Locke

Index

Lock was an Empiricist, not a Rationalist.  This means that he put much more emphasis on the Senses instead of Reason.  One of his important ideas is that are minds are blank slates (Tabla Rosa) when we are born and that experience writes everything onto those blank slates.  One consequence of being born with a blank slate is that there are no such things as innate ideas.

What are Ideas?

What is the Mind? Sensation vs Reflection

What are Objects?

What are Ideas?

What are Ideas?

- Things in the Mind
- Whatever is the object of the mind's operations.

Innate Ideas

Ideas are everything that comes to us from experience.
(What is experience?  Anything that produces ideas in us.)

There are no innate ideas.

Most people try to prove Innate Ideas by saying that there are Universal Agreements... but...
1.  Universal Agreement does not imply innate ideas.
2.  There is nothing that we universally agree on.

We may not have Innate Ideas, but we have Innate Faculties.  (Faculties are ways of processing ideas.)

Modes

Modes are Generalizations.  ("Substance" is a mode.)

"The monkey is in the tree."  There is a specific monkey, so 'monkey' is not a mode.
"Zoologists say that monkeys are primates."  'Monkey' in this case is more of a generalization than 1 specific monkey.  Thus 'monkey' is a Mode.

Modes never exist on their own.  (Freedom, Equality, Similarity do not actually exist on their own in the world).

What is the Mind?

What is the Mind?

- It stores ideas.
- It acts on those ideas.  (It combines simple ideas and takes apart complex ideas)

- It is a manufacturing plant.  Simple ideas are the raw material.  The 3 assembly lines in the plant are:

  1. Combination of Simple to Complex Ideas.
  2. Comparing Simple and Complex Ideas
  3. Separating Complex Ideas.  (I see an elephant in a game preserve in Africa.  I can separate the elephant from everything else.)

Tabla Rosa

- When we are born, our minds are blank slates.
- There are no innate ideas in our blank minds.
- Experience writes on our Tabla Rosa.  (Lock is an Empiricist, not a Rationalist.)

Sensation vs Reflection

Sensation vs Reflection

Sensation:  Going from senses (smells, sights, etc.) to an idea.

Reflection:  Wishing, wanting, remembering, etc.

Experience
|
+---- Sensation.  (Simple)
|
+---+ Reflection.  (Complex... it just combines simple ideas, or sensations)
    |
    +--- Rational.
    |
    +--- Emotional.

What are Objects?

What are Objects?

- Objects are like Beacons that send senses to us.
- Solidity and Motion "belong" to objects, but smell, taste and color do not.

- Objects don't have secondary qualities (like color), but they produce secondary qualities.
- The primary qualities (solidity and motion) produce qualities that we can sense.

For example, the idea of tomatoness is a secondary quality of an object with primary qualities.

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