General Ideas and the Knowability of Essence: Interpretations of Locke's Theory of Knowledge (original) (raw)
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Locke’s Theory of Ideas: A Critical Exposition
Philosophy and progress, 2019
John Locke, Bishop Berkeley and David Hume are the pioneers of modern British Philosophy during 17 th and 18 th centuries. Among them, John Locke"s epistemological work is one of the greatest defenses of modern empiricism. He attempts to determine the limits of human understanding and seeks to clear the ground for future developments by providing a theory of knowledge compatible with the study of human nature. In his discussion the term "ideas" plays an important role. To understand Locke"s empiricism, one must realize what he means by "ideas". For Locke, ideas are all signs which represent the external world of physical objects and the inner world of consciousness. However, in his book, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, he discusses "ideas" in details but he does not provide a sufficiently clear account of the nature of ideas. This paper is an attempt to give a critical exposition of John Locke"s theory of ideas in which I will try to show that his explanation about the nature of idea is not sufficient enough to establish the theory of ideas he presented.
The External Reference of Meaning: An Interpretation of Locke's Nominal Essence
Locke's philosophy of language is customarily criticized as indefensible as it is unable to explain communication. There have been notable attempts to rescue him from the charge of semantic idealism; however, each fails for important reasons. The aim of this paper is to offer an alternative approach to defending Locke. I argue Locke does have a workable theory of meaning that accounts for communication. My position relies on a particular understanding of Locke's nominal essence as the location of the shared classificatory or descriptive meaning of things. For Locke, individuals possess like perceptual faculties thus enabling them to have like simple ideas, which they then combine into complex ideas through abstraction. Through the process of abstraction one is able to derive a general name to stand for many particulars, but without some sort of external reference the universality of ideas is still not sufficient for an explanation of communication. I argue the external reference for the ideas and words of individuals is found in Locke's account of the social creation and establishment of nominal essences, where nominal essences represent reality for human beings although they do not agree to reality.
Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, 2010
I argue that Locke does not provide an account of the nature of ideas. In the Essay, the question of is simply set to one side, as recommended by the “Historical, plain Method”. This is exemplified by Locke’s neutral characterization of “ideas” in E I.i.8, and the discussion of the inverted spectrum hypothesis in E II.xxxii. Locke’s attitude towards the nature of ideas in the Essay is therefore reminiscent of Boyle’s diffident attitude the nature of matter. In posthumously published work, however, Locke suggests a more radical view: the enquiry into the nature of ideas is shown to lie beyond the “compass of human understanding” by the enquiry into the extent of human knowledge undertaken in the Essay. In this respect, Locke’s attitude towards the nature of ideas is reminiscent of Sydenham’s attitude towards the nature of diseases.
Locke Studies, 2007
The title of Yasuhiko Tomida’s paper ‘“Separation” of Ideas Reconsidered: A Response to Jonathan Walmsley’ portends sustained criticism of my analyses of Locke’s views on abstraction. The impression is misleading. My conclusion, that Locke’s theory of abstraction was one of mental separation of parts of images, is cited several times, but mainly as an opportunity for Professor Tomida to commence his own interpretation of Locke’s views. There is relatively little direct consideration of the arguments advanced for my conclusions. This observation is not intended as a criticism, but rather as a means to understand Tomida’s enterprise. He has advanced an analysis of Locke’s theory of ideas in a series of publications. His recent ‘Sensation and Conceptual Grasp in Locke’contains the kernel of this interpretation. After considering the origin and nature of important ‘simple’ ideas, viz. solidity, extension, power, existence, and unity, the paper ends with a brief discussion of the abstrac...
Locke's account of ideas as signs plays a fundamental role in his Essay. Given that ideas are the primary units of representing the world, the question arises what it is that determines their representation.
isara solutions, 2019
Philosopher Locke thinks, sense experience is the only way to the knowledge. At childhood our mind is a blank white paper (Tabula Rasa). Each and every idea comes into mind (to the ration) through sense organ while our mind is inactive. These ideas get into the mind through two ways a) sensation, b) reflection. Through sensation we get the ideas of coldness, hotness etc. And through reflection we can get the ideas of happiness, sorrows, faith etc.. “Sensation is feeling, this feeling converted to idea when it gets into the mind through sense organ.” After ideas have reached to the mind, our mind becomes active and tries to make relation among them with the similarities and dissimilarities of those ideas. This relation is called knowledge and ideas are the basic materials of knowledge.Locke has devided the ideas into two- a) simple ideas b) complex ideas. Simple idea is of four types–1)ideas of one sense organ, such as– ideas of colours 2)ideas of more than one sense,such as- idea of motion, extension 3)ideas of reflection, such as- idea of faith, doubt 4)ideas of sensation and reflection both, such as – unity, energy, happiness etc. Complex idea is of three types a)mode, b)substance and c)relation.Mode: Mode is of two types i)unmixed modes, such as- twenty, we can get the idea of twenty by repeatation of the same number one, ii)mixed mode, such as-beauty.Substance:No ideas can exist without a substrate or shelter, this shelter or substratum is called the substance.Relation:Comparing together the two ideas we can get the idea of relation, such as- causal relation. “The power to generate feeling about any object is called quality”, Locke says. A ice-handball in our mind produces the ideas of whiteness, coldness, and roundness. This powerof the ice-handballto produce the feelings (sensation) of coldness, whiteness is called quality and these feelings get into our mind (to the ration) are called ideas. Quality is of two types a)primary(objective) and b)secondary(subjective).However, we know only the ideas through the mind but not the worldly objects, which come contact to our senses.Mind knows the ideas, ideas know the object but mind and object could not come to contact.
Locke's Theory of Ideas and the Myth of the Given
To appear in Quaestio 12
Imagine that you look around and notice a green apple on the table in front of you. Given this perception, it seems quite natural to assume that you also know that there is a green apple on the table. The move from a perceptual state to a knowledge claim is quite effortless. We regularly justify such claims by appealing to our sense perception: «I know that the apple is on the table, because I've just seen it there.» But what exactly is it that we appeal to? So-called foundationalists might say that our sense experience forms a privileged basis of knowledge, and then give a reason as to why sense experience is a particularly secure ground or perhaps even the only ground of true knowledge claims. One such argument is that sensations or sense-data are naturally caused and thus immune to error. So-called coherentists might object that this is mistaken; for even if we take ourselves to be appealing to sense experience, we do in fact rely on something that is already conceptual and not mere sense experience. Even if we assume that we rely on what we see, what we in fact 'see' is already conceptualized and propositional. It is not a raw sense-datum that we notice; rather we already 'see' something as a green apple. Accordingly, our appeal to (conceptualized) sensations is not immune to error and has thus a normative dimension. Now, who is right? Before addressing this question we should first take a step back and see what the discussion is about. Prima facie, the discussion between foundationalists and coherentists resembles the debate between what we take to be classical empiricists and ration-
LOCKE'S CRITERION FOR THE REALITY OF IDEAS: UNAMBIGUOUS BUT UNTENABLE
When his. Essay Concerning Human Understanding is nearly finished, Locke suddenly comes to realize that his doctrine of ideas leaves him with no means to distinguish reality from fiction. In this paper I examine Locke's reaction to this problem, and argue against the charge, made by several commentators, that Locke commits himself to a double standard when determining whether an object we think of is real. As I will show, this charge results from a confusion of Locke's criterion of reality with its application. For Locke, there is only one criterion upon which something we think of is real, namely, when it conforms with its archetype. It is only when this criterion is applied to the different types of ideas that Locke distinguishes, that it works out differently.
A Critical Analysis on the Refutation of Innate Ideas in John Locke's Philosophical Thoughts
Epistemology is an attempt to understand the role of knowledge, its origin, development and validity. The scientists, psychologists, educationalists, moral philosophers-all are analyzing the importance of epistemology in the knowledge process. Epistemology is considered one of the branches of knowledge, and it supports logic by emphasizing the interrelation between the two. While explaining the significance of epistemology R.M. Chisholm says that it deals with issues like the distinction between knowledge and true opinion and the relation between conditions of truth and criteria of evidence. Such issues constitute the subject matter of the theory of knowledge. In the history of Western philosophy, the modern period is significant because, during this period, there were two schools of thought regarding the validity of knowledge and emerged. One is Rationalism, and the other is Empiricism. Rationalism emphasizes that the source of knowledge is the reason. However, the Empiricism emphasizes experience as the basis for knowledge. In both movements, namely, rationalism and empiricism, epistemology has been attempting to find the answers to some questions: What do we know? How do we know? What are the sources of knowledge? What is the difference between belief and knowledge? Furthermore, is it possible to get valid knowledge? The prominent empiricist John Locke read the writings of Descartes. He rejected Descartes' innate ideas logically, and he has elaborately explained the source of knowledge, the limit of knowledge, validity of knowledge, and its kinds in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding. His empiricism received much criticism from the latest philosophers because he adapted some philosophical ideas from the pioneers. This article aims to justify whether John Locke's epistemology is neutral by explaining the basic characteristic of empiricism and its critiques. This study as a qualitative approach depends both on the primary as well as secondary sources related to the study as books. This study attempts to understand Locke from a critical standpoint. In the end, an attempt is made to show how Locke's central and bias philosophy has relevance even today.