descartes claim that we cannot have certain knowledge by our senses, for senses deceive us. It cannot be trusted. However, even if we can trace some thoughts of Locke that connect to the thoughts of those people who had influenced him, yet, we cannot debar the very fact, that he is never standing on the ground where those people who had influenced him stood. For John Locke is certainty standing with his own unique philosophy, that needs our unstained inquiry. For in trying to unveil his own uniqueness, we also need for while to remove our biases of the things which we found and mentioned above. We have to look at Locke this time as a philosopher of his own. A Self made philosopher.
JOHN LOCKE’S THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE
A. NO INNATE IDEAS
On the first part of his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, we can see how Locke devoted Book 1 in refuting the principles of innate ideas that says, there are in the understanding certain innate principles; some primary notions, characters, as it were stamped upon the mind of man, which the soul receives in its vey first being, and brings into the world with it. [10]
Locke in refuting the innate principles sets out different arguments to clear the ground for presenting his thesis that all knowledge springs form experience. He finds it necessary to dispose of the doctrines of innate ideas and of innate propositions. Hence, his attack which, while depriving the doctrine of itself; nevertheless, a theory for which no good reasons can be given, is not left in a reputable position. The most direct attack is that made by challenging the theory’s presuppositions. If proposition is to be innate, the ideas which are its component elements must be innate; but in fact no such ideas are innate; therefore, the proposition itself cannot be innate. E.g., the maxims ‘’whatever is, is’ or ‘’A thing cannot both be and not to be,’ although undoubtedly true, are highly abstract and far beyond the comprehension of a child of several years, let alone a new born infant what could be possible reason for supposing that the human infant knows of accepts the truth of these maxims, when the ideas involved are far beyond anything that it is capable of?
The chief argument for innate principle, viz., that such principles command a universal consent, Locke immediately counters with two objections. First, even if it were true that any principle did receive universal consent, this would not prove them innate.[11] Simply because there are great parts of mankind to whom such maxims are not known.[12]
Locke maintained his view that a man could not formulate or understand the proposition that white is black until he had learned the meaning of the words white and black, unless he had seen white objects. In advance of seeing white he could not formulate any proposition about white. Once he has by experience learned what it is to be white, to be black, and to be different. And this is what is self-evident for Locke. If by universal consent to a proposition is meant consent of all who understand the proposition, and if some propositions which are not innate command universal consent (in this limited sense), it follows that universal consent is not a sufficient condition of the proposition assented to being innate.
Secondly, Locke maintains that, if universal consent is used in an unlimited sense, no proposition does command consent. Taking what he pejoratively calls” those magnified principles of demonstration ”whatever is, is and it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be, which, of all others, I think have the most allowed title to innate; Locke replies these propositions are so far from having a universal consent, that there are a great part of mankind to whom they are not so much known.[13] For it is impossible to through life without ever hearing either of them, and children and idiots having not the least apprehension r thought of them.[14] Thus it was so interesting to see how Locke refuses to accept the doctrine of innate principles whether speculative or practical.
B. ORIGIN OF IDEAS
After Locke’s reputation of the innate principles or ideas, let us not miss the answer of the question, If Ideas are not innate, where do they come from? What then is the Origin of Ideas? These questions cannot just simply be forgotten or neglected. For the very reason that it is through the answer of these question we could see how Locke differed from the other philosophers. John Locke then said, every man being conscious to himself that he thinks; and that which his mind is applied about whilst thinking being the ideas that are there, it is past doubt that men have in their minds several ideas, such as are those expressed by the words whiteness, hardness, sweetness, thinking, motion, man, elephant, army, drunkenness, and many others: are not innate ideas. For according to Locke, our mind is like a white paper, void of all characters, without any ideas. Now we may ask, where does then idea come from? To this, Locke answered, all ideas come from the two kinds of experience: sensation and reflection. Sensation and reflection then, are the two fountains of knowledge, from whence al the ideas we have, or can naturally have, do spring. Locke further said, that sensation is a great source of most of our ideas we have, depending wholly upon our senses, and derived by them to the understanding. Our senses then, conversant about particular sensible objects, do convey into the mind several distinct perceptions of things, according to those various ways wherein those objects do affect them. And thus we come by those ideas we have of yellow, white, heat, cold, hard, bitter, sweet, and all those which we call sensible qualities; which then I say the senses convey into the mind, I mean they from external objects convey into the mind what produces there those perceptions.
The other fountain from which experience furnished the understanding with ideas is the perception of the operations of our own mind within us, as it employed about the ideas it has got; which operations, when the soul comes to reflect on and consider, do furnish the understanding with another set of ideas, which could not be had from things without. And such are, perception, thinking, doubting, believing, reasoning, knowing, willing, and all the different acting of our own minds; which we being conscious of, and observing in ourselves, do from these received into our understanding as distinct ideas as we do from bodies affecting our senses. This source of ideas every man has whlly in himself; and though it be not sense, as having nothing to do with external objects, yet, it is very like it, and might properly enough be called internal sense. But I call this Reflection, the ideas it affords being such only as the mind gets by reflecting on its own operations within itself.[15] Thus it is clear for Locke that ideas are coming from sensation and reflection. Which we call experience. It’s within sensation that external material things are its objects, wherein external objects furnish the mind with the ideas of sensible qualities, which are all those different perceptions they produce in us; and the mind furnishes the understanding with ideas of its own operations, which actually the object of reflection.
However, if that is the point of Locke, we could then now ask when can Man begin to have ideas? To this Locke reply, I think the true answer is, when he first has any sensation. For, since there appear not to be any ideas in the mind before the senses have conveyed any in, I conceive that ideas in the understanding are coeval with sensation; which is such an impression or motion made in some part of the body, as it produces some perceptions in the understanding. In time comes the mind to reflect its own operations about the ideas got by sensation, and thereby stores itself with new set of ideas, which I call ideas of reflection. These are the impressions that are made on our senses by the outward objects that are intrinsically to the mind; and its own operations, producing from powers intrinsical and proper to itself, which, when reflected on by itself, become also objects of its contemplation are the original of all knowledge. Thus the first capacity of human intellect is, that the mind is fitted to receive the impressions made on it’ either through the senses by outward objects, or by its own operations when it reflects on them. This is the first step a man makes towards the discovery of anything, and the groundwork whereon to build all those notions which ever he shall have naturally in this world.[16]
C. SIPLE AND COMPLEX IDEAS
It is already clear to us why Locke refuted the innate principles as he lays down his theory of where does idea come from, as our mind is like a white paper void of any characters, without any ideas, and only experience can furnish it with elements of knowledge. For experience can gives us two sources of ideas; sensation and reflection. From the senses we receive into our minds about objects external to us. And the other facet of experience is reflection, an activity of the mind that produces ideas by taking notice of the previous ideas furnished by the senses. It involves perception thinking, and other mental activities of the mind that produce ideas distinct as those received from external bodies affecting the senses. All these ideas we have can be traced either to sensation or reflection. On the other hand, these ideas are either simple or complex ideas.
What then now are simple ideas? According to Locke, simple ideas constitute the chief source of the raw materials out of which our knowledge is made. These ideas are received passively by the mind through the senses.
Simple ideas constitute the chief source of the raw materials out of which our knowledge is made. These ideas are received passively by the mind through the senses. When we look at an object, ideas come into our mind’s single file. This is so even when an object has several qualities blended together. For example, a white lily has the qualities of whiteness and sweetness without any separation. Our minds receive the idea of white and sweet separately because each idea enter through a different sense, namely the sense of sight and the sense of smell. Sometimes different qualities enter by the same sense, as when both hardness and coldness of ice come through the sense of touch. In this case, our mind sort out the difference between them because there are in fact two different qualities involved. Thus our simple ideas primarily originate in sensation. Moreover, just as the senses are affected by objects, so too are our minds aware of the ideas we have received. In relation to the ideas received through the senses, our minds can develop other simple ideas by reasoning and judging. Thus, simple ideas of reflection might be pleasure or pain, or the idea of causal power obtained from observing the effect natural has on other.[17]
However, of those where simple ideas passively received by the mind, complex idea on the other hand, are not received passively by the mind. The mind exerts several acts of its own. Whereby out of its simple ideas, as materials and foundations of the rest, the others are framed, the acts of the mind where it exerts its power over its simple ideas are chiefly these three: (1) combining several simple ideas into one compound one; and thus all complex ideas are made. (2) The second is bring two ideas, whether simple or complex together, and setting them by one another, so as to take a view of them at once, without uniting them into one; by which way it gets all its ideas from relations. (3) The mind is separating them from all other ideas that accompany them in their real existence. This is called Abstract and thus all it general ideas.[18]
Thus, my mind joins the ideas of whiteness, hardness and sweetness to form the complex idea of the lamp sugar. My mind also brings ideas together but holds them separate from the purpose of thinking relationships, as when we say the grass is greener than the tree. Finally, my mind can separate ideas from all other ideas that accompany them in their real existence as when we separate the idea of man from John, Peter and Paul. In this manner of Abstraction all its general laws are made.
D. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY QUALITIES
To know even more detail how we get our ideas, Locke Turn his attention to the problem of how ideas are related to the objects that produce them. Do our ideas reproduce exactly the objects we sense? Or for example, we consider a snowball, what is the relation between the ideas that the snowball engenders in our minds and the actual nature of the snowball? We have ideas such as round, moving,hard, white and cold. The account for these ideas, Locke says that objects have qualities, and he defines a quality as the power (in an object) to produce any idea in our mind. The snowball then, has qualities that have the power to produce ideas in our minds.
To make it more clearer, Locke attempts here an important distinction between two different kinds of qualities in order to answer the question of how ideas are related to objects. He terms these qualities primary and secondary. Primary qualities are those that “really do exist in the bodies themselves. They are qualities inseparable from the body.[19] Thus, our ideas, caused by primary qualities, resemble exactly those qualities that belong inseparably to the object. Secondary qualities, on the other hand, produce ideas in our mind that have no exact counterpart on the object. We have the idea of cold when we touch the snowball. What is in the snowball is the quality, the power to create in us the ideas of cold and white because secondary qualities, such as colors, sounds, tastes and odors, do not belong to or constitute bodies except as powers to produce these ideas to us.[20] and depend those primary qualities, viz, bulk, figure, texture and motion of parts as I have said. Locke further says that the ideas of primary qualities of bodies are resemblance of them, and their patterns do really exist in the bodies themselves: but the ideas produced by these qualities have no resemblance of them all. The qualities then that are in bodies, rightly considered are of three sorts:
First, the bulk, figure, number and motion or rest of their solid parts; those are in them, whether we perceive them or not; and when they are of that size that we can discover them, we have by these ideas of the thing as it is in itself, as is plain artificial things. This I call primary qualities.
Secondly, the power that is in anybody, by reason of its insensible primary qualities, to operate after a peculiar manner on any of our senses, and thereby produce in us the different ideas of several colors, sounds, smells, tastes, etc. these are usually called sensible qualities.
Thirdly, the power that is in anybody, by reason of the particular constitution of its primary qualities, to make such a change in the bulk, figure, texture and motion of another body, as to make it operate on our senses differently what it did before. Thus, the sun has a power to make wax white, and fire, to make lead fluid. These are usually powers.
The first of these, as has been said, I think may be properly called real, original, or primarily qualities because they exist in things themselves, whether they are perceived or no; and upon their different modifications it is that the secondary qualities depend. The other two are only powers to act differently upon their things, which powers result from the different modifications of those primary qualities.
Complex Ideas of Substances
As we can see through Locke’s presentation of the mind, we can see how the mind furnished with great number of simple ideas conveyed in by the senses, as they are found in exterior things, or by reflection on its own operations, takes notice, also, that a certain number of these simple ideas go constantly together; which being presumed to belong to one thing, and words being suited to common apprehension and made use of for quick dispatch are called, so united in one subject, by one name; which, by inadvertency, we are apt afterward to talk of and consider as one simple idea, which indeed is a complication of many ideas together because as I have said not imagining how this simple ideas can subsist by themselves, we can accustom ourselves to suppose some substratum wherein they do subsist, and from which they so result which we call substance[21]On the other hand, Locke was unable to describe substance with precision. He admitted that if anyone will examine himself concerning his notion of pure substance in general, he will find he has no other idea of it at all, but only supposition of he knows not what support of such qualities which are capable of producing simple ideas in us.[22] thus, the ideas then, we have, to which we give general name substance being nothing but the supposed, but unknown support of those qualities we find existing which we imagine cannot subsist Sine re substante, substantia; which, according to the true import of the word, is, in plain English, standing under or upholding.
Now, having an obscure and relative idea of substance in general being made, we come to have the idea of particular sorts of substance by collecting such combinations of simple ideas as are be experience and observation of men’s senses taken notice of to exist together, and are therefore supposed to flow from the particular internal constitution or unknown essence of that substance. Thus we care to have the ideas of a man, horse, gold, water, etc., of which substances, whether anyone has any other clear idea, farther than of certain simple ideas coexist together, I appeal to everyone’s own experience. It is the ordinary qualities observable in iron or diamond, put together that make the true complex idea of those substances, which a smith or a jeweler commonly knows better than a Philosopher; who, whatever substantial forms he may talk of, has no other ideas of those substances than what is framed by a collection of those simple ideas which are to be found in them. Thus, the idea of the sun for example, what is it but aggregate as those several simple ideas. Bright, hot, reddish, having a constant regular motion, at a certain distance from us, and perhaps some other as he who thinks and discourses of the sun has been more or less accurate in observing those sensible qualities, idea or properties which are in the thing which he calls the sun.[23] Thus, Locke saw in the concept of substance the explanation of sensation, saying that sensation is caused by substance. Similarly, it is substance that contains the power that give regularity and consistency to our ideas. Finally, it is substance, Locke held, that constitute the object of sensitive knowledge. With this, we can see how Locke was impelled by simple logic of matter: of there is motion, there must be something that moves qualities simply cannot float around without something that holds them together. We have ideas of matter and of thinking, but we shall never be able to know whether any mere material being thinks or no: but if there is thinking, there must be something that thinks. We have also an idea of God, which, like the idea of substance in general, is not clear and distinct. Yet, if we examine the idea we have of the incomprehensible Supreme Being, we shall find that we come by it in the same way, and that the complex ideas we have both of God and separate spirits are made up of the simple ideas that we receive from reflection. The idea of God, as the idea of substance, is inferred from oth4er simple ideas and is the product not of immediate observation but of demonstration but the idea of substance, being “something we know not what”, does raise for Locke the question of just how far our knowledge extends and how much validity it has.[24]
E. DEGREES OF KNOWLEDGE
As Locke faces the question of how far our knowledge extends, he finally defines knowledge as nothing more than the perception of the connection and agreement and disagreement and repugnancy of any of our ideas. In this alone it consists where this perception is, there is knowledge and where it is not, there, though we may fancy, guess or believe, yet we always come short of knowledge for where we know that white is not black, what do we else but perceive that these two ideas do not agree? When we possess ourselves with the utmost security of demonstration, that the three angles of the triangle, are equal to two right ones, what do we more perceive and that equality to two right ones does necessarily agree to, and is inseparable from the three angles of a triangle?[25]
F. THE EXTENT OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE
Knowledge, as has been said, lying in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of any of our ideas, it follows from hence that (1) no further than we have ideas. First, we can have knowledge no further than we can have ideas. Secondly, that we can have no knowledge further than we can have perception of that agreement or disagreement which perception being (1) either by intuition, or the immediate comparing any two ideas or (2) by reason, examining the agreement or disagreement of two ideas by intervention of some other or (3) by sensation, perceiving the existence of particular thing; hence, it also follows that we cannot have an intuitive knowledge that shall extend itself to all our ideas, and all that we would know about them because we cannot examine and perceive all relations they have one to another by juxtaposition, or an immediate comparison one with another. Thus having the ideas of an obtuse and an acute angled triangle, both drawn from equal bases and between parallels I can by intuitive knowledge perceive the one not to be the other, but cannot that way know whether they be equal or no: because there agreement or disagreement in equality can never be perceived by an immediate comparing them; the difference of the figure makes their parts incapable of an exact immediate application, and therefore there is need of some intervening qualities to measure them by, which is demonstration or rational knowledge. Fourthly, it follows also, from what is above observed that our rational knowledge cannot reach to the whole extent of our ideas: because between two different ideas we would examine, we cannot always find such mediums as we can connect one to another with an intuitive knowledge in all the parts of the deduction; and wherever that fails, we come short of knowledge and demonstration. Fifthly, sensitive knowledge reaching no further than the existence of things actually present to our senses, is yet mush narrower than either of the former.[26]
After mentioning all of those things above, we shall now try to see how real our knowledge is. Locke said that our knowledge is real only so far as there is conformity between our ideas and the reality of things. But what shall be here the criterion? How shall the mind, when it perceives nothing but its own ideas, know that they agree with things themselves? This thought it seems not to want difficulty, yet, I think there be two sorts of ideas that we may be assured agree with things.
As all simple ideas are rally conformed to things. First, the first are simple ideas, which since the mind, as has been shown, can by no means make to itself, must necessarily be the product of thing operating on the mind, in a natural way, and producing therein those perceptions which by the Wisdom and Will of our Maker they are ordained and adopted to. From whence it follows, that simple ideas are not fictions of our fancies, but our natural and the regular productions of things without us, rally operating upon us; and so carry with them all the conformity which is intended; or which our state requires, for they represent to us things under those appearances which they are fitted to produce in us: whereby we are enabled to do distinguish the sorts of particular substances, to discern the states they are in, and so to take them for our necessities, and apply them to our uses. Thus, the idea of whiteness, or bitterness, as it is in the mind, exactly answering that power which is in anybody to produce it there, has all the real conformity it can or ought to have, with things without us. And this conformity between our simple ideas and the existence of things is sufficient for real knowledge. All complex ideas, except ideas of substances, are secondly, all our complex ideas, except those of substances, being archetypes of the mind’s own making, not intended to be copies of anything nor referred to the existence of anything , as to their originals, cannot want any conformity necessary to real knowledge for that which is not designed to represent anything but itself, can never be capable of wrong representation nor mislead us from the true apprehension of anything but its dislikeness to it. And such, excepting those of substances, are all our complex ideas. Which, as I have shown in another place, are combinations of ideas, which the mind, by its free choice, puts together without considering any connection they have in nature. And hence, it is that in all these sorts the ideas themselves are considered as archetypes and things no otherwise regarded, but as they are conformable to them. So that we cannot but be infallibly certain, that all the knowledge we attain concerning these ideas is real, and reaches things themselves. Because all our thoughts, reasoning, and discourses of this kind, we intend things not further than as they are conformable to our ideas, So that with this, we cannot miss of a certain and undoubted reality.
Notes:
[1] Great books; Locke, Berkeley and Hume; (encyclopedia Britannica, Inc,1994).,p.ix
[2] Michel J. Mahony, S.J, History of Modern Thought (New York: Fordham University, 1933,.)p.18
[3] Great books; Locke, Berkeley and Hume; encyclopedia Britannica, Inc. p. ix-x
[4] Michel J. Mahony, S.J, History of Modern Thought (New York: Fordham University, 1933,.)p.32
[5] A.D Woozly, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding(America, New American library inc.,) p.10
[6] Ibid, p.12
[7] Great books; Locke, Berkeley and Hume; encyclopedia Britannica, Inc. p.ix
[8] A.D Woozly, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding(America, New American library inc.,)p p.12-13
[9] Art; Socrates and Beyond: part 3 modern Philosophy. P257
[10] Great books; Locke, Berkeley and Hume; encyclopedia Britannica, Inc. p.95
[11] A.D Woozly, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding(America, New American library inc.,)pp.17-18
[12] Great books; Locke, Berkeley and Hume; encyclopedia Britannica, Inc. p. 96
[13] A.D Woozly, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding(America, New American library inc.,)p.19
[14] Great books; Locke, Berkeley and Hume; encyclopedia Britannica, Inc. p. 96
[15] Ibid. pp.121-122
[16] Ibid, p.127
[17] Socrates and Beyond: part 3 modern Philosophy.(photo copy)p. 254
[18] Great books; Locke, Berkeley and Hume;( encyclopedia Britannica, Inc. )p.147
[19] Peter Windt; An Introduction to Philosophy: Idea and Conflict(New York; West Publishing Company).,1982., p.513
[20] Socrates and Beyond: part 3 modern Philosophy.(photo copy)p.255
[21] Elmer Sprague & Paul W. Taylor; knowledge and Value.,( New York; Harcourt, Brace & World Inc.,), 1959.,p.79-80
[22] Socrates and Beyond: part 3 modern Philosophy.(photo copy)p.256
[23] Elmer Sprague & Paul W. Taylor; knowledge and Value.,( New York; Harcourt, Brace & World Inc.,), 1959.,pp. 81-82
[24] Socrates and Beyond: part 3 modern Philosophy.(photo copy)p.256
[25] Great books; Locke, Berkeley and Hume; (encyclopedia Britannica, Inc. )., 1994.,p.307
[26] Elmer Sprague & Paul W. Taylor; knowledge and Value.,( New York; Harcourt, Brace & World Inc.,), 1959.,pp. 85-86
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