Locke, John 1741a. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding: In Four Books. Twelfth Edition. Volume I. London: C. Hitch. [Internet Archive]
'Tis not that I think any Name, how great soever, set at the Beginning of a Book, will be able to cover the Faults [sic] are to be found in it. Things in Print must stand and fall by their own Worth, or the Reader's Fancy. But there being nothing more to be desired for Truth, than a fair unprejudiced Hearing, no body is more likely to procure me that, than your Lordship, [|] who are allowed to have got so intimate an Acquaintance with her, in her more retired Recesses. (Locke 1741a: i-ii)
The renown of a name is no mark of authority. Texts must stand (or fall) on their own merit, or according to the reader's understanding, by which I think he might mean that readership may change so much over time that what was once considered true, well, and good, can lose its luster and become unacceptable. This might by a bit of a stretch of an interpretation, but in any case it is worthwhile to bring out this dynamic between the Author, the Text, and the Reader.
Your Lordship is known to have so far advanced your Speculations in the most abstract and general Knowledge of things, beyond the ordinary Reach, or common Method, that your Allowance and Approbation of the Design of this Treatise, will at least preserve it from being condemn'd without Reading; and will prevail to have those Parts a little weigh'd, which might otherwise, perhaps, be thought to deserve no Consideration, for being somewhat out of the common Road. (Locke 1741a: ii)
Abstract and general knowledge not on "public roads" (cf. Knox 1999: 282). Fancy meeting a Pythagorean trope so early on.
The Imputation of Novelty is a terrible Charge among those who judge of Men's Heads, as they do of their Perukes, by the Fashion; and can allow none to be right, but the received Doctrines. Truth scarce ever yet carried it by Vote any where at its first Appearance: New Opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other Reason, but because they are not already common. But Truth, like Gold, is not the less so for being newly brought out of the Mine. (Locke 1741a: ii)
"As is well known, the resistance to a new idea is always primarily a matter of prejudice, the development of intellectual objections, just or otherwise; being a secondary process in spite of the common delusion to the contrary." (Trotter 1921: 113)
[...] and its having some little Correspondence with some Parts of that nobler and vast System of the Sciences your Lordship has made so new, exact, and instructive a Draught of, I think it Glory enough, if your Lordship permit me to boast, that here and there i have fallen into some Thoughts not wholly different from yours. (Locke 1741a: iii)
Thoughts something we fall into.
The Epistle to the Reader
I here put into thy Hands, what has been the Diversion of some of my idle and heavy Hours: If it has the good Luck to prove so of any of thine, and thou hast but half so much Pleasure in reading, as I had in writing it, thou wilt as little think thy Money, as I do my Pains, ill bestowed. (Locke 1741a: [1])
Idle and heavy hours will also be spent reading this great work. As to money, luck would have me living in an age when scans of innumerable old books are freely available online, including the very first editions of this book, though I prefer this later edition due to brightness and clarity. Hopefully they'll one day set Treventus AScanRobot 2.0 MDS, Plustek A300 or something even more powerful upon those first editions. It is really something else when you can not only see the text but the texture of the paper itself. This edition, sadly, is not in a very high resolution and the paper is a beige blur, but it'll do.
Mistake not this, for a Commendation of my Work; nor conclude, because I was pleased with the Doing of it, that therefore I am fondly taken with it now it is done. He that hawks at Larks and Sparrows, has no less Sport, though a much less considerable Quarry, than he that flies at nobler Game: and he is little acquainted with the Subject of this Treatise, the UNDERSTANDING, who does not know, that as it is the most elevated Faculty of the Soul, so it is employed with a greater and more constant Delight, than any of the other. Its Searches after Truth, are a Sort of Hawking and Hunting, wherein the very Pursuit makes a great Part of the Pleasure. (Locke 1741a: [1])
Not according to Kant, who places Reason above Understanding. In conjunction with the (quasi-?)Pythagorean scheme, the Understanding is the faculty of the Soul, Reason then being - if it must be put thusly - the faculty of the Intellect. As to the ethos of pursuit of knowledge being a pleasure in itself (perhaps the highest pleasure there is), I concur wholeheartedly.
For the Understanding, like the Eye, judges of Objects only by its own Sight, cannot but be pleased with what it discovers, having less Regret for what has escaped it, because it is unknown. (Locke 1741a: [2])
Maybe getting ahead of myself, but this looks somewhat like Understanding is self-confined or has a "separate world" (from Sense and Reason). It is also somewhat reminiscent of Peirce writing that "eyesight [is] beyond the province of logic" (W 1: 163), which is to say that logic does not deal with sense presentations.
This, Reader, is the Entertainment of those who let loose their own Thoughts, and follow them in writing; which thou ought not to envy them, since they afford thee an Opportunity of the like Diversion, if thou wilt make use of thy own Thoughts in reading. 'Tis to them, if they are thy own, that I refer myself: But if they are taken upon Trust from others, 'tis no great Matter what they are, they not following Truth, but some meaner Consideration: And 'tis not worth while to be concerned, what he says or thinks, who says or thinks only as he is directed by another. (Locke 1741a: [2])
I don't necessarily agree. Instead of one's own thoughs and those of others (a motif that reappears in the beginning of Book III, quoted by Peirce), I'm more partial to the view that was is taught by another is less valuable than what one learns for oneself: "If, therefore, you learn from another person, that which you learn is foreign; but what you discover yourself is through yourself, and is your own." (Archytas 1818: 181). With texts, one is learning for oneself what another thought.
If thou findest little in it new or instructive to thee, thou art not to blame me for it. It was not meant for those that had already master'd this Subject, and made a thorough Acquaintance with their own Understanding; but for my own Information, and the Satisfaction of a few Friends, who acknowledged themselves not to have sufficiently considered it. (Locke 1741a: [2])
"I do this shit for my friends" (Jakey - Not Dead Yet).
Some Objects had need be turned on every Side: And when the Notion is new, as I confess some of these are to me, or out of the ordinary Road, as I suspect they will appear to others; 'tis not one simple View of it, that will gain it Admittance into every Understanding, or fix it there with a clear and lasting Impression. There are few, I believe, who have not observed in themselves or others, that what in one Way of proposing was very obscure, another Way of expressing it has made very clear and intelligible: Though afterward the Mind found little Difference in the Phrases, and wonder'd why one failed to be understood more than the other. But every Thing does not hit alike upon every Man's Imagination. (Locke 1741a: [4])
This has been my experience, too. Sometimes language really is an obstacle to comprehension. Usually what is helpful is reading something else and returning to the obscurity, better informed.
We have our Understandings no less different than our Palates; and he that thinks the same Truth shall be equally relish'd be every one [|] in the same Dress, may as well hope to feast every one with the same sort of Cookery: The Meat may be the same, and the Nourishment good, yet every one not be able to receive it with that Seasoning; and it must be dressed another Way, if you will have it go down with some even of strong Constitutions. (Locke 1741a: [4-5])
Language is like seasoning.
The truth is, those who advertise me to publish it, advised me, for this Reason, to publish it as it is: And since I have been brought to let it go Abroad, I desire it should be understood by whoever gives himself the Pains to read it. I have so little Affection to be in Print, that if I were not flattered this Essay might be of some Use to others, as I think it has been to me; I should have confined it to the View of some Friends, who gave the first Occasion to it. (Locke 1741a: [5])
An admirable sentiment. I recall being struck, when I was myself young and foolish, at Foucault writing that he, too, used to be young and fond of writing/publishing. I now get his meaning, or have arrived at an approximate situation - why should I put something forward in print if I am not completely sure that it is something that needs to be put in that form? Publishing for the sake of publishing is nonsense; one should only publish when s/he has something useful to communicate. That is, "scientific correspondence" should be reserved for valuable contributions, and our current system of paying to get published or publishing so much just to get published (to fulfill some academic requirements, say) is pure nonsense, altogether ass backwards.
It will possibly be censured as a great Piece of Vanity or Insolence in me, to pretend to instruct this our knowing Age, it amounting to little less, when I own, that I publish this Essay with Hopes it may be useful to others. (Locke 1741a: [5])
I wouldn't say that the turn of the 18th century was a "knowing Age", but that's just me. I also don't think my own age is all that knowing. The goal I have in life is to write something that may not be immediately useful for contemporaries but might serve someone well some two or three centuries after. The historical growth of knowledge is a slow process.
Men's Principles, Notions, and Relishes are so different, that it is hard to find a Book which pleases or displeases all Men. I acknowledge the Age we live in is not the least knowing, and therefore not the most easy to be satisfied. (Locke 1741a: [6])
Almost the triad, but in reverse: Relishes (Body/Luxury), Notions (Soul/Understanding), Principles (Intellect/Reason). The takeaway is that if people are less knowing, they're more easily pleased.
The Commonwealth of Learning is not at this Time without Master-builders, whose mighty Designs, in advancing the Sciences, will leave lasting Monuments to the Admiration of Posterity: But every one must not hope to be a Boyle, or a Sydenham; and in an Age that produces such Masters, as the Great - Huygenius, and the incomparable Mr. Newton, with some other of that Strain; 'tis Ambition enough to be employ'd as an Under-Labourer in clearing Ground a little, and removing some of the Rubbish that lies in the Way to Knowledge; which certainly had been very much more advanced in the World, if the Endeavours of ingenious and industrious Men had not been much cumbered with the learned but frivolous Use of uncouth, affected, or unintelligible Terms, introduced into the Sciences, and there made an Art of, to that Degree, that Philosophy, which is nothing but the true Knowledge of Things, was thought unfit, or uncapable to be brought into well-bred Company, and polite Conversation. (Locke 1741a: [6])
Robert Boyle (1627-1691) was a chemist, Thomas Sydenham (1624-1689) a physician, Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695) a physicist, mathematician and astronomer, and Isaac Newton (1642-1726) the same. The first three all perished within a decade, Newton lasted some two decades after Locke.
Vague and insignificant Forms of Speech, and Abuse of Language, have so long passed for Mysteries of Sciences; and hard or misapply'd Words, with little or no Meaning, have, by Prescription, such a Right to be mistaken for deep Learning, and Heighth of Speculation, that it will not be easy to persuade, either [|] those who speak, or those who hear them, that they are but the Covers of Ignorance, and Hindrance of true Knowledge. To break in upon the Sanctuary of Vanity of Ignorance, will be, I suppose, some Service to Human Understanding: Though so few are apt to think they deceive or are deceived in the Use of Words; or that the Language of the Sect they are of, has any Faults in it, which ought to be examined or corrected; that I hope I shall be pardon'd, if I have in the third Book dwelt long on this Subject, and endeavoured to make it so palin, that neither the Inveterateness of the Mischief, nor the Prevalency of the Fashion, shall be any Excuse for those, who will not take care about the Meaning of their own Words, and will not suffer the Significancy of their Expressions to be enquired into. (Locke 1741a: [6-7])
Hinting at the passage Peirce quoted, i.e. "Words often used without signification" (cf. W 1: 170-172).
Upon a closer Inspection into the Working of Men's Minds, and a stricter Examination of those Motives and Views they are turn'd by, I have found reason somewhat to alter the Thoughts I formerly had concerning that, which gives the last Determination to the Will in all voluntary Actions. (Locke 1741a: [8])
Motives and views turn the mind. The language of determination again. Perhaps I'll finally get to the heart of it, because I've gathered several curious passages from Kant, Schiller, and Peirce in which some grammatical variant of "determination" (determined, determinator, determinable, etc.) is used to excess, with little compass of what they must have meant.
Whether the Subject I have in hand requires often more Thought and Attention than cursory Readers, at least such as are prepossessed, are willing to allow; Or, whether any Obscurity in my Expressions casts a Cloud over it, and these Notions are made difficult to others Apprehension in my Way of treating them: So it is, that my Meaning, I find, is often mistaken, and I have not the good Luck to be every where rightly understood. (Locke 1741a: [8])
Obnubilation.
Clear and distinct Ideas are Terms, which though familiar and frequent in Men's Mouths, I have reason to think every one, who uses, does not perfectly understand. And possibly 'tis but here and there one, who gives himself [|] the Trouble to consider them so far as to know what he himself or others precisely mean by them: I have therefore in most Places chose to put determinate or determined, instead of clear and distinct, as more likely to direct Men's Thoughts to my Meaning in this Matter. By those Denominations, I mean some Object in the Mind, and consequently determined, i.e. such as it is there seen and perceived to be. This, I think, may fitly be called a determinate or determined Idea, when such as it is at any Time objectively in the Mind, and so determined there, it is annex'd, and without Various determined to a Name or articulate Sound, which is to be steddily the Sign of that very same Object of the Mind, or determinate Idea. (Locke 1741a: [9-10])
Determination indeed a loaded word, meaning the agreement as to a the meaning of a word or term. That is, determination refers (perhaps somewhat vaguely, but clearly enough) to the graduation of a type, of a conception becoming an idea, so to say.
To explain this a little more particularly. By determinate, when applied to a simple Idea, I mean that simple Appearance which the Mind has in its View, or perceives in itself, when that Idea is said to be in it: By determinate, when applied to a complex Idea, I mean such an one as consists of a determinate Number of certain simple or less complex Ideas, join'd in such a Proportion and Situation, as the Mind has before its View, and sees in it self when that Idea is present in it, or should be present in it, when a Man gives a Name to it: I say should be; because it is not every one, nor perhaps any one, who is so careful of his Language, as to use no Word, till he views in his Mind the precise determined Idea, which he revolves to make it the Sign of it. The Want of this, is the Cause of no small Obscurity and Confusion in Men's Thoughts and Discourses. (Locke 1741a: [10])
Simple and complex idea perhaps a model for Peirce's immediate and dynamic. This "should" refers, I think, to the legislative nature of Thirdness, that the ideas in what Peirce calls the Universal Mind are determined in the sense given here.
I know there are not Words enough in any Language, to answer all the Variety of Ideas that enter into Men's Discourses and Reasonings. But this hinders not, but that when any one uses any Term, he may have in his Mind a determined Idea, which he makes it the Sign of, and to which he should keep it steddily annex'd, during that present Discourse. Where he does not, or cannot do [|] this, he in vain pretends to clear or distinct Ideas: 'Tis plain his are not so; and therefore there can be expected nothing but Obscurity and Confusion, where such Terms are made use of, which have not such a precise Determination. (Locke 1741a: [10-11])
By steady annexation he means that within a single text/discourse, a given term should be used in the same sense throughout. This is a problem with Lotman's use of the term "text", for example, which varies greatly between texts but is usually said to hold its meaning within any particular piece of writing.
Upon this Ground I have thought determined Ideas a Way of Speaking less liable to Mistake, than clear and distinct: And where Men have got such determined Ideas of all that they reason, enquire, or argue about, they will find a great Part of their Doubts and Disputes at the End. The greatest Part of the Questions and Controversies that perplex Mankind, depending on the doubtful and uncertain Use of Words, or (which is the same) indetermined Ideas, which they are made to stand for; I have made choice of these Terms to signify, 1. Some immediate Object ofo the Mind, which it perceives and has before it, distinct from the Sound it uses as a Sign of it. 2. That this Idea, thus determined, i.e. which the Mind has in it self, and knows, and sees there, be determined without any Change to that Name, and that Name determined to that precise Idea. If Men had such determined Ideas in their Enquiries and Discourses, they would both discern how far their own Enquiries and Discourses went, and avoid the greatest Part of the Disputes and Wranglings they have with others. (Locke 1741a: [11])
A familiar trope: that most problems of philosophy are really problems of philosophical language. "Immediate Object" in Peirce's use indeed appears to originate from Locke.
Book I. Chap. I. Introduction
Since it is the Understanding that sets Man above the rest of sensible Beings, and gives him all the Advantage and Dominion which he has over them; it is certainly a Subject, even for its Nobleness, worth our Labour to enquire into. The Understanding, like the Eye whilst it makes us see, and perceive all other Things, takes no notice of itself: And it requires Art and Pains to set it at a Distance, and make it its own Object. (Locke 1741a: 1)
It is difficult to believe these days that ours is the only species possessed of "understanding", that all other species only sense and do not think. This is of course a classic position, e.g. "For brutes being destitute of reason, they are also destitute of the sciences pertaining to actions" (Euryphamus 1818: 148), meaning that other creatures not only do not have Intellect/Reason (and hence cannot know the laws of nature, numbers, etc.) but they also do not possess morality (the sciences pertaining to action), which Locke replaces with his "Understanding". That it is difficult to make our own thought the object of our thought, to turn the mind inwards and reflect upon its contents, is echoed in another first paragraph of a philosophical book: "We are unknown, we knowers, ourselves to ourselves: this has its own good reason. We have never searched for ourselves - how should it then come to pass, that we should ever find ourselves?" (Nietzsche 1921: i).
This, therefore, being my Purpose, to enquire into the Original, Certainty, and Extent of Human Knowledge; together with the Grounds and Degrees of Belief, Opinion, and Assent; I shall not at present meddle with the Physical Consideration of the Mind; or trouble myself to examine, wherein its Essence consists, or by what Motions of our Spirits, or Alteration of our Bodies, we come to have any Sensation by our Organs, or any Ideas in our Understandings; and whether those Ideas do in their Formation, any, or all of them, depend on Matter or no: These are Speculations, which, however curious and entertaining, I shall decline, as lying out of my Way, in the Design I am now upon. (Locke 1741a: 1)
In other words, he leaves aside the question, is the Mind extended? Motions of the spirits calls to mind the Platonic conception of the soul, as reported by Peirce: "The soul is that which moves itself; the body is that which moves but does not move itself" (cf. W 1: 61), as well as the German word Gemütsbewegung or Estonian Hingeliigutus.
It shall suffice to my present Purpose, to consider the discerning Faculties of a Man, as they are employ'd about the Objects, which they have to do with: And I shall imagine I have not wholly mis-employ'd my self in the Thoughts I shall have on this Occasion, if, in this [|] historical, plain Method, I can give any Account of the Ways whereby our Understandings come to attain those Notions of Things we have [...] (Locke 1741a: 1-2)
"Discernment and objectivity are correlatives, and perception is a species of discernment" (Clay 1882: 19). In the Kantian system, as I understand it, Understanding does not attain Notions of Things through perception/discernment but rather notions have their "origin in the understanding alone" (cf. Kant 1855: 224-225).
It is therefore worth while to search out the Bounds between Opinion and Knowledge; and examine by what Measures, in Things, whereof we have no certain Knowledge, we ought to regulate our Assent, and moderate our Persuasions. (Locke 1741a: 2)
Also familiar: Pythagoreans reportedly distinguished likewise between opinion and "science" (cf. Taylor 1818: 220).
Men have reason to be well satisfied with what God hath thought fit for them, since he hath given them [...] Whatever is necessary for the Conveniences of Life, and Information of Virtue; and has put within the reach of their discovery the comfortable Provision for this Life, and the Way that leads to a better. (Locke 1741a: 3)
The conveniences of life = body/matter/wealth; and information of virtue = science of action (morality).
But, before I proceed on what I have thought on this Subject, I must here in the Entrance beg pardon of my Reader, for the frequent Use of the Word Idea, which he will find in the following Treatise. It being that Term, which, I think, serves best to stand for whatsoever is the Object of the Understanding, when a Man thinks; I have used it to express whatever is meant by Phantasm, Notion, Species, or whatever it is, which the Mind can be employed about in thinking; and I could not avoid frequently using it. (Locke 1741a: 5)
Footnote, quoting a critic [the Bishop of Worcester] says, "yet these Ideas, at last come to be only common Notions of Things which we must make use of in our reasoning [and] you thought it most proper to express yourself, in the most usual and familiar Way, by common Words and Expressions" (ibid, 5; footnote). It does appear that this is a common sense use of the word "idea".
I presume it will be easily granted me, that there are such Ideas in Men's Minds; every one is conscious of them in himself, and Men's Words and Actions will satisfy him, that they are in others. (Locke 1741a: 5)
Another hint of what's to come in Book III concerning language and ideas. The point here being that other people's words and actions testify that the ideas in their minds signify the same things they do for ourselves.
My Lord, if any, in their Answer to your Lordship's Sermons, and in other Pamphlets, wherein your Lordship complains they have talk'd so much of Ideas, have been troublesome to your Lordship with that Term; it is not strange that your Lordship sho'd be tired with that Sound: But how natural soever it be to our weak Constitutions, to be offended with any Sound, wherewith an importunate Din hath been made about our Ears; yet, my Lord, I know your Lordship has a better Opinion of the Articles of our Faith, than to think any of them can be over-turn'd or so much as shaken, with a Breath, formed into any Sound, or Term whatsoever. (Locke 1741a: 7)
The Sound Shape of Language, in another sense: some sounds (words) can become "troublesome" and annoy like "an importunate Din".
Names are but the arbitrary Marks of Conceptions; and so they be sufficiently appropriated to them in their Use, I know no other Difference any of them have in particular, but as they are of easy or difficult Pronunciation, and of a more or less pleasant Sound; and what particular Antipathies there may be in Men, to some of them upon that Account, is not easy to be foreseen. (Locke 1741a: 7)
Arbitrariness. The argument goes on that no sound shape of a word or term can have anything to do with the truth of a doctrine expressed in said words or terms.
There is no Word to be found, which may not be brought into a Proposition, wherein the most sacred nad most evident Truths may be opposed; but that is not a Fault in the Term, but him that uses it. (Locke 1741a: 7)
"Let's not quibble about terminology; if you have a weakness for new terms, use them. You may even call it 'Ivan Ivanovich', as long as we all know what you mean" (Jakobson 1953d: 557)
I own to your Lordship, it is a great Condescension in your Lordship to have done it, if that Word have such a share in what your Lordship has writ again my Book, as some Expressions would persuade one; and I would, for the Satisfaction of your Lordship, change the Term of Idea for a better, if your Lordship, or any one, could help me to it; for [|] that Notion will not so well stand for every immediate Object of the Mind in thinking, as Idea does, I have (as I guess) somewhere given a Reason in my Book, by shewing that the Term Notion is more peculiarly appropriated to a certain Sort of those Objects, which I call mixed Modes: And, I think, it would not found altogether so well, to say, the Notion of Red, and the Notion of a Horse; as the Idea of Red, and the Idea of a Horse. (Locke 1741a: 7-8)
I'm not yet sure if this "mixed" refers to the same thing in Kant, who distinguishes between empirical and pure conceptions, only the latter being a notion, and ideas being composed of notions. It looks like Locke uses the term Idea in the sense Kant would have Conception.
For the Unitarians might as much employ Notions, as they do now Ideas, to do Mischief; unless they are such Fools to think they can conjure with this notable Word Idea; and that the Force of what they say, lies in the Sound, and not in the Signification of their Terms. (Locke 1741a: 8)
"Now as it is commonly said that no two words have exactly the same meaning, so it is also true that none have exactly the same force in any respect." (W 1: 17)
As to the Objection, of the Author's Way by Ideas being a new Way, He thus answers: My new Way of Ideas, or my Way by Ideas, which often occurs in your Lordship's Letter, is, I confess, a very large and doubtful Expression; and may, in the full Latitude, comprehend my whole Essay; because treating of the Understanding, which is nothing but the Faculty of Thinking, I could not well treat of that Faculty of the Mind, which consists in Thinking, without considering the immediate Objects of the Mind in Thinking, which I call Ideas: And therefore in treating of the Understanding, I guess it will not be thought strange, that the greatest Part of my Book has been taken up, in considering what these Objects of the Mind, in Thinking, are; whence they come; what Use the Mind makes of them, in its several Ways of Thinking; and what are the outward Marks, whereby it signifies them to others, or records them for its own Use. (Locke 1741a: 9)
Understanding is indeed the faculty of thinking in Kant, too. The primary difference here lies in Ideas not being, for Kant, the immediate Objects of the mind. At least that's the impression I formed upon first reading (a second reading of CPR may overturn it, I guess, but it seems unlikely). The outward Marks of ideas must be words, in which case it is nice that Locke includes the twofold function of communication: signifying our ideas for others, and oneself (autocomunication).
But many Things may seem New to one, that converses only with his own Thoughts, which really are not so; as he may find, when he looks into the Thoughts of other Men, which appear in their Books. And therefore altho' I have a just Esteem for the Invention of such who can spin Volumes barely of thir own Thoughts, yet I am apt to think, they would oblige the World more, if after they have thought so much themselves, they would examine what Thoughts others have had before them, concerning the same Things; that so those may not be thought their own Inventions, which are common to themselves and others. (Locke 1741a: 9)
It is a good idea to read what others have written before setting your own thoughts forward, only to then discover, upon reading others, that one has not really achieved anything new.
But what great Obligation this would be to the World, or weighty Cause of turning over and looking into Books; I confess I do not see. The great End to me, in conversing with my own or other Mens Thoughts, in Matters of Speculation, is to find Truth, without being much concern'd whether my own spinning of it out of mine, or their spinning of it out of their own Thoughts, helps me to it. And how little I affect the Honour of an Original, may be seen in that Place of my Book, where, if any where, that Itch of Vain-glory was likeliest to have shewn itself, had I been so over-run with it, as to need a Cure. (Locke 1741a: 10)
I am very much concerned with that, and if I achieve nothing new by spinning something out of my own thoughts then so be it. This pedantic quoting and paginating will serve others in finding thoughts to spin their own out of. "I do this shit for my friends", in my case for people who are interested in the same topics, i.e. the community of inquirers.
Again, I take it, your Lordship meant not these Words for a Commendation of my Book, where you say; But if no more be meant by, 'The simple Ideas that come in by Sensation, or Reflection, and their being the Foundation of our Knowledge,' but that our Notions of Things come in, either from our Senses, or the Exercise of our Minds: As there is nothing extraordinary in the Discovery, so your Lordship is far enough from opposing that, wherein you think all Mankind are agreed. (Locke 1741a: 11)
"Only so much seems necessary, by way of introduction of premonition, that there are two sources of human knowledge (which probably spring from a common, but to us unknown root), namely, sense and understanding. By the former, objects are given to us; by the latter, thought." (Kant 1855: 18)
All, therefore, that I can say of my Book, is, That it is a Copy of my own Mind, in its several Ways of Operation. And all that I can say for the publishing of it, is, That I think the Intellectual Faculties are made, and operate alike in most Men, and that some, that I shewed it to before I published it, liked it so well, that I was confirmed in that Opinion. (Locke 1741a: 12)
That is a striking thought indeed: a book about the way you think is in a sense a copy of your mind. "Intellectual Faculties" reminiscent of the title of Chase's book, which is in the main a systematic enumeration of the faculties of consciousness.
And if I may take the Liberty to declare my Sense of it, herein it consists: 1. That a Man use no Words, but such as he makes the Signs of certain determined Objects of his Mind in Thinking, which he can make known to another. 2. Next, That he use the same Word steadily for the Sign of the same immediate Object of his Mind in Thinking. 3. That he join these Words together in Propositions, according to the Grammatical Rules of that Language he speaks in. 4. That he unite those Sentences in a Coherent Discourse. Thus, and thus only, I humbly conceive, any one may preserve himself from the Confines and Suspicion of Jargon, whether [|] he pleases to call these immediate Objects of his Mind, which his Words do, or should stand for, Ideas or no. (Locke 1741a: 12-13)
The finaly summary of the introduction. Basically, only use words in a determined sense, and not nilly-willy, meaning different things in different instances of the same word.
Book I. Chap. II. No Innate Principles in the Mind
It is an established Opinion amongst some Men, that there are in the Understanding certain Innate Principles; some Primary Notions, ϰοιναὶ ἔννοιαι, Characters, as it were stamped upon the Mind of Man, which the Soul receives in its very first Being; and brings into the World with it. (Locke 1741a: 13)
The Greek words mean, approximately, comon/shared ideas. This must be why the popular undrestanding is that Locke is talking about "innate ideas", whereas here he is actually talking of innate principles (what is a principle when compared to an idea?).
For, first 'tis evident, that all Children and Ideots, have not the least Apprehension or Thought of them: And the want of that is enough to destroy that Universal Assent, which must needs be the necessary Concomitant of all Innate Truths: It seeming to me near a Contradiction, to say, that there are Truths imprinted on the Soul, which it perceives or understands not: Imprinting, if it signify any thing, being nothing else, but the making certain Truths to be perceived. For to imprint any thing on the Mind, without the Mind's perceiving it, seems to me hardly intelligible. If therefore Children and Ideots have SOuls, have Minds, with those Impressions upon them, they must unavoidably perceive them, and necessarily know and assent to these Truths; which since they do not, it is evident that there are no such Impressions. (Locke 1741a: 14)
A counterargument is easily imagined for this: children and Ideots may not have sufficiently matured to perceive those impressions, though I admit to ignorance as to what those innate principles were supposed to be. Naturally Locke arrives at this on the next page: "To avoid this, 'tis usually answered, That all Men know and assent to them, when they come to the Use of Reason, and this is enough to prove them Innate" (ibid, 15).
If they mean that by the Use of Reason Men may discover these Principles; and that this is sufficient to prove them Innate: their Way of arguing will stand thus, (viz.) That whatever Truths Reason can certainly discover to us, and make us firmly assent to, those are all naturally imprinted on the Mind; since that universal Assent, which is made the Mark of them amounts to no more but this; That by the Use of Reason, we are capable to come to a certain Knowledge of, and assent to them; and by this Means there will be no Difference between the Maxims of the Mathematicians, and Theorems they deduce from them: All must be equally allow'd Innate; they being all Discoveries made by the Use of Reason, and Truths that a rational Creature may certainly come to know, if he apply his Thoughts rightly that Way. (Locke 1741a: 16)
This "universal Assent" is actually something that could be tacked on to the discussion of Peirce's interpretation of the "Universal mind". The illustrations certainly seem to match: "Arithmetic, the law of number, was before anything to be numbered or any mind to number had been created" (W 1: 167-169).
But how can these Men think the Use of Reason necessary to discover Principles that are supposed Innate, when Reason (if we may believe them) is nothing else, but the Faculty of deducing unknown Truths from Principles or Propositions, that are already known? (Locke 1741a: 16)
Deduction or induction? "Every judgment, therefore, being a reference of the experienced or known to the assumed or unknown, is an explanation of a phenomenon by an hypothesis, and is in fact an inference." (W 1: 152)
For this would be to destroy that Bounty of Nature, they seem so fond of, whilst they make the Knowledge of those Principles to depend on the Labour of our Thoughts. For all Reasoning is Search, and casting about, and requires Pains and Application. And how can it with any tolerable Sense be suppos'd, that what was imprinted by Nature, as the Foundation and Guide of our Reason, should need the User of Reason to discover it? (Locke 1741a: 17)
Intellectual labour. Thinking comes across in these descriptions as something painful, as if people hurt their brains when thinking.
Which is so, because till after they come to the Use of Reason, those general abstract Ideas are not framed in the Mind, about which those general Maxims are, which are mistaken for Innate Principles, but are indeed Discoveries made, and Verities introduced, and borught into the Mind by the same way, and discovered by the same Steps, as several other Propositions, which no body was ever so extravagant as to suppose Innate. (Locke 1741a: 18)
Verisimilitudes, veracities, and verities.
All that can with any Truth be meant by this Proposition, That Men assent to them when tehy come to the Use of Reason, is no more but this, That the making of general abstract Ideas, and the understanding of general Names, being a Concomitant of the rational Faculty, and growing up with it, Children commonly get not those general Ideas, nor learn the Names that stand for them, till having for a good while exercise their Reason about familiar and more particular Ideas, they are, by their ordinary Discourse and Actions with others, acknowledge to be capable of rational Conversation. (Locke 1741a: 19)
Is rational conversation different from polite conversation? The faculty of reason deals with general abstract ideas, this much can be taken for granted at this point. The faculty of understanding dealing with conceptions, which are not necessarily abstract nor general.
The Senses at first let in particular Ideas, and furnish the yet empty Cabinet: And the Mind by degrees growing familiar with some of them, they are lodged in the Memory, and Names got to them. Afterwards the Mind proceeds farther, abstracts them, and by degrees learns the Use of general Names. In this manner the Mind comes to be furnish'd with Ideas and Language, the Materials about which to exercise its discursive Faculty: And the Use of Reason becomes daily more visible, as these Materials, that give it Employment, increase. (Locke 1741a: 19)
A vivid image this furnishing an empty cabinet (presumably, meaning shelf, and not simply a room). What strikes me is that here as if appears a connection between Names and Language, as if language consisted in the main of names for things. The discursive faculty - is this comparable to Chase's faculty of Discursiveness (RSR)? If so, then furnishing names for things would be Discrimination (RSRM).
We by degrees get Ideas and Names, and learn their appropriated Connexion one with another; and then to Propositions, made in such Terms, whose Signification we have learnt, and wherein the Agreement or Disagreement we can perceive in our Ideas, when put together, is expressed, we at first hearing assent; though to other Propositions, in themselves as certain and evident, but which are concerning Ideas, not so soon or so easily got, we are at the same time no way capable of assenting. (Locke 1741a: 25)
Easier to agree about things than ideas. This "Connexion" is basically what Jakobson termed he phono-semantic knot, I think.
But if Propositions be brought to him in Words, which stand for Ideas he has not yet in his Mind; to such Propositions, however evidently true or false in themselves, he affords neither Assent nor Dissent, but is ignorant. For Words being but empty Sounds, any farther than they are Signs of our Ideas, we cannot but assent to them, as they correspond to those Ideas we have, but no farther than that. (Locke 1741a: 25)
Nothing significant to add here, just noting down all these instances, hoping that Book III will put all these random instances into perspective, an over-arching framework or something.
Can it be imagin'd, with any Appearance of Reason, That they perceive the Impressions from things without, and be at the same time ignorant of those Characters which Nature itself has taken care to stamp within? (Locke 1741a: 26)
Alternative phraseology for the mind's embrace of an object.
One would think, according to these Men's Principles, that all these native Beams of Light (were there any such) should in those, who have no Reserves, no Arts of Concealment, shine out in their full lustre, and leave us in no more doubt of their being there, than we are of their Love of Pleasure, and Abhorrence of Pain. But alas, amongst Children, Ideots, Savages, and the grossly Illiterate, what general Maxims are to be found? What universal Principles of Knowledge? Their Notions are few and narrow, borrowed only from those Objects they have had most to do with, and which have made upon their Senses the frequentest and strongest Impressions. A Child knows his Nurse and his Cradle, and by degrees the Play-things of a little more advanced Age: And a young Savage has, perhaps, his Head fill'd with Love and Hunting, according to the Fashion of his Tribe. But he that from a Child untaught, or a wild Inhabitant of the Woods, will expect these abstract Maxims and reputed Principles of Sciences, will, I fear, find himself mistaken. Such kind of general Propositions are seldom mentioned in the Huts of Indians, much less are they to be found in the Thoughts of Children, or any Impressions of them on the Minds of Naturals. They are the Language and Business of the Schools and Academies of learned Nations, accustomed to that sort of Conversation or Learning, where Disputes are frequent: These Maxims being suited to artificial Argumentation, and useful for Conviction; but not much conducing to the Discovery of Truth, or Advancement of Knowledge. (Locke 1741a: 28)
Phatic! The savage is no great metaphysician - this trope already present in Locke. I've previously wondered at the conflation of children and savages, but here I see that this class also includes "Ideots" and "the grossly Illiterate", the last becoming later simply "the uneducated classes".
Book I. Chap. III. No Innate Practical Principles
The speculative Maxims carry their own Evidence with them: But moral Principles require Reasoning and Discourse, and some Exercise of the Mind, to discover the Certainty of their Truth. They lie not open as natural Characters engraved on [|] the Mind; which, if any such were, they must needs be visible by themselves, and by their own Light be certain and known to every body. But this is no Derogotion to their Truth and Certainty, no more than it is to the Truth or Certainty of the three Angles of a Triangle being equal to two right ones, because it is not so evident, as the Whole is bigger than a Part; nor so apt to be assented to at first hearing. (Locke 1741a: 29-30)
Speculative principles vs mora/practical principles. Triangles naturally showing up in reference to something absolutely certain.
Whether there be any such moral Principles, wherein all Men do agree, I appeal to any, who have been but moderately conversant in the History of Mankind, and look'd abroad beyond the Smoke of their own Chimneys. (Locke 1741a: 30)
Looking only to the smoke of one's own chimney a colourful expression for being self-involved or self-centered, I take it.
Where is that practical Truth, that is universally recevied without doubt or question, as it must be, if Innate? Justice, and keeping of Contracts, is that which most Men seem to agree in. This is a Principle, which is thought to extend itself to the Dens of Thieves, and the Confederacies of the greatest Villains; and they who have gone farthest towards the putting off Humanity itself, keep Faith and Rules of Justice one with another. I grant that Out-laws themselves do this one amongst another; but 'tis without receiving these as the Innate Laws of Nature. They practise them as Rules of Convenience within their own Communities: But it is impossible to conceive, that he embraces Justice as a practical Principle, who acts fairly with his fellow Highwaymen, and at the same time plunders or kills the next honest Man he meets with. Justice and Truth are the common Ties of Society; and therefore, even Out-Laws and Robbers, who break with all the World besides, must keep Faith and Rules of Equity amongst themselves, or else they cannot hold together. (Locke 1741a: 30)
From what I've recently heard (in relation with Euroopa Õigusajalugu), Justice and the keeping of contracts are very much involved. These "common Ties of Society" and "hold[ing] together" anticipate the tropes of "ties of union" in later centuries, it looks like.
Perhaps it will be urged, That the tacit Assent of their Minds agrees to what their Practice contradicts. I answore, First, I have always thought the Actions of Men the best Interpreters [|] of their Thoughts. (Locke 1741a: 30-31)
Very well put. Reminds me of Allan Pease's book title, How to read other's thoughts by their gestures. Also one of those curious uses of the word "interpreter" (e.g. people's actions are interpretant of their thoughts).
Such natural Impressions on the Understanding are so far from being confirm'd hereby, that this is an Argument against them; since if there were certain Characters imprinted by Nature on the Understanding, as the Principles of Knowledge, we could not but perceive them constantly operate in us, and influence our Knowledge, as we do those others on the Will and Appetite; which never cease to be the constant Springs and Motives of all our Actions, to which we perpetually feel them strongly impelling us. (Locke 1741a: 31)
Will and Appetite still connected in Locke, as they were for Aristotle, who'se column for will (Secondness) included cupidity and appetite (cf. Chase 1863: 469).
But yet, if a Christian, who has the View of Happiness and Misery in another Life, be asked why a Man must keep his Word, he will give this as a Reason: Because God, who has the Power of Eternal Life and Death, requires it of us. But if an Hobbist be asked why, he will answer, Because the Publick requires it, and the Leviathan will punish you if you do not. And if one of the old Heathen Philosophers had been asked, he would have answer'd, Because it was dishonest, below the Dignity of a Man, and opposite to Virtue, the highest Perfection of human Nature, to do otherwise. (Locke 1741a: 32)
From these, I'd rather go with the second or third, preferably with the last one. On the whole these three justifications are conformable to the triad: whether you expect supervision from God (Third), other people (Second), or oneself (First).
The great Principle of Morality, To do as one would be done to, is more commended than practised. But the Breach of this Rule cannot be a greater Vice, than to teach others, That it is no moral Rule, nor Obligatory, would be thought Madness, and contrary to that Interest Men sacrifice to, when tehy break it themselves. (Locke 1741a: 33)
Indeed, this moral principle has more or less universal assent but not many practice it at all times.
Others also may come to be of the same Mind, from their Education, Company, and Customs of their Country; which Perusasion, however got, will serve to set Conscience on work; which is nothing else, but our own Opinion or Judge of the moral Rectitude or Pravity of our own Actions. (Locke 1741a: 34)
Depravity evidently has its opposite.
It is therefore little less than a Contradiction to suppose, That whole Nations of Men should, both in their Professions and Practice, unanimously and universally give the lye to what, by the most invincible Evidence, every one of them knew to be True, Right, and Good. (Locke 1741a: 36)
Is this a triad? (1) Good, (2) Right, and (3) True.
For, Parents, preserve your Chirdren, is so far from an Innate Truth, that it is no Truth at all; it being a Command, and not a Proposition, and so not capable of Truth or Falsehood. To make it capable of being assented to as true, it must be reduced to some such Proposition as this: It is the Duty of Parents to preserve their Children. (Locke 1741a: 37)
"When in O'Neill's play The Fountain, Nano, "(in a fierce tone of command)", says "Drink!" - the imperative cannot be challenged by the question "is it true or not?", which may be, however, perfectly well asked after such sentences as "one drank", "one will drink", "one would drink". In contradistinction to the imperative sentences, the declarative sentences are convertible into interrogative sentences: "did one drink?", "will one drink?", "would one drink?"." (Jakobson 1960d: 23)
Moral Laws are set as a Curb and Restraint to these exorbitant Desires, which they cannot be but by Rewards and Punishments, that will over-balance the Satsifaction any one shall propose to himself in the Breach of the Law. If therefore any thing be imprinted on the Mind of all Men as a Law, all Men must have a certain and unavoidable Knowledge, that certain and unavoidable Punishments will attend the Breach of it. (Locke 1741a: 38)
Both Desires (of the Soul) and Moral Laws are second, two sides of the same coin.
For, besides that we are assured from History, of many Men, nay, whole Nations, who doubt or disbelieve some or all of them; I cannot see how the third, viz. That Virtue join'd with Piety, is the best Worship of God, can be an Innate Principle, when the Name, or Sound, Virtue, is so hard to be understood; liable to so much Uncertainty in its Signification; and the Thing it stands for, so much contended about, and difficult to be known. And therefore this can be but a very uncertain Rule of Human Practice, and serve but very little to the Conduct of our Lives, and is therefore very unfit to be assigned as an Innate Practical Principle. (Locke 1741a: 41)
The formula sounds very much like "felicity is nothing else than the use of virtue in" (Archytas 1818: 158), with prosperity replaced with piety, and felicity withe the worship of God. Locke is correct in that virtues are vague.
For let us consider this Proposition as to its Meaning, (for it is the Sense, and not Sound, that is and must be the Principle and common Notion) viz. Virtue is the best Worship of God; i.e. is most acceptable to him; which, if Virtue be taken, as commonly it is, for those Actions, which, according to the different Opinions of several Countries, are accounted laudable, will be a Proposition so far from being certain, that it will not be true. If Virtue be taken for Actions conformable to God's Will, or to the Rule prescribed by God, which is the true and only Measure of Virtue, when Virtue is used to signify what is in its own Nature right and good; then this Proposition, That Virtue is the best Worship of God, will be most true and certain, but of very little use in Human Life: Since it will amount to no more than this, viz. That God is pleased with the doing of what he commands; which a Man may certainly know to be true, without knowing what it is that God doth command; and so be as far from any Rule or Principles of his Actions, as he was before. (Locke 1741a: 41)
This confusion is due, I think, to the Christian notion, "the will of God", replacing the Pythagorean original, which was the "science of actions".
For such, who are careful (as they call it) to principle Children well, (and few there be who have not a Set of those Principles for them, which they believe in) instil into the unwary, and, as yet, unprejudiced Understanding, (for white Paper receives any Characters) those Doctrines they wou'd have them retain and profess. (Locke 1741a: 44)
Approaching the tabula rasa.
This will appear very likely, and almost unavoidable to come to pass, if we consider the Nature of Mankind, and the Constitution of Human Affairs; wherein most Men cannot live, without employing their Time in the daily Labours of their Calling; nor be at quiet in their Minds, without some Foundation or Principles to rest their Thoughts on. There is scarce any one so floating and superficial in his Understanding, who hath not some reverenced Propositions, which are to him the Principles on which he bottoms his Reasonings; and by which he judgeth of Truth and Falsehood, Right and Wrong; which some, wanting Skill and Leisure, and others the Inclination; and some being taught, that they ought not to examine; there are few to be found, who are not exposed by their Ignorance, Laziness, Education, or Precipitancy, to take them upon Truth. (Locke 1741a: 45)
Most people lack the time of leisure to examine and reflect upon their own conceptions of understanding.
Book I. Chap. IV. Other Considerations concerning Innate Principles, both Speculative and Practical
One may perceive how, by Degrees, afterwards Ideas come into their Minds; and that they get no more, nor no other, than what Experience, and the Observation of Things, that come in their Way, furnish them with; which might be enough to satisfy us, that they are not Original Characters, stamped on the Mind. (Locke 1741a: 48)
What is the difference between Experience and Observation?
Is it the actual Knowledge of Impossibile est idem esse, & non esse, that makes a Child distinguish between its Mother and a Stranger: or that makes it fond of the one, and fly the other? (Locke 1741a: 48)
Another instance in which Malinowski has as if transferred something Locke wrote about children to the (phatic communion of the) savages.
If Identity (to instance in that alone) be a native Impression; and consequently so clear [|] and obvious to us, that we must needs know it even from our Cradles; I would gladly be resolved, by one of seven, or seventy Years old, Whether a Man, being a Creature, consisting of Soul and Body, be the same Man when his Body is changed? Whether Euphorbus and Pythagoras, having had the same Soul, where the same Man, though they lived in several Ages asunder? Nay, Whether the Cock too, which had the same Soul, were not the same with both of them? (Locke 1741a: 48-49)
Of course Pythagoras makes an appearance, how could he not.
Indeed it is urged, that it is suitable to the Goodness of God, to imprint, upon the Minds of Men, Characters and Notions of himself, and not to leave them in the Dark, and Doubt, in so grand a Concernment; and also by that means, so secure to himself the Homage and Veneration due from so intelligent a Creature as Man; and therefore he has done it. (Locke 1741a: 55)
This would indeed have been suitable to the goodness attributed to God.
What true or tolerable Notion of a Deity could they have, who acknowledged and worshipped Hundreds? Every Deity, that they owned above one, was an infallible Evidence of their Ignorance of him, and a Proof that they had no true Notion of God, where Unity, Infinity, and Eternity, were excluded. (Locke 1741a: 57)
What is this now?
If it be said, That Wise Men of all Nations came to have true Conceptions of the Unity and Infinity of the Deity, I grant it. (Locke 1741a: 58)
This is very suspicious. The previous paragraph reads that "the Bishop of Beryte [...] professedly owns a Plurality of Gods" (ibid, 58). Could this "Infinity" really be Totality?
Secondly, It seems to me plainly to prove, that the truest and best Notions of Men had of God, were not imprinted, but acquired by Thought and Meditation, and a right Use of their Faculties: Since the wise and considerate Men of the World, by a right and careful Employment of their Thoughts and Reason, attained true Notions in this, as well as other Things; whilst the lazy and inconsiderate Part of Men, making the far greater Number, took up their Notions, by chance, from common Tradition and vulgar Conceptions, without much beating their Heads about them. (Locke 1741a: 58)
Yet another instance that could be connected with phatic communion: "the far greater Number" of people, that is, the uneducated classes, take on "vulgar Conceptions" of God.
Since if God had set any Impression, any Character on the Understanding of Men, it is most reasonable to expect it should have been some clear and uniform Idea of himself, as far as our weak Capacities were capable to receive so incomprehensible and infinite an Object. (Locke 1741a: 59)
I would not be at all surprised if the ordeal with the Infinite in William Hamilton was really a discussion of man's inability to grasp God. So it indeed appears from the title of Henry Calderwood's book, Philosophy of the Infinite: A Treatise on Man's Knowledge of the Infinite Being, in Answer to Sir William Hamilton and Dr. Mansel (1861).
I confess, there is another Idea which would be of general Use for Mankind to have, [|] an it is of general Talk, as if they had it; and that is the Idea of Substance, which we neither have, nor can have, by Sensation or Reflection. If Nature took care to provide us any Idea, we might well expect it should be such, as by our own Faculties we cannot procure to ourselves: But we see on the contrary, that since by those Ways, whereby other Ideas are brought into our Minds, this is not, we have no such clear Idea at all, and therefore signify nothing by the word Substance, but only an uncertain Supposition of we know not what (i.e. of something whereof we have no particular distinct positive) Idea, which we take to be the Substratum, or Support of those Ideas we do know. (Locke 1741a: 99-100)
Hol up, is Locke's Substance Kant's noumenon?
To which let me add: If there be any Innate Ideas, any Ideas in the Mind, which the Mind does not actually think on; they must be lodg'd in the Memory, and from thence must be brought into View by Remembrance; i.e. must be known, when they are remembered, to have been Perceptions in the Mind before, unless Remembrance can be without Remembrance. For to remember, is to perceive any thing with Memory, or with a Consciousness that it was known or perceived before: Without this, whatever Idea comes into the Mind, is new, and not remembered: This Consciousness of its having been in the Mind before, being that which distinguishes Remembering from all other ways of Thinking. Whatever Idea was never perceived by the Mind, was never in the Mind. Whatever Idea is in the Mind, is either an actual Perception, or else having been an actual Perception, is so in the Mind, that by the Memory it can be made an actual Perception again. Whenever there is the actual Perception of an Idea without Memory, the Idea appears perfectly new and unknown before to the Understanding. Whenever the Memory brings any Idea into actual View, it is with a Consciousness, that it had been there before, and was not wholly a Stranger to the Mind. (Locke 1741a: 61)
The argument follows that there cannot be any innate ideas because it would mess up this logic. For my purposes this is in itself a sufficiently interesting definition of memory.
The great Difference that is to be found in the Notion of Mankind, is, from the different Use they put their Faculties to, whilst some (and those the most) taking things upon trust, wisemploy their Power of Assent, by lazily enslaving their Minds to the Dictates and Dominion of others, in Doctrines which it is their Duty carefully to examine; and not blindly, with an implicit Faith, to swallow: Others employing their thoughts only about some few Things, grow acquainted sufficiently with them, attain great Degrees of Knowledge in them, and are ignorant of all other, having never let their Thoughts loose in their Search of other Enquiries (Locke 1741a: 63)
Much the same as above (cf. Locke 1741: 58), that most people take in the opinions that surround them.
So much as we ourselves consider and comprehend of Truth and Reason, so much we possess of real and true Knowledge. The floating of other Men's Opinions in our Brains, makes us not one jot the more knowing, though they happen to be true. What in them was Science, is in us but Opiniatrety, whilst we give up our Assent only to reverend Names, and do not, as they did, employ our own Reason to understand those Truths which gave them Reputation. Aristotle was certainly a knowing Man, but no body ever though him so, because he blindly embraced, and confidently vented the Opinions of another. And if the taking up of another Principles, without examining them, made not him a Philosopher, I suppose it will hardly make any body else so. In the Science, every one has so much as he really knows and comprehends: What he believes only, nad takes upon trust, are but Shreads; which, however well in the whole Piece, make no considerable Addition to his Stock who gothers them. Such borrowed Wealth, like Fairy-Money, though it were Gold in the Hand from which he received it, well be but Leaves and Dust when it comes to Use. (Locke 1741a: 65)
The only things I really know is that which I can speak to without the aid of this blog, which is all borrowed knowledge. On the other hand, if you do spin things out of your own thoughts, there's a great likelihood that you won't be as easily understood by your contemporaries, or anyone for that matter, and will remain a historical sidenote for a long time (see E. R. Clay).
But in the future Part of this Discourse, designing to raise an Edifice uniform, and consistent with itself, as far as my own Experience and Observation will assist me, I hope to erect it on such a Basis, that I shall not need to shore it up with Props and Buttresses, leaning on borrowed or begg'd Foundations: Or at least, if mine prove a Castle in the Air, I will endeavour it shall be all of a piece, and hang together. (Locke 1741a: 66)
Architectonic! "I seem to myself to be the sole depositary at present of the completely developed system, which all hangs together and cannot receive any proper presentation in fragments." (CP 8.255; in Dilworth 2014: 39)
Book II. Chap. I. Of Ideas, in general, and their Origin
Every Man being conscious to himself, That he thinks; and that which his Mind is apply'd about, whilst thinking, being the Ideas that are there; 'tis past doubt, that Men have in their Minds several Ideas, such as are those expressed in the Words, Whiteness, Hardness, Sweetness, Thinking, Motion, Man, Elephant, Army, Drunkenness, and others: It is in the first place then to be enquired, How he comes by them? (Locke 1741a: 67)
Kust tulevad mõtted?
Let us then suppose the Mind to be, as we say, white Paper, void of all Characters, without any Ideas; How comes it to be furnished? Whence comes it by that vast Store, which the busy and boundless Fancy of Man has painted on it, with an almost endless Variety? Whence has it all the Materials of Reason and KNowledge? To this I answer, in a word, from Experience: In that, all our Knowledge is founded; [|] and from that it ultimately derives itself. Our Observation employ'd either about external sensible Objects, or about the internal Operations of our Minds, perceived and reflected on by ourselves, is that which supplies our Understanding with all the Materials of Thinking. These Two are the Fountains of Knowledge, from whence all the Ideas we have, or can naturally have, do spring. (Locke 1741a: 67-68)
Tabula rasa is this "white Paper". The heading is more illuminating: "All Ideas come from Sensation or Reflection", which Kant reformulates as Sense and Understanding. External sensible Objects and the internal Operations of our Minds, also, turn into the external sense (space) and the internal sense (time) in Peirce.
The other Fountain, from which Experience furnisheth the Understanding with Ideas, is the Perception of the Operations of our own Minds within us, as it is employ'd about the Ideas it has got; which Operations, when the Soul comes to reflect on, and consider, do furnish the Understanding with another Set of Ideas, which could not be had from things without; and such are, Perception, Thinking, Doubting, Believing, Reasoning, Knowing, Willing, and all the different Actings of our own Minds; which we being conscious of, and observing in ourselves, do from these receive into our Understandings as distinct Ideas, as we do from Bodies affecting our Senses. This Source of Ideas, every Man has wholly in himself: And tho' it be not Sense, as having nothing to do with external Objects; yet it is very like it, and might properly enough be called Internal Sense. (Locke 1741a: 68)
Here it becomes very obvious why Chase designated the second relation (Subject-Subject), where Kant has Understanding, as "Self-Consciousness".
The Term Operations here, I use in a large Sense, as comprehending not barely the Actions of the Mind about its Ideas, but some sort of Passions arising sometimes from them, such as it is the Satisfaction or Uneasiness arising from any Thought. (Locke 1741a: 69)
These could be the sentiments.
To ask, at what Time a Man has first any Ideas, is to ask when he begins to perceive; having Ideas, and Perception, being the same thing. I know it is an Opinion, That the Soul always thinks, and that it has the actual Perception of Ideas in itself constantly, as long as it exists; and that actual Thinking is an inseparable from the Soul, as actual Extension is from the Body: which if true, to enquire after the beginning of a Man's Ideas, is the same as to enquire after the beginning of his Soul. For by this Account, Soul and its Ideas, as Body and its Extension, will begin to exist both at the same time. (Locke 1741a: 71)
Within the frameworks of these philosophical systems it is perfectly reasonably to state that the soul thinks, whereas our material age knows that it is the brain, a part of the body, that does that.
I grant that the Soul in a waking Man is never without Thought, because it is the Condition of being awake: But whether Sleeping without Dreaming be not an Affection of the whole Man, Mind as well as Body, may be worth a waking Man's Consideration; it being hard to conceive that any thing should think, and not be conscious of it. If the Soul doth think in a sleeping Man, without being conscious of it, I ask, whether, during such Thinking, it has any Pleasure or Pain, or be capable of Happiness or Misery? I am sure the Man is not, no more than the Bed or Earth he lies on. For to be happy or miserable, without being conscious of it, seems to me utterly inconsistent and impossible; or if it be possible that the Soul can, whilst the Body is sleeping, have its Thinking, Enjoyments, and Concerns, its Pleasure or Pain apart, which the Man is not conscious of, nor partakes in; it is certain, that Socrates asleep, and Socrates awake, is not the same Person: But his Soul when he sleeps, and Socrates the Man, consisting of Body and Soul when he is waking, are two Persons; since waking Socrates has no Knowledge of, or Concernment for that Happiness or Misery of his Soul, which it enjoys alone by itself whilst he sleeps, without perceiving any thing of it; no more than he has for the Happiness or Misery of a Man in the Indies, whom he knows not. (Locke 1741a: 72)
Man, Mind and Body wrong; Man, Body and Soul correct; Man is Mind (Intellect; intelligent animal). The argument ignores the "unconscious mental event". The mind of man is active even in sleep (dreaming, consolidating memory). But this Locke may not have known, what with lacking EEG.
Nature never makes excellent Things for mean or no Uses: And it is hardly to be conceived, that our infinite wise Creator, should make so admirable a Faculty, as the Power of Thinking, that Faculty which comes nearest to Excellency of his own incomprehensible Being, to be so idly and uselessly employ'd, at least 1/4 part of its time here, as to think constantly without remembering any of those Thoughts, without doing any Good to it self or others, or being any way useful to any other part of the Creation. (Locke 1741a: 75)
An echo of the Pythagorean notion that the Intellect of man is closest to God.
Those who so confidently tell us, That the Soul always actually thinks, I would they would also tell us, what those Ideas are, that are in the Soul of a Child, before, or just at the Union with the Body, before it hath received any by Sensation. The Dream of sleeping Men, are, as I take it, all made up of the waking Man's Ideas, though for the most part oddly put together. 'Tis strange, if the Soul has Ideas of its own, that it derived not from Sensation or Reflection, (as it must have, if it thought before it received any Impression from the Body) that it should never, in its private Thinking, (so private that the Man himself perceives it not) retain any of them, the very Moment it wakes out of them, and then make the Man glad with new Discoveries. (Locke 1741a: 76)
This shows how old the notion that dream life echoes waking life is.
For it is altogether as intelligible to say, that a Body is extended without Parts, as that any thing thinks without being conscious of it, or perceiving that it does so. They who talk thus, may, with as much Reason, if it be necessary to their Hypothesis, say, That a Man is always Hungry, but that he does not always feel it: Whereas, Hunger cosists in that very Sensation, as Thinking consists in being conscious to himself of Thinking; I ask, How they know it? Consciousness is the Perception of what passes in a Man's own Mind. (Locke 1741a: 77)
Consciousness always also involves meta-consciousness.
In time, the Mind comes to reflect on its own Operations, about the Ideas got by Sensation, and thereby stores itself with a new Set of Ideas, which I call Ideas of Reflection. These are the Impressions that are made on our Senses by outward Objects, that are extrinsical to the Mind; and its own Operations, proceeding from Powers intrinsical and proper to itself, which when reflected on by itself, become also [|] Objects of its Contemplation, are, as I have said, The Original of all Knowledge. Thus the first Capacity of human Intellect, is, that the Mind is fitted to receive the Impressions made on it; either through the Senses, by outward Objects, or by its own Operations, when it reflects on them. (Locke 1741a: 79-80)
Already familiar distinction between sense/sensation and understanding/reflection. What Kant calls the conceptions of understanding are here, it looks like, ideas of reflection.
In this Part, the Understanding is meerly [sic] passive; and whether or no, it will have these Beginnings, and as it were Materials of Knowledge, is not in its own power. For the Objects of our Senses do, many of them, obtrude their particular Ideas upon our Minds, whether we will or no: And the Operations of our Minds will not let us be without, at least some obscure Notions of them. No Man can be wholly ignorant of what he does, when he thinks. These simple Ideas, when offered to the Mind, the Understanding can no more refuse to have, nor alter, when they are imprinted, nor blot them out, and make new ones itself, than a Mirror can refuse, alter, or obliterate the Images or Ideas, which the objects set before it do therein produce. As the Bodies that surround us do diversly affect our Organs, the Mind is forced to receive the Impressions, and cannot avoid the Perceptions of those Ideas that are annexed to them. (Locke 1741a: 80)
This is what Clay calls quasi-attention. Objects obtrude (intrude, but on).
Book II. Chap. II. Of simple Ideas
When the Understanding is once stored with these simple Ideas, it has the Power to repeat, compare, and unite them, even to an almost infinitey Variety, and so can make at pleasure new complex Ideas. (Locke 1741a: 81)
Operations of Reflection.
But because a Relation cannot be founded in nothing, or be the Relation of nothing, and the thing [|] here related as a Supporter, or a Support, is not represented to the Mind, by any clear and distinct Ideas; therefore the obscure and indistinct, vague Idea of Thing, or Something, is all that is left to be the positive Idea, which has the Relation of a Support, or Substratum, to Modes or Accidents; and that general, indetermined Idea of Something, is, by the Abstraction of the Mind, derived also from the simple Ideas of Sensation and Reflection: And thus the Mind, from the positive, simple Ideas got by Sensation and Reflection, comes to the general, relative Idea of Substance, which without these positive, simple, Ideas, it would never have. (Locke 1741a: 83-84)
Could Peirce's fuzzy feeling be an indetermined idea of something?
Book II. Chap. III. Of Ideas of one Sense
The better to conceive the Ideas we receive from Sensation, it may not be amiss for us to consider them, in reference to the different Ways, whereby they make their Approaches to our Minds, and make themselves perceivable by us.(Locke 1741a: 85)
- First, Then, there are some, which come into our Minds by one Sense only.
- Secondly, There are others, that convey themselves into the Mind by more Senses than one.
- Thirdly, Others that are had from Reflection only.
- Fourthly, There are some that make themselves way, and are suggested to the Mind, by all the Ways of Sensation and Reflection.
A useful breakdown, I imagine. Though there are not (simple?) ideas that are borne from several reflections?
Book II. Chap. IV. Of Solidity
The Idea of Solidity we receive by our Touch; and it arises from the Resistance which we find in Body, to the Entrance of any other Body into the Place it possesses, till it has left it. There is no Idea, which we receive more constantly from Sensation, than Solidity. Whether we move, or rest, in what Posture soever we are, we always feel something under us, that supports us, and hinders our farther sinking downwards; and the Bodies, which we daily handle, make us perceive, that whilst tehy remain between them, they do, by an insurmountable force, hinder the Approach of the Parts of our Hands that press them. That which thus hinders the Approach of two Bodies, when they are moving one towards another, I call Solidity. (Locke 1741a: 86)
How did it come to be that this is frequently associated with Peirce's Secondness (resistance)?
I will not dispute, whether this Acceptation [|] of the Word Solid be nearer to its original Signification, that that which Mathematicians use it in: It suffices, that I think the common Notion of Solidity will allow, if not justify, this Use of it; but if any one think it better to call it Impenetrability, he has my Consent. Only I have thought the Term Solidity the more proper to express this Idea, not only because of its vulgar Use in that Sense, but also because it carries something more of positive in it, than Impenetrability, which is negative, and is, perhaps, more a Consequence of Solidity, than Solidity itself. (Locke 1741a: 86-87)
"I shall now attempt to show that the facts of chemistry are explicable by the view of Kant, that matter is not absolutely impenetrable and that chemical union consists in the interpenetration of the constituents." (W 1: 97-98)
By this Idea of Solidity, is the Extension of Body distinguished from the Extension of Space: The Extension of Body being nothing, but the Cohesion or Continuity of solid, separable, moveable Parts; and the Extension of Space, the Continuity of unsolid, inseparable, and immovable Parts. Upon the Solidity of Bodies also depends their mutual Impulse, Resistance, and Protrusion. (Locke 1741a: 89)
Extension always somewhat mysterious - I'm not sure but I don't think modern physics (not to mention psychology) use this term.
If there be others, that have not these two Ideas distinct, but confound them, and make but one of them, I know not how Men, who have the same Idea under different Names, or different Ideas under the same Name, can, in that case, talk with one another, any more than a Man, who, not being blind or deaf, has distinct Ideas of the Colour of Scarlet, and the Sound of a Trumpet, could discourse concerning Scarlet-Colour with the blind Man, I mention in another Place, who fancied that the Idea of Scarlet was like the Sound of a Trumpet. (Locke 1741a: 90)
Another anticipation of the issues of language in Book III.
The simple Ideas we have are such, as Experience teaches them us; but if beyond that, we endeavour, by Words, to make them clearer in the Minds, we shall succeed no better, than if we went about to clear up the Darkness of a blind Man's Mind by talking; and to discourse into him the Ideas of Light and Colours. (Locke 1741a: 90)
I wonder if this has anything to do with the void/blind quote.
Book II. Chap. V. Of Simple Ideas of divers Senses
The Ideas we get by more than one Sense, are of Space or Extension, Figure, Rest, and Motion: For these make perceivable Impressions both on the Eyes and Touch; and we can receive and convey into our Minds the Ideas of our Extension, Figure, Motion, and Rest of Bodies, both by Seeing and Feeling. But having occasion to speak more at large of these in another Place, I here only enumerate them. (Locke 1741a: 90)
One-paragraph chapter. Is the distinction between ideas got by one sense or several all that important?
Book II. Chap. VI. Of Simple Ideas of Reflection
The two great principal Actions of the Mind, which are most frequently considered, and which are so frequent, that every one that pleases may take notice of 'em in himself, are these two:Perception, or Thinking; andThe Power of Thinking is called the Understanding, and the Power of Volition is called the Will, and these two Powers or Abilities in the Mind are denominated Faculties. (Locke 1741a: 91)
Volition, or Willing.
This messes up the system all kinds of ways. How can both Perception and Thinking make up the Understanding? (What happened to Sensation?) And where goes Will? In the broad scheme of things the Understanding is the Will.
Book II. Chap. VII. Of Simple Ideas of both Sensation and Reflection
Delight, or Uneasiness, one or other of them join themselves to almost all our Ideas, both of Sensation and Reflection: And there is scarce any Affection of our Senses from without, and retired Thought of our Mind within, which is not able to produce in us Pleasure or Pain. By Pleasure and Pain, I would be understood to signify whatsoever delights or molests us; whether it arises from the Thoughts of our Minds, or any thing operating on our Bodies. (Locke 1741a: 92)
Something like sentiments again. On the whole this may supplement the notion of that every Secondness contains within itself Firstness; i.e. even ideas of reflection have some feeling attached to them.
The infinite wise Author of our Being, having given us the Power over several Parts of our Bodies, to move or keep them at rest, as we think fit; and also by the Motion of them, to move ourselves, and our contiguous Bodies, in which consists all the Actions of our Body: Having also given a Power to our Minds in several Instances, to chuse amongst its Ideas, which it will think on, and to pursue the Enquiry of this or that Subject with Consideration and Attention, to excite us to these Actions of Thinking and Motion, that we are capable of, has been pleased to join to several Thoughts, and several Sensations, a Perception of Delight. If this were wholly separated from all our outward Sensations, hould have no reason to prefer one Thought or Action to another; Negligence to Attention; or Motion to Rest. And so we should neither stir our Bodies, nor employ our Minds; but let our Thoughts (if I may so call it) run adrift, without any Direction or Design; and suffer the Ideas of our Minds, like unregarded Shadows, to make their Appearances there, as it happen'd, without attending to them. In which State, Man, however furnished with the Faculties of Understanding and Will, would be a very idle unactive Creature, and pass his time only in a lazy lethargick Dream. It has therefore pleased our wise Creator, to annex to several Objects, and to the Ideas which we receive from them, as also to several of our Thoughts, a concomitant Pleasure, and that in several Objects, to several Degrees, that those Faculties which he had endowed us with, might not remain wholly idle, and unemploy'd by us. (Locke 1741a: 92)
The life of man would be a vague uncharted nebula if God did not give some of our sensations and reflections a concomitant pleasure or delight to direct our free will. In this, I think, he's committing the same fallacy as the proponents of innate ideas he argued against in Book I. If some ideas give us more delight than others, why not list them?
Existence and Unity are two other Ideas, that are suggested to the Understanding, by every Object without, and every Idea within. When Ideas are in our Minds, we consider them as being actually there, as well as we consider Things to be actually without us; which is, that they exist, or have Existence: And whatever we can consider as one Thing, whether a real Being, or Idea, suggests to the Understanding the Idea of Unity. (Locke 1741a: 94)
Unity explained - whatever we can consider as one thing.
Besides these, there is another Idea, which though suggested by our Senses, yet is more constantly offered us, by what passes in our own Minds; and that is the Idea of Succession. For if we look immediately into urselves, and reflect on what is observable there, we shall find our Ideas always, whilst we are awake, or have any Thought, passing in Train, one going, and another coming, without Intermission. (Locke 1741a: 94)
The "train of thought" originally a train of ideas in succession.
Book II. Chap. VIII. Some farther Considerations concerning our Simple Ideas
To discover the Nature of our Ideas the better, and to discourse of them intelligibly, it will be convenient to distinguish them, as they are Ideas or Perceptions in our Minds; and as they are Modifications of Matters in the Bodies that cause such Perceptions in us; that so we may not think (as perhaps usually is done) that they are exactly the Images and Resemblances of something inherent in the Subject; most of those of Sensation being in the Mind no more the Likeness of something existing without us, than the Names, than stand for them, are the Likeness of our Ideas, which yet, upon Hearing, they are apt to excite in us. (Locke 1741a: 97)
"Ideas in the Mind, Qualities in Bodies" - with Images, Resemblances, and Likeness we're getting nearer to Peircean Firstness.
The next Thing to be consider'd is, how Bodies produce Ideas in us, and that is manifestly by Impulse, the only Way which we can conceive Bodies operate in. (Locke 1741a: 98)
Motivity.
If then external Objects be not united to our Minds, when they produce Ideas in it; and yet we perceive these original Qualities in such of them as singly fall under our Senses, 'tis evident, that some Motion must be thence continued by our Nerves, or animal Spirits, by some Parts of our Bodies, to the Brain, or the Seat of Sensation, there to produce in our Minds the particular Ideas we have of them. And since the Extension, Figure, Number, and Motion of Bodies of an observable Bigness, may be perceived at a distance by the Sight; 'tis evident, some singly imperceptible Bodies must come from them to the Eyes, and thereby convey to the Brain some Motion, which produces these Ideas which we have of them in us. (Locke 1741a: 98)
It would appear that the original meaning of Motivity in this case was the motion of an Impulse from sensory organs to the brain.
From whence I think it is easy to draw this Observation, that 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. There is nothing like our Ideas existing in the Bodies themselves. They are in the Bodies, we denominate from them, only a Power to produce those Sensations in us: And what is Sweet, Blue, or Warm in Idea, is but the certain Bulk, Figure, and Motion of the insensible Parts in the Bodies themselves, which we call so. (Locke 1741a: 99)
Iconicity (verisimilitude) pertains then to the primary qualities, i.e. Bulk, Figure, Texture, and Motion, so that these really exist in the bodies of matter. As opposed to the secondary qualities, i.e. Colours, Sounds, Tastes, etc. "which in truth are nothing in the objects themselves, but Powers to produce various Sensations in us by their primary Qualities" (ibid, 98). Not sure, at the moment, whether indexicality is somewhere in there.
And yet he, that will consider, that the same Fire, than in one Distance produces in us the Sensation of Warmth, does at a nearer Approach produce in us the far [|] different Sensation of Pain, ought to bethink himself, what Reason he has to say, That his Idea of Warmth, which was produced in him by the Fire, is actually in the Fire; and his Idea of Pain, which the same Fire produced in him the same Way, is not in the Fire. (Locke 1741a: 99-100)
Excellent illustration. The primary qualities "are really in them, whether any one's Senses perceive them or no" (ibid, 100).
It has indeed such a Configuration of Particles, both Night and Day, as are apt by the Rays of Light rebounded from some Parts of that hard Stone, to produce in us the Idea of Redness, and from other the Idea of Whiteness: But Whiteness or Redness are not in it at any time; but such a Texture, that hath the Power to produce such a Sensation in us. (Locke 1741a: 101)
Colours due to texture.
Book II. Chap. IX. Of Perception
Perception, as it is the first Faculty of the Mind exercised about our Ideas, so it is the first and simplest Idea we have from Reflection, and is by some called thinking in general. Tho' thinking, in the Propriety of the English Tongue, signifies that sort of Operation of the Mind about its Ideas, wherein the Mind is active; where it, with some degree of voluntary Attention, considers any thing. For in bare, naked Perception, the Mind is, for the most part, only passive; and what it perceives, it cannot avoid perceiving. (Locke 1741a: 105)
Hence why Chase considered "Passivity" a valid candidate for "Motivity". Note that his "Spontaneity", too, is active.
This in many Cases, by a settled Habit in Things whereof we have frequent Experience, is performed so constantly, and so quickly, that we take that for the Perception of our Sensation, which is an Idea formed by our Judgment; so that one, viz. that of Sensation, serves only to excite the other, and is scarce taken notice of itself; as a Man who reads or hears with Attention or Understanding, takes little notice of the Characters or Sounds, but of the Ideas that are excited in him by them. (Locke 1741a: 108)
A superb illustration of what Peirce means by the Unity being so fleeting that it cannot be considered real. When reading, we do not perceive individual letters but our judgment has already formed conglomeries of writing into words we "spontaneously" understand.
Nor need we wonder that this is done with so little Notice, if we consider how very quick the Actions of the Mind are performed; for as itself is thought to take up no Space, to have no Extension; so its Actions seem to require no Time, but many of them seem to be crouded into an Instant. I speak this in comparison to the Actions of the Body. Any one may easily observe this in his own Thoughts, who will take the pains to reflect on them. How, as it were in an Instant, do our Minds with one Glance see all the Parts of a Demonstration, which may very well be called a long one, if we consider the Time it will require to put it into Words, and Step by Step shew it another? (Locke 1741a: 108)
Something to add to Peirce's discussion of how the Soul is in Time. This is almost like a counter-argument, that stuff happens in it almost immediately, which would take a long time to explain to others.
We shall not be so much surprised that this is done in us with so little Notice, if we consider how the Facility which we get of doing things by a Custom of doing, makes them often pass in us without our notice. Habits, especially such as are begun very early, come at last to produce Actions in us, which often escape our Observations. How frequently do we in a Day cover our Eyes with out Eyelids, without perceiving that we are at all in the Dark? Men that by Custom have got the Use of a By-word, do almost in every Sentence pronounce Sounds, which tho' taken notice of by others, they themselves neither hear nor observe; and therefore it is not so strange that our Mind should often change the Idea of its Sensation into that of its Judgment, and make one serve only to excite the other, without our taking notice of it. (Locke 1741a: 109)
"If we start to examine the general laws of perception, we see that as perception becomes habitual, it becomes automatic. Thus, for example, all of our habits retreat into the area of the unconsciously automatic; if one remembers the sensations of holding a pen or of speaking in a foreign language for the first time and compares that with his feeling at performing the action for the ten thousandth time, he will agree with us." (Shklovsky 2006[1917]: 778)
It suffices me only to have remarked here, that Perception is the first Operation of all our intellectual Faculties, and the Inlet of all Knowledge into our Minds. And I am apt too to imagine, that it is Perception in the lowest degree of it, which puts the Boundaries between Animals and the inferior Ranks of Creatures. (Locke 1741a: 110)
Of course perception is first.
Book II. Chap. X. Of Retention
The next Faculty of the Mind, whereby it makes a farther Proress towards Knowledge, is that which I call Retention, or the keeping of those simple Ideas, which from Sensation or Reflection it hath received. This is done two Ways. First, by keeping the Idea which is brought into it, for some time actually in view, which is called Contemplation. (Locke 1741a: 111)
Chase's Contemplation is RSMM, Retention RMSR. Both under Rationalit (R), but Retention under Perception (RM) and then Memory (RMS) and Contemplation under Judgment (RS) and then Discernment (RSM).
The Memory in some Men it is true is very tenacious, even to a Miracle; but ye tthere [|] seems to be a constant Decay of all our Ideas, even of those which are struck deepest, and in Minds the most retentive; [...] The Pictures drawn in our Minds, are laid in fading Colours, and if not sometimes refreshed, vanish and disappear. (Locke 1741a: 112-113)
Human memory is a fickle thing.
In this secondary Perception, as I may so call it, or viewing again the Ideas that are lodg'd in the Memory, the Mind is oftentimes more than barely passive, the Appearances of those dormant Picture, depending sometimes on the Will. The Mind very often sets itself on work in search of some hidden [|] Idea, and turns, as it were, the Eye of the Soul upon it; though sometimes too the ystart up in our Minds of their own accord, and offer themselves to the Understanding; and very often are rouzed and tumbled out of their dark Cells, into open Daylight, by some turbulent and tempestuous Passion; our Affections bringing Ideas to our Memory, which had otherwise lain quiet and unregarded. This farther is to be observed, concerning Ideas lodged in the Memory, and upon Occasion revived by the Mind, that they are not only (as the Word revive imports) none of them new ones; but also that the Mind takes Notice of them, as of a former Impression, and renews its Acquaintance with them, as with Ideas it had known before. (Locke 1741a: 113-114)
The triad employed on remembrance: remembering through will, by themselves (unconscious thought), and affections.
Whereas the several Degrees of Angels may probably have larger Views, and some of them be endowed with Capacities able to retain together, and constantly set before them, as in one Picture, all their past Knowledge at once. This, we may conceive, would be no small Advantage to the Knowledge of a thinking Man, if all his past Thoughts and Reasonings could be always present to him. And therefore we may suppose it one of those Ways, wherein the Knowledge of separate Spirits may exceedingly surpass ours. (Locke 1741a: 115)
I am very tempted to add this to the sidebar, without context - as this blog indeed enables me to have nearly all my past thoughts and reasonings readily available for review.
Book II. Chap. XI. Of Discerning, and other Operations of the Mind
Another Faculty we may take notice of in our Minds, is that of Discerning and distinguishing between several Ideas it has. (Locke 1741a: 116)
Clay relegates a grander meaning to Discernment, and relegates the meaning given here to Discrimination.
And hence, perhaps, may be given some Reason of that common Observation, That Men who have a great deal of Wit, and prompt Memories, have not always the clearest Judgment, or deepest Reason. For Wit lying most in the Assemblage of Ideas, and putting those together with Quickness and Variety, wherein can be found any Resemblance or Congruity, thereby to make up pleasant Pictures, and agreeable Visions in the Fancy: Judgment on the contrary, lies quite on the other Side, in separating carefully, one from another, Ideas wherein can be found the least Difference, thereby to avoid being misled by Similitude, and by Affinity to take one Thing for another. This is a Way of proceeding quite contrary to Metaphor and Allusion, wherein for the most part, lies that Entertainment and Pleasantry of Wit, which strikes so lively on the Fancy, and therefore so acceptable to all People; because its Beauty appears at first Sight, and there is required no Labour of Thought, to examine what Truth or Reason there is in it. The Mind without looking any farther, rests satisfied with the Agreeableness of the Picture, and the Gaiety of the Fancy: And it is a Kind of Affront to go about to examine it by the severe Rules of Truth and good Reason; whereby it appears, that it consists in something that is not perfectly conformable to them. (Locke 1741a: 117)
Spot on. Quick-witted vs deep thought.
When Children have, by repeated Sensations, got Ideas fixed in their Memories, they begin, by degrees, to learn the Use of Signs. And when they have got the Skill to apply the Organs of Speech to the framing of articulate Sounds, they begin to make use of Words to signify their Ideas to others: These verbal Signs they sometimes borrow from others, and sometimes make themselves, as one may observe among the new and unusual Names Children often give to Things in their first Use of Language. (Locke 1741a: 119)
This goes under the heading "Naming", by which Locke regularly signifies semiogenesis or the construction of sign-relations, as we've seen above.
The Use of Words then being to stand as outward Marks of our internal Ideas, and those Ideas being taken from particular Things, if every particular [|] Idea that we take in, should have a distinct Name, Names must be endless. To prevent this, the Mind makes the particular Ideas, received from particular Objects, to become general; which is done by considering them as they are in the Mind such Appearances, separate from all other Existences, and the Circumstances of real Existence, as Time, Place, or any other concomitant Ideas. This is called ABSTRACTION, whereby Ideas taken from particular Beings, become general Representatives of all of the same Kind; and their Names general Names, applicable to whatever exists conformable to such abstract Ideas. (Locke 1741a: 119-120)
A common semioticism: signs stand for ideas or things. Abstraction definitely plays a significant role.
If it may be doubted, whether Beasts compound and enlarge their Ideas that way, to any degree: This, I think, I may be positive in, that the Power of Abstracting is not at all in them; and that the having of general Ideas, is that which puts a perfect Distinction betwixt Man and Brutes: and is an Exceliency which the Faculties of Brutes do by no means attain to. For it is evident, we observe no Footsteps in them, of making use of general Signs for universal Ideas; from which we have Reason to imagine, that they have not the Faculty of abstracting, or making general Ideas, since they have no Use of Words, or any other general Signs. (Locke 1741a: 120)
Words are general signs, I take it, and requires the Faculty of Abstraction. This much makes perfect sense, though later discussions of animals having no "language" do not resort to details such as "general signs".
I pretend not to teach, but to enquire; and therefore cannot but confess here again, That external and internal Sensation are the only Passages, that I can find, of Knowledge, to the Understanding. These alone, as far as I can discover, are the Windows by which Light is let into this Dark Room. For, methinks the Understanding is not much unlike a Closet, wholly shut from Light, with only some little Opening left, to let in external visible Resemblances, or Ideas of Things without; would be Pictures coming into such a dark Room but stay there, nad lie so orderly as to be found upon occasion, it would very much resemble the Understanding of a Man, in reference to all Objects of Sight, and the Ideas of them. (Locke 1741a: 123)
The Understanding is like a black box. Described as such centuries before black boxes existed.
Book II. Chop. XII. Of Complex Ideas
And if in this, I use the Word Mode in somewhat a different Sense from its ordunary Signification, I beg pardon; it being unavoidable in Discourses differing from the ordinary received Notions, either to make new Words, or to use old Words in somewhat a new Signification, the latter whereof, in our present Case, is perhaps the more tolerable of the two. (Locke 1741a: 125)
Another semiotic dilemma on the metalevel of technical terminology.
Now, of Substances also, there are two Sorts of Ideas; one of single Substances, as they exist separately, as of a Man, or a Shoop; the other of several of those put together, as an Army of Men, or Flock of Sheep; which collective Ideas of several Substances, thus put together, are as much each of them one single Idea, as that of a Man, or an Unit. (Locke 1741a: 126)
This looks like it might have something to do with Unity, Plurality, and Totality, but I am not sure. Still marking it down, in case I reach Hume and see the connection.
Book II. Chap. XIII. Of Simple Modes; and first, of the Simple Modes of Space
Those Modificatios of any one simple Idea, (which, as has been said, I call simple Modes,) are as perfectly different and distinct Ideas in the Mind, as those of the greatest Distance or Contrariety: For the Idea of Two, is as distinct from that of One, as Blueness from Heat, or either of them from any Number: And yet it is made up only of that simple Idea of an Unit repeated; and Repetitions of this Kind, joined together, make those distinct simple Modes, of a Dozen, a Gross, a Million. (Locke 1741a: 127)
Curious discrepancy: later philosophers talk of mental modifications as if the mind itself was the substance to be modified, where's the modification of ideas makes much more sense. The second instance, the repetition of an Unit(y), once agains calls to mind Plurality. Totality, in that case, would be "Repetitions of this Kind, joined together", so that Dozen, Score, and Million would be Totalities.
But when these very Chess-men are put in a Bag, if any one should ask where the black King is, it would be proper to determinate the Place by the Parts of the Room it was in, and not by the Chess-board; there being another Use of designing the Place it is now in, than when in Play it was on the Chess-board, and so must be determined by other Bodies. (Locke 1741a: 130)
These words have, over time, exchanged their modifications: today we would say "determine" and "designate".
There are some that would persuade us that Body and Extension are the same thing, who either change the Signification of Words, which I would not suspect them of, they having so severely condemn'd the Philosophy of others, because it hath been too much placed in the uncertain Meaning, or deceitful Obscurity of doubtful or insignificant Terms. (Locke 1741a: 131)
Another one. Locke's metatheorizing is for the most part semiotic. Instead of addressing theories, he addresses theoretical language.
If it be demanded (as usually it is) whether this Space, void of Body, be Substance or Accident? I shall readily answer, I know not; nor shall be asham'd to own my Ignorance, till they ask, shew me a clear distinct Idea of Substance. (Locke 1741a: 133)
A Kantian category, still obscure.
I endeavour as much as I can to deliver myself from those Fallacies which we are apt to put upon ourselves, by taking Words for Things. It helps not our Ignorance to feign a Knowledge where we have non, by making a Noise with Sounds, without clear and distinct Significations. Names made at pleasure, neither alter the Nature of Things, nor make us understand them, but as they are Signs of, and stand for determined Ideas. (Locke 1741a: 133)
And another one. These seem to occur more and more frequently, and in increasinly the same terms as in that quote Peirce gave from Book III.
But were the Latin Words Inhærentia and Substantia put into the plain Engllish [sic] ones that answer them, and were called sticking on and under-propping, they would better discover to us the very great Clearness there is in the Doctrine of Substance and Accidents, and shew of what Use they are in deciding of Questions in Philosophy. (Locke 1741a: 135)
This does clear up things a bit. The Letters and the Paper; the Pillar and the Basis, the World and the Elephant.
The Truth is, these Men must either own that they think Body infinite, though they are loth to speak it out, or else affirm that Space is not Body. For I would fain meet with that thinking Man that [|] can in his Thoughts set any Bounds to Space, more than he can to Duration; or by thinking, hope to arrive at the End of either; and therefore if his Idea of Eternity be infinite, so is his Idea of Immensity; they are both finite or infinite alike. (Locke 1741a: 135-136)
Or, in other words, "they must admit two self-subsisting nonentities, infinite and eternal" (Kant 1855: 34).
The knowing precisely what our Words stand for, would, I imagine, in this, as well as a great many other Cases, quickly end the Dispute. For I am apt to think, that Men, when they come to examine them, find their simple Ideas all generally to agree, though in Discourse with one another, they perhaps confound one another with different Names. I imagine that Men who abstract their Thoughts, and so well examine the Ideas of their own Minds, cannot much differ in Thinking; however they may perplex themselves with Words, according to the Way of Speaking of the several Schools or Sects they have been bred up in: Though amongst unthinking Men, who examine not scrupulously and carefully their own Ideas, and strip them not from the Marks Men use for them, but confound them with Words, there must be endless Dispute, Wrangling, and Jargon, especially if they be learned bookish Men, devoted [|] to some Sect, and accustomed to the Language of it; and have learned to talk after others. But if it should happen, that any two thinking Men should really have different Ideas, I do not see how they could discourse or argue one with another. (Locke 1741a: 139-140)
This chapter even ends on a terminological point. The heading reads "Men differ little in clear simple ideas". I quite like the notion that men who read widely and consider their language carefully will arrive at mutual comprehension, whereas those who confound their ideas with words and are partial to the end to one school of thought and its terminology, will never arrive at it.
Book II. Chap. XIV. Of Duration, and its simple Modes
There is another Sort of Distance or Length, the Idea whereof we get not from the permanent Parts of Space, but from the fleeting and perpetually perishing Parts of Succession. This we call Duration, the simple Modes whereof are any different Lengths of it, whereof we have distinct Ideas, as Hours, Days, Years, &c. Time and Eternity. (Locke 1741a: 140)
This phraseology, "fleeting and perpetually perishing", could equally well describe the fleeting nature of Unities in perception.
That we have our Notion of Succession and Duration from this Original, viz. from Reflection on the Train of Ideas, which we find to appear one after another in our own Minds, seems plain to me, in that we have no Perception of Duration, but by considering the Train of Ideas that take their Turns in our Understandings. When that Succession of Ideas ceases, our Perception of Duration ceases with it; which every one clearly experiments in himself whilst he sleeps soundly, whether an Hour, or a Day, or a Month, or a Year; of which Duration of Things, whilst he sleeps, or thinks not, he has no Perception at all, but it is quite lost to him, and the Moment wherein he leaves off to think, 'till the Moment he begins to think again, seems to him to have no Distance. (Locke 1741a: 141)
Hence why the internal sense of the Soul is in Time.
Such a Part of Duration as this, wherein we perceive no Succession, is that which we may call an Instant; and is that which takes up the Time of only one Idea in our Minds, without the Succession of another, wherein therefore we perceive no Succession at all. (Locke 1741a: 144)
A fleeting instant evinces no duration.
[...] as the Ægyptians of old, who in the Time of Alexander counted 23000 Years from the Reign of the Sun; and the Chinese now, who account the World 3,260,000 Years old, or more; which longer Duration of the World, according to the Computation, tho' I should not believe to be true, yet I can eqally imagine it with them, and as truly understand and say one is longer than the other, as I understand that Methusolem's Life was longer than Enoch's. (Locke 1741a: 152)
The Chinese were closest.
Book II. Chap. XV. Of Duration and Expansion, consider'd together
To these difficulties Mr. Locke answers thus: To begin with the last, he declares, That he has not treated this Subject in an Order perfectly Scholastick, having not had much Familiarity with those sort of Books during the writing of his, and not remembring [sic] at all the Method in which they are written; and therefore his Readres ought not to expect Definitions regularly placed at the Beginning of each new Subject. (Locke 1741a: 159)
To "perfectly Scholastick" appears quite adventitios to potential readers.
Whether Angels and Spirits have any Analogy to this, in respect of Expansion, is beyond my Comprehension: And, perhaps, for us, who have Understandings and Comprehensions suited to our own Preservation, and the Ends of our own Being, but not to the Reality and Extent of all other Beings, 'tis near as hard to conceive any Existence, or to have an Idea of any real Being, [|] with a perfect Negation of all manner of Expansion; as it is, to have the Idea of any real Existence, with a perfect Negation of all manner of Duration. (Locke 1741a: 161-162)
A vague conception of the human Umwelt, that human beings are confined to their own necessary magnitude of size (regarding duration and expansion).
Book II. Chap. XVI. Of Number
Amongst all the Ideas we have, as there is none suggested to the Mind by more Ways, so there is none more simple, than that of Unity, or One: It has no Shadow of Variety or Composition in it: Every Object our Senses are employ'd about, every Idea in our Understandings, every Thought of our Minds brings this Idea along with it. And therefore it is the most intimate to our Thoughts, as well as it is, in its Agreement to all other Things, the most universal Idea we have. For Number applies itself to Men, Angels, Actions, Thoughts, every thing that either doth exists, or can be imagined. (Locke 1741a: 163)
"Arithmetic, the law of number, was before anything to be numbered or any mind to number had been created" (W 1: 167-169).
That it retain in Memory the Names or Marks of the several Combination from an Unit to that Number; and that not confusedly, and at random, but in that exact Order, that the Numbers follow one another: In either of which, if it trips, the whole Business of Numbering will be disturbed, and there will remain only the confused Idea of Multitude, but the Ideas necessary to distinct Numeration will not be attained so. (Locke 1741a: 166)
Plurality.
And this endless Addition, or Addibility (if any one like the Word better) of Numbers, so apparent to the Mind, is that, I think, which gives us the clearest and most distinct Idea of Infinity. (Locke 1741a: 167)
Perhaps a candidate for the protocol of degeneracy.
Book II. Chap. XVII. Of Infinity
Finite and Infinite seem to me to be looked upon by the Mind as the Modes of Quantity, and to be attributed primarily in their first Designation only to those things which have Parts, and are capable of Increase or Diminution, by the Addition or Subtraction of any the least Part: And such are the Ideas of Space, Duration, and Number, which we have considered in the foregoing Chapters. (Locke 1741a: 167)
Kant's categories of quality are Reality, Negation, and Limitation. Could they be related to the finite and infinite?
But of all other Ideas, it is Number, as I have said, which, I think, furnishes us with the clearest and most distinct Idea of Infinity, we are capable of. For even in Space and Duration, when the Mind pursues the Idea of Infinity, it there makes use of the Ideas and Repetitions of Numbers, as of Millions of Millions of Miles, or Years, which are so many distinct Ideas, kept best by Number from running into a confused Heap, wherein the Mind loses itself; and when it has added together as many Millions, &c. as it pleases, of known Lengths, of Space or Duration, the clearest Idea it can get of Infinity, is the confused incomprehensible Remainder of endless addible Numbers, which affords no Prospect of Stop or Boundary. (Locke 1741a: 172)
I have a fuzzy feeling that this might have something to do with Kant's Limitation. What exactly, I cannot say yet.
Though in the Addition of the one, we can have no more the positive Idea of a Space infinitely great, than in the Division of the other, we can have the Idea of a Body infinitely little; our Idea of Infinite being, as I may [|] so say, a growing and fugitive Idea, still in a boundless Progression, that can stop no where. (Locke 1741a: 173-174)
I do like this expression, as I do all kinds of "fugitive" things.
Book II. Chap. XVIII. Of the other Simple Modes
The like Variety have we in Sounds. Every articulate Word is a different Modification of Sound; by which we see, that from the Sense [|] of Hearing by such Modifications, the Mind may be furnished with distinct Ideas to almost an infinite Number. (Locke 1741a: 180-181)
"Modification of sounds" on par in terms of oddity with Peirce's "conglomeries of writing".
The reason whereof, I suppose, has been this, that the great Concernment of Men being with Men one amongst another, the Knowledge of Men and their Actions, and the signifying of them to one another, was most necessary; and thereforet hey made Ideas of Actions very nicely modified, and gave those complex Ideas Names, that they might the more easily record and discourse of those Things they were daily conversant in, without long Ambages and Circumlocutions; and that the Things they were continually to give and receive Information about, might be the easier and quicker understood. That this is so, and that Men in framing different complex Ideas, and giving them Names, have been much governed by the End of Speech in general (which is a very short and expedite way of conveying their Thoughts one to another) is evident in the Names, which in several Arts have been found out, and applied to several complex Ideas of modified Actions belonging to their several Trades, for Dispatch sake, in their Direction or Discourses about them. Which Ideas are not generally fram'd in the Minds of Men not conversant about these Operations. And thence the Words that stand for them, by the greatest Part of Men of the same Language, are not understood. (Locke 1741a: 182)
The question (heading) being, "Why some Modes have, and others have not Names". Define:ambages - ambiguity, circumlocution; indirect ways or proceedings.
Book II. Chap. XIX. Of the Modes of Thinking
When the Mind turns its View inwards upon itself, and contemplates its own Actions, Thinking is the first that occurs; in it the Mind observes a great Variety of Modifications, and from thence receives distinct Ideas; thus the Perception, which actually accompanies, and is annexed to any Impression on the Body, made by an external Object, being distinct from all other Modifications of thinking, furnishes the Mind with a distinct Idea, which we call Sensation; which is, as it were, the actual Entrance of an Idea into the Understanding by the Senses: the same Idea, when it again recurs without the Operation of the like Object on the external Sensory, is Remembrance; if it be sought after by the Mind, and with Pain and Endeavour found, and brought again in view, it is Recollection; if it be held there long under attentive Consideration, it is Contemplation. When Ideas float in our Mind, without any Reflection or Regard of the Understanding, it is that which the French call Resverie; our Language has scarce a Name for it. When the Ideas that offer themselves (for as I have observed in another Place, whilst we are awake, there will always be a Train of Ideas succeeding one another in our Minds) are taken notice of, and, as it were, register'd in the Memory, it is Attention. When the Mind with great Earnestness, and of Choice, fixes its View on any Idea, considers it on all sides, and will not be called off by the ordinary Sollicitation of other Ideas, it is that we call Intention, or Study. Sleep, without dreaming, is Rest from all these; and dreaming itself, is the having of Ideas (whilst the outward Senses are stopt, so that they receive not outward Objects with their usual quickness) in the Mind, not suggested by any external Object, or known Occasion; nor under any Choice or Conduct of the Understanding at all. And whether that which we call Extasy, be not dreaming with the Eyes open, I leave to be examined. (Locke 1741a: 183)
Almost like Kant's graduated list of representations. This here is a list of operations upon ideas. Whether they are "graduated" or not, I cannot say, but it does not appear so. Dreaming does not easily follow from careful study. Otherwise, it could be.
Sometimes the Mind fixes itself with so much Earnestness on the Contemplation of some Objects, that it turns their Ideas on all sides, remarks their Relations and Circumstances, and views every Part so nicely, and with such Intention, that it shuts out all other Thoughts, and takes no notice of the ordinary Impressions made then on the Senses, which at another Season would produce very sensible Perceptions; [...] (Locke 1741a: 184)
Now that's what we call flow.
Book II. Chap. XX. Of Modes of Plesaure and Pain
3. Pleasure and Pain, and that which causes them, Good and Evil, are the Hinges on which our Passions turn: And if we reflect on ourselves, and observe how these, under various Considerations, operate in us; what Modifications or Tempers of Mind, what internal Sensations, (if I may so call them,) they produce in us, we may thence form to ourselves the Ideas of our Passions. (Locke 1741a: 186)
"Passion" and "Temper" synonymous; so, too, it seems, also "Modification" (modifications of the mind = Motivity).
The Uneasiness a Man finds in himself upon the Absence of any Thing, whose present Enjoyment carries the Idea of Delight with it, [|] is, that we call Desire, which is greater or less, as that Uneasiness is more or less, as that Uneasiness is more or less vehement. Where, by and bye, it may perhaps be of some Use to remark, that the chief, if not only Spur to Human Industry and Action, is Uneasiness. For whatever Good is propos'd, if its Absence carries no Displeasure nor Pain with it; if a Man be easy and content without it, there is no Desire of it, nor Endeavour after it; there is no more but a bare Velleity, the Term used to signify the lowest Degree of Desire, and that which is next to none at all, when there is so little Uneasiness in the Absence of any Thing, that it carries a Man no farther than some faint Wishes for it, without any more effectual or vigorous Use of the Means to attain it. (Locke 1741a: 186-187)
I somehow have come to associate "uneasiness" with "the strange and unpleasant tension which men feel when facing each other in silence" (PC 4.6). Define:velleity - "a wish or inclination not strong enough to lead to action".
Book II. Chap. XXI. Of Power
I confess Power includes in it some kind of relation (a relation to Action or Change) as indeed which of our Ideas, of what kind soever, when attentively consider'd, does not? For our Ideas of Extension, Duration, and Number, do they not all contain in them a secret relation to the Parts? (Locke 1741a: 190)
Has this anything to do with Kant's categories of Relation? Relation "of Causality and Dependence" is the second category of relation (cause and effect).
We are abundantly furnish'd with the Idea of passive Power by almost all sorts of sensible Things; in most of them we cannot avoid observing their sensible Qualities, nay, their very Substances to be in a continual Flux; and therefore with reason we look on them as liable still to the same Change. (Locke 1741a: 190)
Has this anything to do with Peirce's influxional dependence?
This at least I think evident, that we find in ourselves a Power to begin or forbear, continue or end several Actions of our Minds and Motions of our Bodies barely by a Thought or Preference of the Mind, ordering, or as it were commanding the doing or not doing such or such a particular Action; this Power which the Mind has thus to order the Consideration of any Idea, or the forbearing to consider it, or to prefer the Motion of any Part of the Body to its Rest, and vice versa, in any particular Instance, is that which we call the Will; the actual Exercise of that Power, by directing any particular Action, or its forbearance, is that which we call Volition, or willing; the forbearance of that Action, consequent to such Order or Command of the Mind, is called voluntary; and whatsoever Action is perform'd without such a Thought of the Mind, is called involuntary. (Locke 1741a: 192)
"Volition" is not something you have, it is something you do. "Will" is what you have, i.e. the power of volition.
The Power of Perception is that which we call the Understanding. Perception, which we make the Act of the Understanding, is of three sorts. 1. Perception of Ideas in our Minds. 2. The Perception of the Signification of Signs. 3. The Perception of the Connexion or Repugnancy, Agreement or Disagreement that there is between any of our Ideas. All these are attributed to the Understanding, or perceptive Power, tho' it be the two latter only that Use allows us to say we understand. (Locke 1741a: 192)
If Understanding is the Power of Perception, is Reason the Power of Understanding? The three sorts of perceptions look like Peircean categories in reverse: the third having to do with emotions, the second being that of signs, and the third that of ideas.
'Tis plain then, That the Will is nothing but one Power or Ability, and Freedom another Power and Ability: So that to ask whether the Will has Freedom, is to ask, whether one Power has another Power, one Ability another Ability; a Question, at first Sight, too grosly absurd to make a Dispute, or need an Answer. For who is it that sees not, that Powers belong only to Agents, and are Attributes only of Substances, and not of Powers themselves? So that this way of putting the Question, viz. Whether the Will be free? is in effect to ask, Whether the Will be a Substance, an Agent? or at least to suppose it, since Freedom can properly be attributed to nothing else. (Locke 1741a: 196)
This, I gather, is the point of Schopenhauer's universal Will. I cannot tell. It rather looks like Schopenhauer was a proponent of predestination. I don't know, haven't yet read him.
For if it be reasonable to suppose and talk of Faculties, as distinct Beings, that can act, (as we do, when we say the Will orders, and the Will is free) 'tis fit that we should make a speaking Faculty, and a walking Faculty, and a dancing Faculty, by which those Actions are produced, which are but several Modes of Motions, as well as we make the Will and Understanding to be Faculties, by which the Actions of Chusing and Perceiving are produced, which are but several Modes of Thinking [...] (Locke 1741a: 197)
When Peirce talks of "a faculty of bending my arm in one direction and have none of bending it in any other" (W 1: 26-27), he is nearly talking of the faculty of dancing.
Nor do I deny, that those Words, and the like, are to have their Place in the common Use of Languages that have made them current. It looks like too much Affectation wholly to lay them by: And Philosophy itself though it likes not a gawdy Dress, yet when it appears in publick, must have so much Complacency, as to be cloathed in the ordinary Fashion and Language of the Country, so far as it can consist with Truth and Perspicuity. (Locke 1741a: 198)
Language as the "clothes" of philosophy.
This Caution of being careful not to be misled by Expressions, that do not enough keep up the Difference between the Will, and several Acts of the Mind, that are quite distinct from it, I think the most necessary; because I find the Will often confounded with several of the Affections, especially Desire; and one put for the other, and that by Men, who would not willingly be thought, not to have had very distinct Notions of Things, and not to have writ very clearly about them. This, I imagine, has been no small Occasion of Obscurity and Mistake in this Matter; and therefore is, as much as may be, to be avoided. (Locke 1741a: 203)
Here he may be speaking of Aristotle or the epithymetic part of the soul.
For he that shall turn his Thoughts inwards upon what passes in his Mind, when he wills, shall see that the Will or Power of Volition is conversant about nothing, but that particular Determination of the Mind, whereby, barely by a Thought, the Mind endeavours to give Rise, Continuation, or Stop to any Action, which it takes to be in its Power. (Locke 1741a: 203)
Establishing, prolonging, and discontinuing.
On the other side, let a Drunkard see, that his Health decays, his Estate wastes; Discredit [|] and Diseases, and the Want of all things, even of his beloved Drink, attends him in the Course he follows: Yet the Returns of Uneasiness to miss his Companions, the habitual Thirst after his Cups, at the usual time, drives him to the Tavern, though he has in his View the Loss of Health and Plenty, and perhaps of the Joys of another Life: The least of which is no inconsiderable Good, but such as he confesses, is far greater than the tickling of his Palate with a Glass of Wine, or the idle Chat of a soaking Club. (Locke 1741a: 205-206)
Something phatic: drunkards enjoy and miss, besides the drink, the componionship and idle chat.
[...] And the Will thus determined, never lets the Understanding lay by the Object, but all the Thoughts of the Mind, and Powers of the Body, are uninterruptedly employed that way, by the Determinations of the Will, influenced by that topping Uneasiness, as long as it lasts; [...] (Locke 1741a: 208)
Define:topping - "something that forms a top especially". A possible synonym for the dominant in hierarchical functionalism.
There is no Body, I think, so senseless, as to deny that there is Pleasure in Knowledge: And for the Pleasures of Sense, they have too many Followers to let it be question'd, whether Men are taken with them, or no. (Locke 1741a: 210)
I don't like reading but I like having read.
The Mind has a different Relish, as well as the Palate; and you will as fruitlesly endeavour to delight all Men with Riches or Glory (which yet some Men place their Happiness in) as you would to satisfy all Men's Hunger with Cheese or Lobsters; which though very agreeable and delicious Fare to some, are to others extremely nauseous and offensive: And many People would with Reason prefer the Griping of any hungry Belly to those Dishes, which are a Feast to others. Hence it was, I think, that the Philosophers of old did in vain enquire, whether Summum Bonum consisted in Riches, or bodily Delights, or Virtue or Contemplation: And they might have as reasonably disputed, whether the best Relish were to be found in Apples, Plums, or Nuts; and have divided themselves into Sects upon it. For as pleasant Tastes depend not on the Things themselves, but their Agreeableness to this or that particular Palate, wherein there is great Variety; so the greatest Happiness consists in the having those things which produce the greatest Pleasure, and in the Absence of those which cause any Disturbance, any Pain. Now these, to different Men, are very different things. (Locke 1741a: 218)
The foregoing discussion did feel a bit Pythagorean. Evidently not by accident. Locke's reply here is empty of substance: people are different. His answer is utilitarianism.
Inadvertency. When a Man overlooks even that which he does know. This is an affected and present Ignorance, [|] which misleads our Judgments as much as the other. (Locke 1741a: 225-226)
The case of the current U.S. president, who says he doesn't know anything about subjects there are recordings of him speaking about at length numerous times. Maybe his is a feigned ignorance. That's the best kind of ignorance, an ignorance the likes of which no-one's ever seen before...
And thus I have, in a short Draught, given a View of our original Ideas, from whence all the rest are derived, and of [|] which they are made up; which, if I would consider, as a Philosopher, and examine on what Causes they depend, and of what they are made, I believe they all might be reduced to these very few primary and original ones, viz.which by our Senses we receive from the Body:
- Extension,
- Solidity,
- Mobility, or the Power of being moved;
which by reflection we receive from our Minds. (Locke 1741a: 232-233)
- Perceptivity, or the Power of Perception, or Thinking;
- Motivity, or the Power of Moving;
Shouldn't Chase's Motivity, or "the condition of the mind as the recipient of an impulse not originating in itself" (Chase 1863: 472), rather be Mobility?
Book II. Chap. XXII. Of Mixed Modes
If we should enquire a little farther to see what it is, that occasions Men to make several Combinations of simple Ideas, into distinct, and as it were, settled Modes, and neglect others, which, in the Nature of Things themselves, have as much an Aptness to be combined, and make distinct Ideas, we shall find the Reason of it to be the End of Language; which being to mark, or communicate Mens Thoughts to one another with all the Dispatch that may be, they usually make such Collections of Ideas into complex Modes, and affix Names to them, as they have frequent Use of in their Living and Conversation, leaving others, which they have but seldom an Occasion to mention, loose and without Names, that tie them together: They rather chusing to enumerate (when they have Need) such Ideas as make them up, by the particular Names that stand for them, than to trouble their Memories by multiplying of complex Ideas with Names to them, which they shall seldom or never have any Occasion to make use of. (Locke 1741a: 236)
The "End of Language" is its primary function, that of signifying things and communicating information to others. Communication in "Conversation" and signifying in the "Use [men have] of [Language] in their Living".
Hence also we may see the Reason, why Languages constantly change, take up new, and lay by old Terms: Because Change of Customs and Opinions bringing with it new Combinations of Ideas, which it is necessary frequently to think on, and talk about, new Names, to avoid long Descriptions, are annexed to them; and [|] so they become new Species of complex Modes. What a Number of different Ideas are by this means wrapt up in one short Sound, and how much of our Time and Breath is thereby saved, any one will see, who will but take the pains to enumerate all the Ideas that either Reprieve or Appeal stand for; and instead of either of those Names, use a Periphrasis, to make any one understand their Meaning. (Locke 1741a: 236-237)
Define:periphrases - "The use of more words than are necessary to express the idea; a roundabout, or indirect, way of speaking; circumlocution." A phrase equivalent to a word.
Thus the mixed Mode, which the Word Lye stands for, is made of these simple Ideas: 1. Articulate Sounds. 2. Certain Ideas in the Mind of the Speaker. 3. Those Words the Signs of those Ideas. 4. Those Signs put together by Affirmation or Negation, otherwise than the Ideas they stand for are in the Mind of the Speaker. (Locke 1741a: 238)
A semiotic definition of a lie.
Book II. Chap. XXIII. Of our Complex Ideas of Substances
But to return to the Matter in hand; the Ideas we have of Substances, and the ways we come by them; I say, our specifick Ideas of Substances are nothing else but a Collection of a certain Number of simple Ideas, considered as united in one Thing. These Ideas of Substances, though they are commonly called simple Apprehensions, and the Names of them simple Terms; yet, in effect, are complex and compounded. (Locke 1741a: 257)
Sounds like the ordeal with Unity, Plurality, and Totality.
The primary Ideas we have peculiar to Body, as contra-distinguished to Spirit, are the Cohesion of solid, and consequently separable Parts, and a Power of communicating Motion by Impulse. These, I think, are the original Ideas proper and peculiar to Body; for Figure is but the Consequence of finite Extension. (Locke 1741a: 259)
"Motion" and "Impulse" do go together, even in Chase, though the Motivity of an external object giving an "Impulse" to the mind is not as easily understood as the communication of motion between material bodies.
Nay, if we consider their perpetual Motion, we must allow them to have no Cohesion one with another; and yet let but a sharp Cold come, and they unite, they consolidate, these little Atoms cohere, and are not, without great Force, separable. He that could find the Bonds that tie these Heaps of loose little Bodies together so firmly; [|] he that could make known the Cement that makes them stick so fast one to another, would discover a great, and yet unknown Secret: And yet when that was done, would he be far enough from making the Extension of Body (which is the Cohesion of its solid Parts) intelligible, till he could shew wherein consisted the Union, or Consolidation of the Parts of those Bonds, or of that Cement, or of the least particle of matter that exists. (Locke 1741a: 262-263)
The "bond of union" in frozen water.
We have by daily Experience, clear evidence of Motion produced both by Impulse and by Thought; but the Manner how, hardly comes within our Comprehension; we are equally at a loss in both. So that however we consider Motion and its Communication either from Body or Spirit, the Idea which belongs to Spirit is at least as clear, as that that belongs to Body. And if we consider the active Power of moving, or, as I may call it, Motivity, it is much clearer in Spirit than Body, since two Bodies, placed by one another at rest, will never afford us the Ideas of Power in the one to move the other, but by a borrowed Motion: Whereas the Mind every day affords Ideas of an active Power of moving of Bodies; and therefore it is worth our Consideration, whether active Power be not the proper Attribute of Spirits, and passive Power of Matter. (Locke 1741a: 264)
It looks like Chase could have misunderstood Locke, taken "body" here in the sense of a material body, much like Peirce does, instead of the human body. But then again even this passage evidences both uses of the word.
Though we must necessarily conclude, that separate Spirits, which are Beings that have perfecter Knowledge, and greater Happiness than we, must needs have also a perfecter way of communicating their Thoughts, than we have, who are fain to make use of corporeal Signs, and particular Sounds, which are therefore of most general Use, as being the best and quickest we are capable of. (Locke 1741a: 268)
Verbal and nonverbal forms of communication already present.
Book II. Chap. XXIV. Of Collective Ideas of Substances
These collective Ideas of Substances, the Mind makes by its Power of Composition, and uniting severally, either simple or complex Ideas into one, as it does by the same Faculty make the complex Ideas of particular Substances, consisting of an Aggregate of divers simple Ideas, united in one Substance. And as the Mind, by putting together the repeated Ideas of Unity, makes the collective Mode, or complex Idea of any Number, as a Score, or a Gross, &c. So by putting together several particular Substances, it makes collective Ideas of Substances, as a Troop, an Army, a Swarm, a City, a Fleet; each of which, every one finds, that he represents to his own Mind, by one Idea, in one View; and so under that Notion considers those several Things as perfectly one, as one Ship, or one Atom. (Locke 1741a: 270)
Totality is a collective idea.
Book II. Chap. XXV. Of Relation
Besides the Ideas, whether simple or complex, that the Mind has of Things, as they are in themselves, there are others it gets from their Comparison one with another. The Understanding, in their Consideration of any Thing, is not confined to that precise Object: It can carry any Idea, as it were, beyond itself, or at least, look beyond it, to see how it stands in Conformity to any other. When the Mind so considers one Thing, that it does, as it were, bring it to, and set it by another, and carry its View from one to t'other: this is, as the Words import, Relation and Respect; and the Denominations given to positive Things, intimating that Respect, and serving as Marks to lead the Thoughts beyond the Subject itself denominated, to something distinct from it; are what we call Relatives; and the Things so brought together, Related. (Locke 1741a: 271)
Relation naturally simpler here than in Kant. Simply the connection between two things when compared. The discussion goes on how the word "husband" intimates "some other Person" (i.e. "wife").
But all Names, that are more than empty Sounds, must signify some Idea, which is either in the Thing to which the Name is applied; and then it is positive, and looked on as united to, and existing in the Thing to which the Denomination is given: Or else it arises from the Respect the Mind finds in it, to something distinct from it, with which it considers it; and then it includes a Relation. (Locke 1741a: 272)
But how can an idea be "in the Thing"?
Book II. Chap. XXVI. Of Cause and Effect, and other Relations
Time and Place are also the Foundations of very large Relations, and all finite Beings at least are concern'd in them. But having already shewn in another Place how we get these Ideas, it may suffice here to intimate, that most of the Denominations of [|] Things receiv'd from Time, are only Relations. (Locke 1741a: 277-278)
Is identity a relation?
Book II. Chap. XXVII. Of Identity and Diversity
Another Occasion the Mind often takes of comparing, is, the very Being of Things, when considering any thing as existing at any determin'd Time and PLace, we compare it with itself existing at another time, and thereon form the Ideas of Identity and Diversity. When we see any thing to be in any Place in any Instant of Time, we are sure (be it what it will) that it is that very thing, and not another, which at that same time exists in another Place, how like and undistinguishable soever it may be in all other respects; and in this consists Identity, when the Ideas it is attributed to, vary not at all from what tehy were that Moment wherein we consider their former Existence, and to which we comparet he present; for we never finding, nor conceiving it possible, that two Things of the same Kind should exist in the same Place at the same time, we rightly conclude, that whatever exists any where at any time, excludes all of the same Kind, and is there itself alone. (Locke 1741a: 280)
Thus, when Pythagoras is seen in Sicily and Metapontum on the same day, is it the same Pythagoras?
And whatever is talked of other Definitions, ingenuous Observation puts it past Doubt, that the Idea in our Minds, of which the Sound Man in our Mouths in the Sign, is nothing else but of an Animal of such a certain Form: Since I think I may be confident, that whoever should see a Creature of his own Shape and Make, though it had no more Reason all its Life than a Cut or a Parrot, would call him still a Man; or whoever should hear a Cat or a Parrot discourse, reason, and philosophize, would call or think it nothing but a Cat or a Parrot; and say, the ane was a dull irrational Man, and the other a very intelligent rational Parrot. A Relation we have in an Author of great Note, is sufficient to countenance the Supposition of a rational Parrot. His Words are,I had a mind to know from Prince Maurice's own Mouth the Account of a common, but much credited Story, that I had heard so often from many others, of an old Parrot he had in Brasil, during his Government there, that spoke, and asked, and answered common Questions like a reasonable Creature; so that those of his Train there, generally concluded it to be Witchery or Possession; and one of his Chaplains, who lived long afterwards in Holland, would never [|] from that Time endure a Parrot, but said they all had a Devil in them. I had heard many Particulars of this Story, and asserted by People hard to be discredited, which made me ask Prince Maurice what there was of it. He said, with his usual Plainness and Dariness in Talk, there was something true, but a great deal false of what had been reported. I desired to know of him what there was of the first? He told me short and coldly, that he had heard of such an old Parrot when he came to Brasil; and tho' he believ'd nothing of it, and it was a good Way off, yet he had so much Curiosity as to send for it, that 'twas a very great and very old one; and when it came first into the Room where the Prince was, with a great many Dutchmen about him, it said presently, What a Company of white Men are here? They ask'd it, what he thought that Man was, pointing at the Prince? It answer'd, Some General or other; when they brought it close to him, he asked it, D'ou venez-vous? [Whence come ye?] It answered, De Marinnan [From Marinnan]. The Prince, A qui este-vous? [To whom do you belong?] The Parrot, A un Portugais [To the Portugueze] Prince, Que fais tula? [What do you there?] Parrot, Je garde les Poulles? [I look after the Chickens] Parrot The Prince laugh'd and said, Vous gardes les Poules? [You look after the Chickens?] Parrot answered, Ouy moy, & je scay bien faire? [Yes I, and I know well enough how to do it] and made the Chuck four or five times that People use to make to Chickens when they call them. I set down the Words of this worthy Dialogue in French, just as Prince Maurice said them to me. I asked him in what Language the Parrot spoke? and he said, in Brasilian. I asked whether he understood the Brasilian? He said, No; but he had taken care to have two Interpreters by him, the one a Dutchman that spoke Brasilian, and the other a Brasilian, that spoke Dutch; that he asked them separately and privately, and both of them agreed in telling him just the same thing that the Parrot said. I could not but tell this odd Story, because it is so much out of the Way, and from the first Hand, and what may pass for a good one: For I dare say this Prince, at least, believ'd himself in all he told me, having ever passed for a very honest and pious Man; I leave it to Naturalists to reason, and other Men to believe as they please upon it; however, it is not, perhaps, amiss to relieve or enliven a busy Scene sometimes with such Digressions, whether to the Purpose or no. [|]I have taken care that the Reader should have the story at large in the Author's own Words, because he seems to me not to have thought it incredible; [...] (Locke 1741a: 284-286)
Amazing stuff. Jakobsonian (parrot) and Malinowskian (Whence come ye?) phaticisms combined.
This being premised, to find wherein personal Identity consists, we must consider what Person stands for; which, I think, is a thinking intelligent Being, that has Reason and Reflection, and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking Thing in different Times and Places: which it does only by that Consciousness, which is inseparable from Thinking, and it seems to be essential to it: It being impossible for any one to perceive, without perceiving that he does perceive. When we see, hear, smell, taste, feel, meditate, or will any thing, we know that we do so. Thus it is always as to our present Sensations and Perceptions: And by this every one is to himself that which he calls Self; it not being considered in this Case whether the same Self be continued in the same, or divers Substances. For since Consciousness always accompanies Thinking, and 'tis that that makes every one to be what he calls Self; and thereby distinguishes himself from all other thinking Things; in this alone consists personal Identity, i.e. the Sameness of a rational Being: And as far as this Consciousness [|] can be extended backwards to any past Action or Thought, so far reaches the Identity of the Person; it is the same Self now as it was then; and 'tis by the same Self with this present one that now reflects on it, that that Action was done. (Locke 1741a: 286-287)
Hämmastav. Mõlemad teemad, millest mul tuleb lähiajal kirjutada, järjestikustel lehekülgedel. Siinne arutelu on põhijoontes juba Kanti ja Peirce'i põhjal tuttav ja ei vaja erilist kommentaari. Üleüldse on kommentaarid kasvavalt kesisemad, sest nii palju on iseenesestmõistetav.
All those who hold Pre-existence, are evidently of this Mind, since they allow the Soul to have no remaining Consciousness of what it did in that pre-existent State, either wholly separate from Body, or informing any other Body; and if they should not, 'tis plain, Experience would be against them. So that personal Identity reaching no farther than Consciousness reaches, a pre-existent Spirit not having continued so many Ages in a State of Silence, must needs make different Persons. Suppose a Christian Platonist or Pythagorean, should, upon God's having ended all his Works of Creation the Seventh Day, think his Soul hath existed ever since; and should imagine it has revolved in several Human Bodies, as I once met with one, who was persuaded his had been the Soul of Socrates, (how reasonably I will not dispute. [...] (Locke 1741a: 290)
Indeed, how many billions of souls did God create on the Seventh day? And if most of them lay in reserve until population increased to present billions, how many more billions are waiting in that reserve?
Self is that conscious thinking Thing, (whatever Substance, made up of whether spiritual or material, simple or compounded, it matters not) which is sensible, or conscious of Pleasure and Pain, capable of Happiness or Misery, and so is concern'd for it Self, as far as that Consciousness extends. Thus every one finds, that whilst comprehended under that Consciousness, the little Finger is as much a Part of it Self, as what is most so. (Locke 1741a: 292)
Isemus on see teadvusel, mõtlev asi mis tunneb, või on teadlik valust ja naudingust, võimeline õnneks ja kannatuseks, ja kannab iseenda eest hoolt nii kaugele kui ta teadvus ulatub.
In the New Testament (wherein, I think, are contained all the Articles of the Christian Faith) I find our Saviour and the Apostles to preach the Resurrection of the Dead, and the Resurrection from the Dead in many Places: But I do not remember any Place where the Resurrection of the same Body is so much as mentioned. Nay, which is very remarkable in the Case, I do not remember in any PLace of the New Testament (where the general Resurrection at the last Day is spoken of) any such Expression as the Resurrection of the Body, much less of the same Body. (Locke 1741a: 299)
It will be a resurrection without bodies. What is known about you will be simulated virtually. The resurrection will be a high-tech version of the Mormons baptizing everyone who ever lived. "Baptism for the dead", after all, is in the New Testament.
For if it be so, as yourr Lordship says, That Life is the Result of the Union of Soul and Body, it will follow, That the Body of an Embryo dying in the Womb may be very little, not the thousandth Part of any ordinary Man. For since from the first Conception and beginning of Formation it has Life, and Life is the Result of the Union of the Soul with the Body; an Embryo, that shall die either by the untimely Death of the Mother, or by any other Accident, presently after it has Life, must, according to your Lordship's Doctrine, remain a Man not an Inch long to Eternity; because there are not Particles of Matter, formerly united to his Soul, to make him bigger; and no other can be made use of to that purpose: Though what greater Congruity the Soul hath with any Particles of Matter which were once vitally united to it, but are now so no longer, than it hath with Particles of Matter which it was never united to, would be hard to determine, if that should be demanded. (Locke 1741a: 305)
A neat little burn at the religious "pro-life" people who have confused notions of what constitutes human life. If their views were true, it would mean that heaven is populated by numberless stillborn fetuses.
Book II. Chap. XXVIII. Other Relations
Secondly, Another occasion of comparing Things together, or considering one thing, so as to include in that Consideration some other thing, is the Circumstances of their Origin or Beginning; which being not afterwards to be altered, make the Relations depending thereon as lasting as the Subjects to which they belong; v. g. Father and Son, Brothers, Causin-Germans, &c. which have their Relations by one Community of Blood, wherein they partake in several Degrees; Countrymen, i.e. those who were born in the same Country or Tract of Ground, and these I call natural Relations; wherein we may observe, that Mankind have fitted their Notions and Words to the Use of common Life, and not to the Truth and Extent of Things; for it is certain that in reality the Relation is the same betwixt the Begetter and the Begotten in the several Races of other Animals as well as Men; but yet it is seldom said, this Bull is the Grandfather of such a Calf, or that two Pigeons are Cousin-Germans. (Locke 1741a: 323)
Here, "Country" not solely a political or cultural unit, but a genetic one.
This, by the way, may give us some Light into the different State and Growth of Languages, which being suited only to the Convenience of Communication, are proportion'd to the Notions Men have, and the Commerce of Thoughts familiar amongst them, and not the Reality or Extent of Things, nor to the various Respects might be found among them, nor the different abstract Considerations might be framed about them. Where they had no philosophical Notions, there they had no Terms to express them; and it is no wonder Men should have framed no Names for those Things they found no occasion to discourse of. From whence it is easy to imagine, why, as in some Countries, they may not have so much as the Name for a Horse; and in others, where they are more careful of the Pedigrees of their Horses than of their own, that there they may have not only Names for particular Horses, but also of their several Relations of Kindred one to another. (Locke 1741a: 324)
It may not be a coincidence that Peirce chose this exact illustration: "The word horse, is though of as being a word though it be unwritten, unsaid, and unthought" (W 1: 169). On the whole this has to do with the third "veiled reference" in words, i.e. whether the things spoken about actually exist.
A Citizen or Burgher, is one who has a Right to certain Privileges in this or that Place. All this sort depending upon Men Wills, or Agreement in Society, I call instituted, or voluntary, and may be distinguish'd from the natural, in that they are most, if not all of them, some way or other alterable, and separable from the Persons to whom they have sometimes belong'd, tho' neither of the Substances so related be destroy'd. (Locke 1741a: 324)
Sounds like Berkley's distinction between natural and political society. Here, natural and instituted. Dunno when I'll get to Berkley.
The Laws that Men generally refer their Actions to, to judge of their Rectitude or Obliquity, seem to me to be these three. 1. The Divine Law. 2. The Civil Law. 3. The Law of Opinion or Reputation, if I may so call it. By the relation they bear to the first of these, Men judge whether their Actions are Sins or Duties; by the second, whether they be criminal or innocent; and by the third, whether they be Virtues or Vices. (Locke 1741a: 326)
The first is nonsense. The second is legal. The third is properly moral.
Thus the Measure of what is every where called and esteemed Virtue and Vice, is this Approbation or Dislike, Praise or Blame, which by a secret and tacit Consent establishes itself in the several Societies, Tribes, and Clubs of Men in the World, whereby several Actions come to find Credit or Disgrace amongst them, according to the Judgment, Maxims, or Fashions of that Place. For tho' Men uniting into politick Societies have resign'd up to the Publick the disposing of all their Force, so that they cannot employ it against any Fellow-Citizen any farther than the Law of the Country directs, yet they retain still the Power of thinking well or ill, approving or disapproving of the Actions of them whom they live amongst and converse with; and by this Approbation and Dislike, they establish amongst themselves what they will call Virtue and Vice. (Locke 1741a: 327)
Approval and disapproval measure vices and virtues. This establishes a link between Malinowski's phatic communion and Mahaffy's discussion of social vices.
I think, I may say, that he who imagines Commendation and Disgrace not to be strong Motives on Men, to accommodate themselves to the Opinions and Rules of those with whom they converse, seems little skill'd in the Nature of History of Mankind: The greatest Part whereof he shall find to govern themselves chiefly, if not solely, by his Law of Fashion; and so they do that which keeps them in Reputation with their Company, little regarding the Laws of God or the Magistrate. (Locke 1741a: 331)
So not so much "Let me look over the fence and see what my neighbour does, and take it as a rule for my behaviour" (Malinowski 1922: 326-327) but something like let my neighbour's opinion of me serve as a rule for my behaviour.
But no Man 'scapes the Punishment of their Censure and Dislike, who offends against the Fashion and Opinion of the Company he keeps, and would recommend himself to. Nor is there one of ten thousand, who is stiff and insensible enough to bear up upon the constant Dislike and Condemnation of his own Club. He must be of a strange and unusual Constitution, who can content himself to live in constant Disgrace and Disrepute with his own particular Society. (Locke 1741a: 331)
Peer pressure.
Thus Drunkenness or Lying signify such or such a Collection of simple Ideas, which I call mixed Modes: And in this Sense they are as much positive absolute Ideas, as the drinking of a Horse, or speaking of a Parrot. (Locke 1741a: 333)
Wait, is this implying that the parrot's speech is a lie?
But because very frequently the positive Idea of the Action, and its Moral Relation, are comprehended together under one Name, and the same Word made Use of to express both the Mode or Action, and its Moral Rectitude or Obliquity; therefore the Relation itself is less taken notice of; and there is often no Distinction made between the Positive Idea of the Action, and the Reference it has to a Rule. By which Confusion of these two distinct Considerations under one Term, those who yield too easily to the Impressions of Sounds, and are forward to take Names for Things are often misled in their [|] Judgment of Actions. Thus the taking from another what is his, without his Knowledge or Allowance, is properly called Stealing. But that Name being commonly understood to signify also the Moral Pravity of the Action, and to denote its Contrariety to the Law, Men are apt to condemn whatever they hear called Stealing, as an ill Action, disagreeing with the Rule of Right. And yet the Private taking away his Sword from a Madman, to prevent his doing Mischief, though it be properly denominated Stealing, as the Name of such a mixed Mode; yet when compared to the Law of God, and considered in its Relation to that supreme Rule, it is no Sin or Transgression, though the Name Stealing ordinarily carries such an Intimation with it. (Locke 1741a: 333-334)
Not exactly sure what he means by this, except that some people take words too literally. Hopefully he'll clear such passages up in Book III.
First, That it is evident, that all Relations terminate in, and are ultimately founded on those simple Ideas we have got from Sensation or Reflection: So that all that we have in our Thoughts our selves, (if we think of any Thing, or have any Meaning) or would signify to others, when we use Words standing for Relations, is nothing but some simple Ideas, or Collections of simple Ideas, compared one with another. This is so manifest in that Sort called Proportional, that nothing can be more. For when a Man says, Honey is sweeter than Wax, it is plain, that his Thoughts in this Relation, terminate in this simple Idea, Sweetness, which is equally true of all the rest; though, where they are compounded, or decompounded, the simple Ideas they are made up of, are perhaps, seldom taken notice of: v. g. when the Word Father is mentioned, First, there is meant that particular Species, or collective Idea, signified by the Word Man. (Locke 1741a: 334)
Recall that "simple ideas" are simply ideas that cannot be further broken down (as "father" can be broken down to "man" and "parent"). The construction, "in our Thoughts our selves", is awfully weird but what he means is basically signifying to oneself.
Sot he Word Friend, being taken for a Man who loves, and is ready to do good to another, has all these following Ideas, to the making of it up. First, all the simple Ideas, comprehended in the Word Man, or intelligent Being. Secondly, The Idea of Love. Thirdly, The Idea of Readiness or Disposition. Fourthly, The Idea of Action, which is any kind of Thought or Motion. Fifthly, The Idea of Good which signifies any Thing that may advance his Happiness, and terminates at last, if examined, in particular simple Ideas, of which the Word Good in general signifies ony one, but if removed from all simple Ideas quite, it signifies nothing at all. And thus also all Moral Words terminate at last, tho', perhaps, more remotely, in a Collection of simple Ideas: The immediate Signification of Relative Words being very often other supposed known Relations; which, if traced one to another, still end in simple Ideas. (Locke 1741a: 335)
I think I can finally see here what they mean by the expression "the association of ideas". This kind of analysis depends, one must point out, on the definition of a word one takes as a starting point, and whether it includes exraneous or superfluous words and relations. I might have to try out this kind of analysis on Chase's terminology.
Book II. Chap. XXIX. Of Clear and Obscure, Distinct and Confused Ideas
The first is, that some are clear, and others obscure; some distinct, and others confused. (Locke 1741a: 337)
Ideas are either...
Light being that which discovers to us visible Objects, we give the Name of obscure to that which is not placed in a Light sufficient to discover minutely to us the Figure and Colours, which are observable in it, and which, in a better Light, would be discernible. In like manner our simple Ideas are clear, when they are such, as the Objects themselves, from whence they were taken, did or might, in a well-ordered Sensation or Perception, present them. (Locke 1741a: 337)
Isn't this... iconicity?
Thirdly, A third Defect that frequently gives the Name or confused to our Ideas, is, when any one of them is uncertain and undetermined. Thus we may observe Men, who not forbearing to use the ordinary Words of their Language, till they have learn'd their precise Signification, change the Idea they make this or that Term stands for, almost as often as they use it. He that does this, out of uncertainty of what he should leave out, or put into his Idea of Church, or Idolatry, every Time he thinks of either, and holds not steady to any one precise Combination of Ideas that make sit up, is said to have a confused Idea of Idolatry, or the Church: Though this be still for the same Reason that the former, viz. because a mutable Idea (if we will allow it to be one Idea) cannot belong to one Name rather than another; and so loses the Distinction that distinct Names are designed for. (Locke 1741a: 340)
Reportedly this is the case with "text" in the writings of Juri Lotman - it may be used in the same sense within a single piece of writing, but comparing uses between different writings will yield a confusion of uses.
By what has been said, we may observe how much Names, as supposed steady Signs of Things, and by their Difference to stand for, and keep Things distinct, that in themselves are different, are the Occasion of denominating Ideas distinct or confused, by a secret and unobserved Reference the Mind makes of its Ideas to such Names. (Locke 1741a: 340)
Signs not only stand for things but keep them distinct.
At least, if there be any other Confusion of Ideas, this is that which most of all disorders Mens Thoughts and Discourses: Ideas, as ranked under Names, being those that for the most Part Men reason of within themselves, and always those which we commune about with others. (Locke 1741a: 341)
"Commune" an odd word in this context. Shouldn't it be "communicate"?
Book II. Chap. XXX. Of Real and Fantastical Ideas
First, Our simple Ideas are all real, all agree to the Reality of Things. Not that they are all of them the Images or Representations of what does exist; the contrary whereof, in all but the primary Qualities of Bodies, hath been already shewed. But though Whiteness and Coldness are no more in Snow that Pain is; yet those Ideas of Whiteness and Coldness, Pain, &c. being in us the Effects of Powers in Things without us, ordained by our Makers, to produce in us such Sensations; they are real Ideas in us, whereby we distinguish the Qualities that are really in Things themselves. (Locke 1741a: 345)
Upon second reading (not too soon, I hope, because this has been a slog) I should really pay more attention to all that he says about simple and complex ideas. The qualifications seem to compound.
Book II. Chap. XXXI. Of Adequate and Inadequate Ideas
Thus the Mind has three Sorts of abstract Ideas, or nominal Essence: First, Simple Ideas, which are ἕχτυπα, or Copies, but yet certainly adequate. Because being [|] intended to express nothing but the Power of Things to produce in the Mind such a Sensation, that Sensation, when it is produced, cannot but be the Effect of that Power. (Locke 1741a: 354-355)
I had not thought I'd discover something like this. I honestly thought that copy, sign, and logos were Peirce's own invention, or at least spun out of other sources, i.e. Kant. I left out a normal paragraph worth of explanation because at the moment it goes way over my head. It looks like a second reading might actually be in order.
Secondly, The complex Ideas of Substances are Ectypes, or Copies too; but not perfect ones, nor adequate: Which is very evident to the Mind, in that it plainly perceives, that whatever Collection of simple Ideas it makes of any Substance that exists, it cannot be sure, that it exactly answers all that are in that Substance: Since not having tried all the Operations of all other Substances upon it, and found all the Alterations it would receive from, or cause in other Substances, it cannot have an exact adequate Collection of all its active and passive Capacities; and so not have an adequate complex Idea of the Powers of any Substance existing, and its Relations, which is that Sort of complex Idea of Substances we have. (Locke 1741a: 355)
Much like Peirce's first, truth-defining conception of "sign" includes an uncertainty, here the ectype is imperfect or inadequate.
Thirdly, Complex Ideas of Modes and Relations are Originals, and Archetypes; are not Copies, nor made after the Pattern of any real Existence, to which the Mind intends them to be conformable, and exactly to answer. These being such Collections of simple Ideas, that the Mind itself puts together, and such Collections, that each of them contains in it [|] precisely all that the Mind intends it should, they are Archetypes and Essences of Modes that may exist; and so are designed only for, and belong only to such Modes, as, when they do exist, have an exact Conformity with those complex Ideas. The Ideas therefore of Modes and Relations, cannot but be adequate. (Locke 1741a: 355-356)
Peirce's "type". What's really interesting here is the coincidence with Kant: ideas, on the whole, are what "the Mind itself puts together" in his system.
Book II. Chap. XXXII. Of True and False Ideas
Though Truth and Falshood belong in Propriety of Speech only to Propositions; yet Ideas are oftentimes termed True or False, (as what Words are there that are not used with great Latitude, and with some Deviation from their strict and proper Significations?) Though, I think, that when Ideas themselves are termed true or false there is still some secret or tacit Proposition, which is the Foundation of that Denomination: As we shall see, if we examine the particular Occasions, wherein they come to be called true or false. In all which, we shall find some kind of Affirmation, or Negation, which is the Reason of that Denomination. For our Ideas, being nothing but bare Appearances or Perceptions in our Minds, cannot properly any simply in themselves be said to be true or false, no more than a single Name of any Thing can be said to be true or false. (Locke 1741a: 356)
Hence, "the falsehood does not lie in the copy itself but in the claim which is made for it, in the superscription for instance" (W 1: 170).
First, When the Mind supposes any Idea it has, conformable to that in other Mens Minds, called by the same common Name; v. g. when the Mind intends or judges its Ideas of Justice, Temperance, Religion, to be the same with what other Men give those Names to. (Locke 1741a: 357)
Quite plainly anticipating the second veiled reference, more in Book III.
Secondly, When the Mind supposes any Idea it has in itself, to be conformable to some real Existence. Thus the two Ideas, of a Man, and a Centaur, supposed to be the Ideas of real Substances, are the one true, and the other false; the one having a Conformity to what has really existed, the other not. (Locke 1741a: 357)
Again, the third veiled reference.
Thirdly, When the Mind refers any of its Ideas to that real Constitution, and Essence of any Thing, whereon all its Properties depend: And thus the greatest Part, if not all our Ideas of Substance, are false. (Locke 1741a: 357)
Incomprehensible.
If therefore we will warily attend to the Motions of the Mind, and observe that Course it usually takes in its Way to Knowledge, we shall, I think, find, that the Mind having got any Idea, which it thinks it may have Use of, either in Contemplation or Discourse, the first Thing it does, is to abstract it, and then get a Name to it; and so lay it up in its Store-house, the Memory, as containing the Essence of a Sort of Things, of which that Name is always to be the Mark. Hence it is, that we may often observe, that when any one sees a new Thing of a Kind that he knows not, he presently asks what it is, meaning by that Enquiry, nothing but the Name. As iff the Name carried with it the Knowledge of the Species, or the Essence of it, whereof it is indeed used as a Mark, and it is generally supposed annexed to it. (Locke 1741a: 358)
Has this anything to do with how some people, according to Locke, conflate Ideas and Things?
Nor do they become liable to any Imputation of Falshood, if the Mind (as in most Men I believe it does) judges these Ideas to be in the Things themselves. For God, in his Wisdom, having set them as Marks of Distinction in Things, whereby we may be able to discern one Thing from another, and so chuse any of them for our Uses, as we have Occasion, it alters not the Nature of our simple Idea, whether we think, that the Idea of Blue be in the Violet itself, or in our Mind only; [...] (Locke 1741a: 360)
Dang it, I can't find it - I'm pretty sure Peirce used the word "marks" te describe something along this line, if in more obtuse philosophical verbiage.
[...] for Truth and Falshood being never without some Affirmation or Negation, express or tacit, it is not to be found but where Signs are joined or separated, according to the Agreement or Disagreement of the Things they stand for. The Signs we chiefly use, are either Ideas or Words, wherewith we make either mental or verbal Propositions. Truth lies in so joining or separating these Representatives, as the Things they stand for do in themselves agree or disagree; and Falshood in the contrary, as shall be more fully shew'd hereafter. (Locke 1741a: 363)
"Semiotics is in principle the discipline studying everything which can be used in order to lie. If something cannot be used to tell a lie, conversely it cannot be used to tell the truth: it cannot in fact be used "to tell" at all." (Eco 1979: 7)
Book II. Chap. XXXIII. Of the Association of Ideas
This proceeds not only from Self-love, tho' that has often a great hand in it; Men of fair Minds, and not given up to the over-weening of Self-flattery, are frequently guilty of it; and in many Cases one with Amazement hears the Arguings, and is astonish'd at the Obstinacy of a worthy Man, who yields not to the Evidence of Reason, tho' laid before him as clear as Day-light. (Locke 1741a: 366)
"Self-flattery" could find a place in that "social pleasure and self-enhancement" gained by "the man linguistically active" (PC 5.5).
Some of our Ideas have a natural Correspondence and Connexion with one another; it is the Office and Excellency of our Reason to trace these, and hold them together in that Union and Correspondence which is founded in their peculiar Beings. Besides this, there is another Connexion of Ideas, wholly owing to Chance or Custom, Ideas that in themselves are not at all a-kin, come to be so united in some Mens Minds, that it is very hard to separate them, they always keep in company; and the one no sooner at any time comes into the Understanding, but its Associate appears with it; and if they are more than two which are thus united, the whole Gang, always inseparable, shew themselves together. (Locke 1741a: 367)
Signa naturalia and signa data, no?
Custom settles Habits of thinking in the Understanding, as well as of determining in the Will, and of Motions in the Body; all which seems to be but Trains of Motion in the animal Spirits, which once set a going, continue in the same Steps they have been used to, which by often treading are worn into a smooth Path, and the Motion in it becomes easy, and as it were natural. (Locke 1741a: 367)
A much more convenient metaphor for habits than William James' vinyl grooves.
That which thus captivates their Reasons, and leads Men of Sincerity blindfold for common Sense, will, when examin'd, be found to be what we are speaking of: Some independent Ideas, of no Alliance to one another, are by Education, Custom, and the constant Din of their Party, so coupled in their Minds, that they always appear there together, and they can no more separate them in their Thoughts, than if they were but one Idea, and they operate as if they were so. This gives Sense to Jargon, Demonstration to Absurdities, and Consistency to Nonsense, and is the Foundation of the greatest, I had almost said, of all the Errors in the World; or if it does not reach so far, it is at least the most dangerous one, since, so far as it obtains, it hinders Men from seeing and examining. (Locke 1741a: 371)
This made me think of those people with whom you cannot discuss anything without their minds being drawn to conspiracy theories and all sorts of nonsense. Those suffering with philodoxy, an excessive love of only a few, mostly faulty, ideas about the world they inhabit.
This was that, which, in the first general View I had of this Subject, was all that I thought I should have to do: But upon a nearer Approach, I find, that there is so close a Connexion between Ideas and Words; and our abstract Ideas, and general Words have so constant a Relation one to another, that it is impossible to speak clearly and distinctly of our Knowledge, which all consist in Propositions, without considering, first, the Nature, Use, and Signification of Language; which therefore must be the Business of the next Book. (Locke 1741a: 372)
Can't wait.
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