Locke on Power & Substance From Edwin McCann: Locke’s Corpuscular Theory of Body Democritus/Boyle/Gassendi Matter is extended solid substance All bodies are individual atoms or indivisible, with the following qualities: Extension, solidity, shape, location, motion, rest, number, or aggregates of atoms. Compound bodies have “texture” arrangement of atoms various sizes, shapes, relative situations, and relative motions. All changrew of states of bodies are due to a change of” texture” Secondary Qualities: “nothing in the Objects themselves, but Powers to produce various sensations in us by their primary qualities…” Grain of wheat example Locke: “the ideas of primary Qualities of Bodies, are Resemblances of them, and their Patterns do really exist in the Bodies themselves; but the ideas produced in us by these Secondary Qualities, have no resemblance of them at all.”

Locke’s Theory of Sensation Secondary Qualities are caused by bodies primary qualities MIND Secondary Qualities: Hot, Red, Sweet, Loud, Sharp Threshold of Sensation Aggregate State 2 Aggregate State 1 BODY Atoms & Insensible aggregates have primary qualities of extension, solidity, shape, location, motion, rest, and number. Large aggregates reach threshold of Sensation.

Substance (things in themselves)“A something I know not what” Locke’s Empiricism All knowledge ultimately derived from experience vs. koinai ennoiai (common in minds/innate ideas) Sensation Insensible Mind=Tabula Rasa-blank slate Reflection=‘ideas the mind gets by reflecting on its own operations within itself’ Understanding can ‘repeat, compare, and unite simple ideas.’ Secondary Sensible Qualities: Sweetness Redness Hot Loud Hard Primary Qualities: solidity extension figure (shape) mobility number Substance (things in themselves)“A something I know not what” Complex ideas simple ideas

Locke’s Theory of Consciousness Simultaneous S1 S2 S3 C1 C2 C3 Sequential “For as far as any intelligent being can repeat the idea of any past action with the same consciousness it had of it at first, and with the same consciousness it has of any present action; so far it is the same personal self.” C1@T1 C1@T2 C1@T3 Sleep, insanity, fever, etc. C1@T1 C2@T2 C3@T3

Substance(things in themselves)“A something I know not what” Locke’s Epistemology Sensation Mind=Tabula Rasa-blank slate 1. Sensation 2. Reflection Secondary Qualities: sweetness redness hot loud Primary Qualities: solidity extension figure(shape) mobility number Substance(things in themselves)“A something I know not what” Complex ideas simple ideas