Heusser Philosophy 100 SG #7b

John Locke’s Empiricism

1) Empiricist Principle: Thought is constrained by experience:

The sensation of quality Q is both necessary and sufficient for the idea of Q.

2) Ideas are broader in Locke: Any mental content (thought or conception of some thing)

1) The mental Image and Concept (general, not particular)

2) The mental representation (experience) of a particular object, image

Innate ideas: Universal Assent Test: If A is born with B, then when asked: “Do you have B?” to newborn A, The baby A must answer yes.

The Argument against Innate Ideas (from No Universal Assent):

1) If innate, notions must be all naturally imprinted

2) If all naturally imprinted, notions must be universally known.

3) They are not universally known (does not pass the UAT).

4) Locke: Therefore, ideas are not innate.

3) Experience of Qualities:

Steps:

A) Experience (first outer, then inner) furnishes us with singular perceptions.

B) Perceptions furnish us with singular ideas or concepts (the intellectual character)

Sensible: Of primary qualities Of secondary qualities

Reality (in objects) Appearance (in us)

several senses: vision/touch single sense

(shape, extension) (whiteness, cold)

(figure, mobility) (color, taste)

Secondary qualities: are power (causal relation) producing sensation by primary qualities. Essay II.8.10 Examples include: color, cold, odor, pain, yellow, taste, bitter.

Division of parts makes things lose their color and other secondary qualities, however the primary qualities are inseparable (such as solidity, figure, mobility, bulk, shape, size, extension, mass).

Primary Qualities are ordered:

Solidity is important for physical substance (although in different degrees).

Extension is merely null case of it.

Figure is determination of it

Motion is progressive displacement of it

A) Singular ideas or concepts furnish us with general ideas or concepts (by abstraction)

Simple ideas: pleasure, pain, power (ability to cause effects), & existence

D) General ideas are complex ideas (singular ideas taken together, actively, not passively)