1. Modern Philosophy PHIL320
Locke – Essay IV
Charles Manekin
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Modern Philosophy PHIL320

2. Modern Philosophy PHIL320
Topics of Discussion
Knowledge Types of Knowledge
Degrees of Knowledge
Limitation of Knowledge
Substance and Causation
Personal Identity
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Modern Philosophy PHIL320

3. Modern Philosophy PHIL320
Knowledge
Knowledge is the perception of the agreement or disagreement of two ideas…For when 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 the demonstration, that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right ones, what do we more but perceive that equality to two right ones does necessarily agree to, and is inseparable from, the three angles of a triangle.
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4. Modern Philosophy PHIL320
Types of Knowledge
The agreement is of four types:
identity and diversity (That white thing is not black.)
relation (The boy is larger than the dog.)
coexistence or necessary connection (Gold is hard; Fire burns paper)
real existence
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Modern Philosophy PHIL320

5. Modern Philosophy PHIL320
Degrees of Knowledge
Intuition -- the mind perceives the agreement or disagreement of the two ideas immediately by themselves without the intervention of any other
Demonstration is less certain than intuition but is still certain; it is built on intuition between the various steps.
Implicitly against Descartes
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6. On the Certainty of Demonstrative Knowledge
Nobody, I think, can deny, that Mr. Newton certainly knows any proposition that he now at any time reads in his book to be true; though he has not in actual view that admirable chain of intermediate ideas whereby he at first discovered it to be true. Such a memory as that, able to retain such a train of particulars, may be well thought beyond the reach of human faculties, when the very discovery, perception, and laying together that wonderful connexion of ideas, is found to surpass most readers' comprehension
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Modern Philosophy PHIL320

7. Sense Knowledge is Certain
Against the skeptic:
there has to be a cause of our sensation and that cause will be real and external;
we do distinguish between dreaming about being hungry and being hungry
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8. On the Limitations of Knowledge
Knowledge extends no further than our ideas, we cannot infer any farther than our ideas allow. We have ideas of matter and of thinking but we do not know nor can we know whether real matter thinks.
The connection between primary and secondary qualities unknowable.
What about the problem of other minds?
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9. Yet, there can be demonstration of moral principles
“Where there is no property there is no injustice” is a proposition as certain as anything in Euclid. “No government allows absolute liberty.”
Secondary qualities reside within the mind but are produced by the primary qualities of the external object.
Primary qualities are immediately perceivable
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10. But maybe all our knowledge is merely of ideas and not of reality?
Simple ideas of sense are caused by real things; ditto for complex ideas.
Certain propositions can be true even if they are not actually instantiated, like mathematics and morality.
It is enough to establish that such ideas are independent of us for there to be knowledge.
What knowledge can and cannot we have of substance
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11. Whence our knowledge of existence?
We know our existence through intuition.
We know of God through demonstration.
We know of the existence of other things through sensation.
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