Locke: Ideas

Philosophers have often claimed that general ideas or representations have their origin in abstraction, but it remains unclear exactly what abstraction as a psychological process consists in. We argue that the Lockean aspiration of using abstraction to explain the origins of all general representations cannot work and that at least some general representations have to be innate. We then offer an explicit framework for understanding abstraction, one that treats abstraction as a computational process that operates over an innate quality space (...) of fine-grained general representations. We argue that this framework has important philosophical implications for the nativism-empiricism dispute, for questions about the acquisition of unstructured representations, and for questions about the relation between human and animal minds. (shrink)

Widespread amongst scholars is the legend according to which Locke shows a strong aversion to abstract ideas, similar to that of Berkley in the Treatise. This legend is endorsed by influential commentators on Locke. He does not even propose the reduction of ideas to mental pictures (a reduction which in Berkeley and Hume will form the base of the negation of the existence of abstract ideas in the mind). Locke is not in the least afraid of abstract ideas; his constant (...) concern, which is evident in his treatment of the complex question of the relation between real and nominal essence, is to refute the position of the Scholastics, according to which a universal concept in the mind (post rem) reflects the universal present in all things as substantial form (the universal in re), without assuming positions which are purely conventionalist and nominalist with regard to knowledge, such as those of Mersenne, Gassendi, Hobbes and sceptical and anti-Cartesian free-thinkers. To show this, I offer an analysis of the relation Locke makes between real and nominal essence, with regard to the relations which link term to idea and idea to things. The nature of the relation between signifier and signified is variable, though, in the relation between ideas and things with respect to the various kinds of complex ideas which the human mind may frame. The greatest difference is to be found between complex ideas of mixed mode and complex ideas of substance. (shrink)

Much recent philosophy of perception is preoccupied with finding a place for phenomenal character in a physical world. By contrast, Locke’s philosophy of sensory perception is an episode in his ‘Historical, plain method’ and seeks to map out the processes by which we experience ordinary objects. On Locke’s account, our ideas of primary and secondary qualities enter the mind ‘simple and unmixed’; having an idea of a colour, for example, is not necessary for the visual experience of a shape. An (...) analysis of the Molyneux problem reveals that, for Locke, judgment corrects the initial two-dimensional idea vision presents us with. Nevertheless, Locke’s position is problematic: he has no account of how we pair ideas of primary and secondary qualities, nor of how we could experience a colourless visual idea of shape. (shrink)

En su Tratado sobre los principios del conocimiento humano, George Berkeley ofrece una serie de argumentos cuyo objetivo es criticar la tesis materialista. Mi propósito en este artículo es reconstruir y analizar en detalle estos argumentos. Dado que la crítica de Berkeley al materialismo es, fundamentalmente, una crítica al materialismo representacionalista de John Locke, empezaré este artículo explicando cuáles son las ideas básicas de la propuesta de Locke.

This paper offers an epistemic defense of empathy, drawing on John Locke's theory of ideas. Locke held that ideas of shape, unlike ideas of color, had a distinctive value: resembling qualities in their objects. I argue that the same is true of empathy, as when someone is pained by someone's pain. This means that empathy has the same epistemic value or objectivity that Locke and other early modern philosophers assigned to veridical perceptions of shape. For this to hold, pain and (...) pleasure must be a primary quality of the mind, just as shape is a primary quality of bodies. Though Locke did not make that claim, I argue that pain and pleasure satisfy his criteria for primary qualities. I consider several objections to the analogy between empathy and shape-perception and show how Locke's theory has resources for answering them. In addition, the claim that empathetic ideas are object-matching sidesteps Berkeley's influential objection to Locke's theory of resemblance. I conclude by briefly considering the prospects for a similar defense of empathy in contemporary terms. (shrink)

This paper examines the pressures leading two very different Early Modern philosophers, Descartes and Locke, to invoke two ways in which thought is directed at objects. According to both philosophers, I argue, the same idea can simultaneously count as “of” two different objects—in two different senses of the phrase ‘idea of’. One kind of intentional directedness is invoked in answering the question What is it to think that thus-and-so? The other kind is invoked in answering the question What accounts for (...) the success of our proper methods of inquiry? For Descartes as well as Locke, the two kinds of “ofness” come apart as a result of strong rationalist commitments. However, I will suggest that even if we reject such commitments, we go wrong if we assume that a single kind of intentional directedness suffices to address both questions. (shrink)

The paper argues for the view advocated by Yolton that Locke's ideas are best viewed as intentional contents. Drawing on Smith and McIntyre's distincition between object- and content-theories of intentionality I seek it show that it belongs to the second category. The argument relies mainly on the analysis of Locke's discussion of meaning, the reality and adequacy of ideas and real essence.

On a currently popular reading of Locke, an idea represents its cause, or what God intended to be its cause. Against Martha Bolton and my former self (among others), I argue that Locke cannot hold such a view, since it sins against his epistemology and theory of abstraction. I argue that Locke is committed to a resemblance theory of representation, with the result that ideas of secondary qualities are not representations.

I interpret George Eliot as objecting to John Locke in Middlemarch – more specifically, his theory of ideas – by means of her account of Dorothea’s experiences of Edward Casaubon at dinner.

In this paper, I will argue that Locke is a substance dualist in the general sense, in that he holds that there are, independent of our classificatory schema, two distinct kinds of substances: wholly material ones and wholly immaterial ones. On Locke’s view, the difference between the two lies in whether they are solid or not, thereby differentiating him from Descartes. My way of establishing Locke as a general substance dualist is to be as minimally committal as possible at the (...) outset, especially with respect to the classic debates on Locke’s positions in this domain, including those concerning substrata, real essences, and the like. Nonetheless, I show that minimal commitments about Locke’s primary/secondary quality distinction are sufficient to derive some substantive conclusions about his positions on these issues, as well as that he is a general substance dualist. (shrink)

The paper argues against the claim held, e.g., by Leibniz, that Locke employs a double standard for determining whether an object before the mind (i.e., an idea) is real. Using Locke's ectype-archetype distinction it is shown that this charge is the result of confusing Locke's criterion of reality with its application. Depending on whether it applies to a simple, substance or mode idea, the criterion works out differently. Next it is argued that although Locke maintains only a single criterion, this (...) criterion is untenable, since it fails to properly distinguish real from fantastical ideas. (shrink)

As Locke claims that consciousness of our being is involved in all thought and perception, he treats all consciousness as some type of self-consciousness. I examine how consciousness relates to what it is about by inquiring into the intimate relations between consciousness and mental acts and consciousness and the self.

Locke endorses a distinction between passive reflection and voluntary attentive reflection, which he occasionally labels contemplation. Failure to recognize this distinction properly has had an effect on interpretations of Locke’s theory of reflection, and caused puzzlement about the relation between reflection and consciousness. In particular, the function of reflection as a passive internal sense that produces simple ideas of mental operations has been downplayed in favour of the view that reflection in one manner or another involves attention and/or presupposes consciousness (...) of mental operations. This has led a number of scholars to maintain, implicitly or explicitly, that Locke in fact abandons either his doctrine of sensation and reflection as the two exclusive sources of ideas or his doctrine of ideas as the only immediate objects of experience. -/- With the help of a distinction between reflection as a source of ideas and reflection as an operation about ideas I aim to show how Locke can hold to his empiricist maxim about the two sources of ideas and also endorse ideas as the only immediate objects of experience. A proper understanding of Locke’s theory of reflection requires that reflection and consciousness be delineated with respect to one another. I will show how Locke’s notion of consciousness differs from both types of reflection. (shrink)