Anson Jeng and Caitlyn "Socks" Kennedy's summary of Locke's Essay on Human Understanding

John Locke’s Essays Concerning Human Understanding

In John Locke’s Essays Concerning Human Understanding, he explores how individuals acquire knowledge and understanding as well as other issues of epistemology. In contrast to earlier philosophers, in particular those of the Cartesian persuasion, Locke strongly rejects the idea that humans carry an innate center of knowledge. He argues that no individual is born with pre-existing truths. This concept of tabula rasa (Latin for “blank slate”) favors the nurture side of the nature versus nurture dialogue. Locke attempts to show that people are born with no knowledge whatsoever, and that all the knowledge we acquire must first be experienced.

Locke systematically refutes the idea of innate truths from several angles. He first argues that if one truth is innate, then all must be, and, conversely, that if one truth is adventitious, all other truths must follow suit. Locke secondly uses mathematical proofs as the counter for more theoretical maxims, such as “whatsoever is, is” and “it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be.” He reasons that, in order to accept a mathematical proposition as true, one must first understand the ideas of which the proof consists. This furthers his belief that our realm of knowledge is built on ideas that we have gathered, stacked onto each other to create new ideas.

Locke proposes that there is a sequence of events that lead to our acquisition of knowledge. First, the senses let in ideas, and the mind becomes familiar with them, lodging some in the memory and giving them names. The mind abstracts these ideas while learning the function of language. Finally, these ideas grow together in the mind, building on some, contrasting with others. This growth subsequently increases the ability of reason, which allows more truths to be gathered and deduced.

In confronting the debate regarding ideas that we seem to find within our minds, Locke suggests that we obtain knowledge through either sensation or reflection. Sensation is composed of the ideas brought to us through the senses, while reflections are those ideas that we find in our mind. Locke is adamant that reflection is not merely a discovery of a pre-existing truth, but an act of reason, a search through ideas we have obtained through experience to deduce a greater truth not discoverable through simple sensory experience.

While Locke’s position on the attainment of knowledge represents a polar opposite to Descartes’, the two share similar views on the categorization of ideas. One of these similarities is the concept of negation. Locke uses the example of silence, which is simply an absence of sound. He additionally uses the analogy of a snowball in the same manner as Descartes’ beeswax (from the Second Meditation) to demonstrate that secondary qualities are transient and primary qualities are representative of the snowball (beeswax).

Questions

1. In what ways do Locke and Descartes contradict each other? In what ways are they similar?
2. What effect did the concept of tabula rasa have on later philosophical schools?
3. Does Locke’s assertion that knowledge is obtained only through things outside ourselves oversimplify the nature versus nurture argument? Does this simplification discount the authority of God as established by Descartes?

Descartes Meditations 4, 5, & 6

Unfortunately, due to the snow days we were forced to compress our discussion of Descartes’ last three meditations into two days. However, we were able to hit on a majority of the most significant arguments from this section of the Meditations.

We started our discussion with an overview of Descartes’ explanation for the existence of error in a world created by a perfect God. Descartes’ argues that error comes about through an interaction between our understanding and our will, in which our will to apply our understanding to something outstrips the bounds of our understanding. Therefore, we concluded along with Descartes that error can only be avoided when we check our will and keep it from seeking things that we cannot have a full understanding of. This seemed self-explanatory to the class and there were no major objections.

Next, we addressed the concept of moving from our thoughts or understanding to an object. Descartes suggests that there is an object out there that is in our thoughts such as the triangle. We were presented with the question about what is it in objects that we understand clearly and distinctly? Also, what is it in the material body that we understand clearly and distinct? We concluded that extension helped us derive a clear and distinct perception of the material body, as the essence of extension is measurability. Consequently, anything with properties that can be quantified we can understand clearly and distinctly. However, the objection was brought up that this is still dubious because all information that we receive from the world comes through sense perception. For example, even though we can measure the extension of a body with a yard stick, our reading of the yard stick depends on our perception of visual data, while furthermore, the yard stick itself was produced by another human who was relying on sense perception to make it.

Sense perception, however, is the link that helps us move from thoughts to comprehending objects. Sense does not just lead us to believe a perception but helps us understand that there is a cause for our perception. Descartes argues that God would not deceive us through our senses, because he is perfect and deception is an imperfection. This would seem to be his answer to the objection in the previous paragraph, but the class did not find it to be a very convincing one.

Objective Reality

So regarding the question I asked today in class about the existence of the dog that I see in front of me (assuming I'm delusional), I wanted to further examine it.

So let's assume I'm sitting here, and I look over and see this dog. It is clearly standing there, wagging its tail and all, and I know this through my sense perception. To then confirm that it actually does exist, or to quantify it, I then get out my yardstick, and measure it. Well sure enough, that dog measures out to be two feet long. I have therefore qualified its existence. At least to myself. If you look over, and see nothing (because of course I'm delusional), you would say "I see no dog, I cannot measure it" or such. In this case, there is no reality of the dog for you, but there still is for me.

Thinking then on that, it seems to me that reality becomes a purely subjective and individual practice. Either that or reality is something that we ourselves may measure and qualify, but to have true proof of existence, we need a consensus for. The reality of objects is either subjective or dependent on the multitude.

Professor Grady went on to explain that I may see this dog through some mistake, because God is not systematically deceiving me, and therefore I cannot systematically be wrong all of the time. I understand that this is what Descartes is arguing, but I'm not buying it. I feel like there's some sort of problem here. I don't see how, if I can see and measure this dog, and you can't, therefore leaving the object to be both real and not, reality is not objective. Or is this something that can be explained only in the case of totally rational and sane beings?

Descartes Overview

Last week we summarized Descartes' first meditations, and hopefully helped with discussion regarding dualism as well as proof of God's existence. While we spent a class period on Descartes' argument for God from the magnitude or reality of causes, we didn't really touch that much on Cartesian substance dualism. As Descartes was one of the most famous proponents of the position, I had hoped to spark some debate on this neglected metaphysical conception. We did get a nice discussion going for the proof of God, though, so I'm glad to see that we aren't simply "swallowing the medicine."

I think the major point of contention on this proof was probably a confusion or conflation of the term "reality." Several people simply did not seem convinced that something can be more or less real than something else, and certainly not that ideas are more real than physical objects. When we began talking about the quantity of reality that certain things had, and that if a thing has a minimum of some property, it has nothing and is nothing, I began to see the logic behind Descartes' argument more clearly. Not to say I would endorse it, but I can understand his reasoning, at least.

What about the conception of the infinite as a positive idea? We didn't really get to a satisfactory resolution of that issue, so I'm hoping people have done some thinking on it and can continue discussion. I still hold that, much like Lewis' moral argument, arguing that we do not meet the standard implies the existence of that standard. Beyond that, all I can say is that I seem to be directly aware of a positive conception of infinity, rather than a negation of finitude or a simple addition ad... well, ad infinitum.

Rather as a side note, for those interested in the idea of infinity, I would recommend researching the work of David Hilbert. He has some fascinating thought experiments on the nature of an actually infinite set, rather than a potential infinite. Here's a link to an overview of one of the more famous problems, Hilbert's Hotel.

Arguments for Substance Dualism?

What do people think about substance dualism? I talked with my friend Larry Lacy this weekend about this. He's a retired philosophy professor who taught here for about forty years, and he gave me a very interesting kind of series of arguments for it. I asked him to send me his paper on it, and I'll post it when I get it.

Measuring consciousness

I saw this article on new research into the brain activity of patients in "vegetative" states in the New York Times earlier this week, and thought some of you might find it interesting, especially in relation to our discussion of Descartes. If, as Descartes argues, the essence of the human soul rests in the mere fact of thinking, then any discovery that shows evidence of mental life in such patients raises all kinds of complex ethical concerns about their autonomy and human dignity.

One more thing: brace yourself for the terrible Descartes pun at the end of the article, and don't say I didn't warn you!

Question for pg. 114

Pg. 114, [47]- "For example, when I recently examined the question whether anything in the world existed, and I recognized from the very fact that I examined this question that it was very evident that I myself existed, I could not refrain from concluding that what I conceived so clearly was true."

Thus after reading this statement I have to ask myself, and any others who would like to follow my inquisition; Is this logic sound? The idea that just because we exist, other things within the world must also exist? I will return to the ever-popular dream argument to properly formulate my question. I do not claim that this is the truth or even that Descartes is false in his assumption, rather I am merely placing forth a suggestion, which I see as a possible counter to his assumption.

Through Descartes' reasoning we have found that it is impossible to question whether or not the "thought" [us existing through our doubt] exists. Yet our thoughts exist in our dreams as well. My idea is such that I believe that it is just as likely that we, as systems of thoughts, exist independent of the world of which we experience, instead we [as thoughts] exist on a higher plane of existence (as it couldn't be lower, which I will explain- again using Descartes own reason). When addressing the expressive world in which we "live," I would offer that it is the product of a massive corresponding dream of which we all [as thoughts in another plane of existence] take part in. In this way we all act as 'one' by giving up our isolated systems of thought and uniting under this one system of thought [the dream] and allowing ourselves to exist temporarily within its laws and rules.

This also would explain the existence of 'God' not as some almighty being, but rather the power of thoughts combining and working together in order to create a 'dreamscape' for our thoughts to interact within. Thus we are all actually [as thoughts] acting jointly as 'God'. Yet for any of this to happen, we would have to exist on a higher plane than the one in which we currently allow ourselves to reside, because nothing of lesser quality can create something of higher quality.

This idea also gives way to the possibility that there are infinite possibilities of alternate realities created by the adjoining of other thoughts in a higher plane under a different thought system. This would account for the seemingly unending creativity locked within the 'human' imagination. The imagination being a key into the vast memories of our immortal thought [or soul, if that seems like a better word for our higher existing selves].