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A: No principles are innate 1.Everyone would have to know innate principles, but there is no such thing as a principle which everyone knows. 2.Even “Nothing.

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Presentation on theme: "A: No principles are innate 1.Everyone would have to know innate principles, but there is no such thing as a principle which everyone knows. 2.Even “Nothing."— Presentation transcript:

1 A: No principles are innate 1.Everyone would have to know innate principles, but there is no such thing as a principle which everyone knows. 2.Even “Nothing can both be and not be” is a principle that many haven’t even considered, so they can’t be said to know it. a)This is probably not a good argument, because Locke should not have assumed that everyone would necessarily be aware of all the innate knowledge they have. Maybe it takes an act of reflection to trigger an awareness of your innate knowledge of principles, or of math, etc. b)Individual experiences might be necessary to discover certain truths, but are not necessary justifying them. What matters for knowledge is the justification. 3.No amount of introspection (intro = inside; spect = look) will hit on a piece of innate knowledge. When you examine your ideas, you find they’re either sensations, or reflections on your sensations. Try to find an idea in your mind that didn’t ultimately get there from sensory experiences you’ve had. Locke thinks you will inevitably fail.

2 Primary QualitiesSecondary Qualities color flavor pitch and intensity of sounds odor warmth disgustingness “queasiness-inducing” Nothing exists in the physical world which resembles secondary qualities. (“Out there” are only atoms in space.) They’re only a feature of how we humans represent the world. In modern terms, we’d call them “merely subjective” as opposed to “objective”. Imagine a complete description of the physical universe. Locke thinks that when you’ve described where all the atoms are and what they’re doing, you’re done. Secondary qualities are about how the stuff would affect perceivers, not how it is. mass solidity shape extension motion/rest number figure What makes the qualities above primary is that they describe real, mind- independent features of the physical world. That world is composed of collections of atoms, and primary qualities describe the properties that these atoms have. A bunch of connected atoms has a certain mass, solidity, volume, motion, etc. All properties that could be had by the atoms themselves are primary qualities.

3 “There is nothing like our ideas, existing in the bodies themselves. They are, in the bodies we denominate from them, only a power to produce those sensations in us: and what is sweet, blue, or warm in idea, is but the certain bulk, figure, and motion of the insensible parts, in the bodies themselves, which we call so.” (Essay, section 15) B: Perception and thought 1.All sensory experience is either internal or external a) sensation (~ external perception) [vision, touch, hearing, pain, etc.] b) reflection (~ inner perception) [anger, desire, happiness, etc.] 2.There is a continuum from simple ideas to complex ideas. a)Simple ideas are passively received by the mind. This category consists of the sensations and reflections in 1. b)Complex ideas are actively modified or entirely constructed by the mind. i.The mind combines several ideas to form a new one. ii.The mind simultaneously considers different ideas, and compares them to discover their relations. iii.The mind separates out aspects of simple ideas. This is called abstraction and produces general ideas.

4 C: Abstraction and General Ideas 1.T he mind … 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 apprehensions, and made use of for quick dispatch, are called, so united in one subject, by one name; which, by inadvertancy, we are apt afterward to talk of and consider as some simple idea… (36). 2.Names of individuals: The appearance of a certain, shape, colors, kinds of sound, etc. makes you unite in your mind these ideas and think of them as a single thing - an individual. Some individuals get proper names. 3.Names of kinds: You notice that some individuals have many qualities in common, so you come to think of them as members of kinds or types. 4.Transitions from more specific to more general kinds: David instructor person animal lifeform thing/substance a)These categories are a product of our categorizing and naming. b)The way we come to think of these gradually more general categories is by the use of abstraction. At the notion of thing/substance, the power of abstraction can’t take us any farther.

5 E: What the heck is Substance? 1.It is “a thing I know not what” 2.It is the substratum which somehow supports all the observable properties a)Substance as such is not observable; only the properties it supports are observable. b)It is the something which has the qualities; objects aren’t just quality- lists. They are somethings, with qualities. c)The question about what is a substance is answered this way: It is whatever the observable qualities are qualities of. Yeah, it sounds kind of weird, but we all know that such a thing must be there. So consider a pile of coins, and list all of their properties, like their shape, mass, color, number, size, arrangement, etc. Now use your imagination to abstract away all of these properties, and focus in on substance itself, the thing that has all the properties you listed. I know you’re not forming an image of anything specific, but the substance must be real, because something must have all those properties.


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