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History of Modern Philosophy
(a) Theory of Knowledge
by Falckenberg, Richard
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Locke's theory of knowledge is controlled by
two tendencies, one native, furnished by the Baconian empiricism, and the
other Continental, supplied by the Cartesian question concerning the origin
of ideas. Bacon had demanded the closest connection with experience as
the condition of fruitful inquiry. Locke supports this commendation of
experience by a detailed description of the services which it renders to
cognition, namely, by showing that, in simple ideas, perception supplies
the material for complex ideas, and for all the cognitive work of the
understanding. Descartes had divided ideas, according to their origin, into
three classes: those which are self-formed, those which come from without,
and those which are innate (p. 79), and had called this third class the
most valuable. Locke disputes the existence of ideas in the understanding
from birth, and makes it receive the elements of knowledge from the senses,
that is, from without. He is a representative of sensationalism,--not in
the stricter sense, first put into the term by those who subsequently
continued his endeavors, that thought arises from perception, that it is
transformed sensation--but in the wider sense, that thought is (free)
operation with ideas, which are neither created by it nor present in it
from the first, but given to it by perception, that, consequently, the
cognitive process begins with sensation and so its first attitude is a
passive one. From the standpoint of the Cartesian problem, which he solves
in a sense opposite to Descartes, Locke supplements the empiricism of Bacon
by basing it on a psychologically developed theory of knowledge. That in
the course of the inquiry he introduces a new principle, which causes him
to diverge from the true empirical path, will appear in the sequel.
The question "How our ideas come into the mind" receives a negative answer
(in the first book of the Essay: "There are no innate principles in the
mind"[1] The doctrine of the innate character of certain principles is
based on their universal acceptance. The asserted agreement of mankind in
regard to the laws of thought, the principles of morality, the existence
of God, etc., is neither cogent as an argument nor correct in fact. In the
first place, even if there were any principles which everyone assented to,
this would not prove that they had been created in the soul; the fact of
general consent would admit of a different explanation. Granted that no
atheists existed, yet it would not necessarily follow that the universal
conviction of the existence of God is innate, for it might have been
gradually reached in each case through the use of the reason--might have
been inferred, for instance, from the perception of the purposive character
of the world. Second, the fact to which this theory of innate ideas appeals
is not true. No moral rule can be cited which is respected by all nations.
The idea of identity is entirely unknown to idiots and to children. If
the laws of identity and contradiction were innate they must appear in
consciousness prior to all other truths; but long before a child is
conscious of the proposition "It is impossible for the same thing to be and
not to be," it knows that sweet is not bitter, and that black is not white.
The ideas first known are not general axioms and abstract concepts, but
particular impressions of the senses. Would nature write so illegible a
hand that the mind must wait a long time before becoming able to read what
had been inscribed upon it? It is often said, however, that innate ideas
and principles may be obscured and, finally, completely extinguished
by habit, education, and other extrinsic circumstances. Then, if
they gradually become corrupted and disappear, they must at least be
discoverable in full purity where these disturbing influences have not
yet acted; but it is especially vain to look for them in children and the
ignorant. Perhaps, however, these possess such principles unconsciously;
perhaps they are imprinted on the understanding, without being attended
to? This would be a contradiction in terms. To be in the mind or the
understanding simply means "to be understood" or to be known; no one can
have an idea without being conscious of it. Finally, if the attempt be
made to explain "originally in the mind" in so wide a sense that it would
include all truths which man can ever attain or is capable of discovering
by the right use of reason, this would make not only all mathematical
principles, but all knowledge in general, all sciences, and all arts
innate; there would be no ground even for the exclusion of wisdom and
virtue. Therefore, either all ideas are innate or none are. This is an
important alternative. While Locke decides for the second half of the
proposition, Leibnitz defends the first by a delicate application of the
concept of unconscious representation and of implicit knowledge, which his
predecessor rejects out of hand.
[Footnote 1: According to Fox Bourne this first book was written after the
others. Geil (Ueber die Abhängigkeit Lockes von Descartes Strassburg,
1887, chap, iii.) has endeavored to prove that, since the arguments
controverted are wanting in Descartes, the attack was not aimed at
Descartes and his school, but at native defenders of innate ideas, as Lord
Herbert of Cherbury and the English Platonists (Cudworth, More, Parker,
Gale). That along with these the Cartesian doctrine was a second and
chief object of attack is shown by Benno Erdmann in his discussion of the
treatises by G. Geil and R. Sommer (Lockes Verhältnis zu Descartes
Berlin, 1887) in the Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie ii, pp.
99-121.]
Locke's positive answer to the question concerning the origin of ideas is
given in his second book. Ideas are not present in the understanding from
the beginning, nor are they originated by the understanding, but received
through sensation. The understanding is like a piece of white paper
on which perception inscribes its characters. All knowledge arises in
experience. This is of two kinds, derived either from the external senses
or the internal sense. The perception of external objects is termed
Sensation, that of internal phenomena (of the states of the mind itself)
Reflection. External and internal perception are the only windows
through which the light of ideas penetrates into the dark chamber of the
understanding. The two are not opened simultaneously, however, but one
after the other; since the perceptions of the sensible qualities of bodies,
unlike that of the operations of the mind itself, do not require an effort
of attention, they are the earlier. The child receives ideas of sensation
before those of reflection; internal perception presupposes external
perception.
In this distinction between sensation and reflection, we may recognize
an after-effect of the Cartesian dualism between matter and spirit.
The antithesis of substances has become a duality in the faculties of
perception. But while Descartes had so far forth ascribed precedence to the
mind in that he held the self-certitude of the ego to be the highest and
clearest of all truths and the soul to be better known than the body, in
Locke the relation of the two was reversed, since he made the perception
of self dependent on the precedent perception of external objects. This
antithesis was made still sharper in later thinking, when Condillac made
full use of the priority of sensation, which in Locke had remained without
much effect; while Berkeley, on the other hand, reduced external perception
to internal perception.
All original ideas are representations either of the external senses or
of the internal sense, or of both. And since, in the case of ideas of
sensation, there is a distinction between those which are perceived by a
single one of the external senses and those which come from more than one,
four classes of simple ideas result: (1) Those which come from one external
sense, as colors, sounds, tastes, odors, heat, solidity, and the like.
(2) Those which come from more than one external sense (sight and touch),
as extension, figure, and motion. (3) Reflection on the operations of our
minds yields ideas of perception or thinking (with its various modes,
remembrance, judging, knowledge, faith, etc.), and of volition or willing.
(4) From both external and internal perception there come into the mind the
ideas of pleasure and pain, existence, power, unity, and succession. These
are approximately our original ideas, which are related to knowledge as
the letters to written discourse; as all Homer is composed out of only
twenty-four letters, so these few simple ideas constitute all the material
of knowledge. The mind can neither have more nor other simple ideas than
those which are furnished to it by these two sources of experience.
Locke differs from Descartes again in regard to extension and thought.
Extension does not constitute the essence of matter, nor thought the
essence of mind. Extension and body are not the same; the former is
presupposed by the latter as its necessary condition, but it is the former
alone which yields mathematical matter. The essence of physical matter
consists rather in solidity: where impenetrability is found there is body,
and the converse; the two are absolutely inseparable. With space the case
is different. I cannot conceive unextended matter, indeed, but I can easily
conceive immaterial extension, an unfilled space Further, if the essence
of the soul consisted in thought, it must be always thinking. As the
Cartesians maintained, it must have ideas as soon as it begins to be, which
is manifestly contrary to experience. Thinking is merely an activity of
the mind, as motion is an activity of the body, and not its essential
characteristic. The mind does not receive ideas until external objects
occasion perception in it through impressions, which it is not able to
avert. The understanding may be compared to a mirror, which, without
independent activity and without being consulted, takes up the images of
things. Some of the simple ideas which have been mentioned above represent
the properties of things as they really are, others not. The former class
includes all ideas of reflection (for we are ourselves the immediate object
of the inner sense); but among the ideas of sensation those only which come
from different senses, hence extension, motion and rest, number, figure,
and, further, solidity, are to be accounted primaryqualities, i. e,
such as are actual copies of the properties of bodies. All other ideas, on
the contrary, have no resemblance to properties of bodies; they represent
merely the ways in which things act, and are not copies of things. The
ideas of secondary or derivative qualities (hard and soft, warm and cold,
colors and sounds, tastes and odors) are in the last analysis caused--as
are the primary--by motion, but not perceived as such. Yellow and warm are
merely sensations in us, which we erroneously ascribe to objects; with
equal right we might ascribe to fire, as qualities inherent in it, the
changes in form and color which it produces in wax and the pain which it
causes in the finger brought into proximity with it. The warmth and the
brightness of the blaze, the redness, the pleasant taste, and the aromatic
odor of the strawberry, exist in these bodies merely as the power to
produce such sensations in us by stimulation of the skin, the eye, the
palate, and the nose. If we remove the perceptions of them, they disappear
as such, and their causes alone remain--the bulk, figure, number, texture,
and motion of the insensible particles. The ground of the illusion lies in
the fact that such qualities as color, etc., bear no resemblance to their
causes, in no wise point to these, and in themselves contain naught of
bulk, density, figure, and motion, and that our senses are too weak
to discover the material particles and their primary qualities.--The
distinction between qualities of the first and second order--first advanced
by the ancient atomists, revived by Galileo and Descartes on the threshold
of the modern period, retained by Locke, and still customary in the natural
science of the day--forms an important link in the transition from the
popular view of all sense-qualities as properties of things in themselves
to Kant's position, that spatial and temporal qualities also belong
to phenomena alone, and are based merely on man's subjective mode of
apprehension, while the real properties of things in themselves are
unknowable.
Thus far the procedure of the understanding has been purely passive. But
besides the capacity for passively receiving simple ideas, it possesses the
further power of variously combining and extending these original ideas
which have come into it from without, of working over the material given
in sensation by the combination, relation, and separation of its various
elements. In this it is active, but not creative. It is not able to form
new simple ideas (and just as little to destroy such as already exist), but
only freely to combine the elements furnished without its assistance by
perception (or, following the figure mentioned above, to combine into
syllables and words the separate letters of sensation). Complex ideas arise
from simple ideas through voluntary combination of the latter.
Perception is the first step toward knowledge. After perception the most
indispensable faculty is retention, the prolonged consciousness of present
ideas and the revival of those which have disappeared, or, as it were, have
been put aside. For an idea to be "in the memory" means that the mind
has the capacity to reproduce it at will, whereupon it recognizes it as
previously experienced. If our ideas are not freshened up from time to time
by new impressions of the same sort they gradually fade out, until finally
(as the idea of color in one become blind in early life) they completely
disappear. Ideas impressed upon the mind by frequent repetition are rarely
entirely lost. Memory is the basis for the intellectual functions of
discernment and comparison, of composition, abstraction, and naming. Since,
amid the innumerable multitude of ideas, it is not possible to assign to
each one a definite sign, the indispensable condition of language is found
in the power of abstraction, that is, in the power of generalizing ideas,
of compounding many ideas into one, and of indicating by the names of the
general ideas, or of the classes and species, the particular ideas also
which are contained under these. Here is the great distinction between
man and the brute. The brute lacks language because he lacks (not all
understanding whatever, e.g. not a capacity, though an imperfect one, of
comparison and composition, but) the faculty of abstraction and of forming
general ideas. The object of language is simply the quick and easy
communication of our thoughts to others, not to give expression to the real
essence of objects. Words are not names for particular things, but signs
of general ideas; and abstracta nothing more than an artifice for
facilitating intellectual intercourse. This abbreviation, which aids in
the exchange of ideas, involves the danger that the creations of the mind
denoted by words will be taken for images of real general essences, of
which, in fact, there are none in existence, but only particular things. In
order to prevent anyone to whom I am speaking from understanding my words
in a different sense from the one intended, it is necessary for me to
define the complex ideas by analyzing them into their elements, and, on the
other hand, to give examples in experience of the simple ideas, which do
not admit of definition, or to explain them by synonyms. Thus much from
Locke's philosophy of language, to which he devotes the third book of the
Essay
Complex ideas, which are very numerous, may be divided into three classes:
Modes, Substances, and Relations.
Modes(states, conditions) are such combinations of simple ideas which do
not "contain in them the supposition of subsisting by themselves, but are
considered as dependencies on, or affections of substances." They fall into
two classes according as they are composed of the same simple ideas, or
simple ideas of various kinds; the former are called simple, the latter
mixed, modes. Under the former class belong, for example, a dozen or a
score, the idea of which is composed of simple units; under the latter,
running, fighting, obstinacy, printing, theft, parricide. The formation of
mixed modes is greatly influenced by national customs. Very complicated
transactions (sacrilege, triumph, ostracism), if often considered and
discussed, receive for the sake of brevity comprehensive names, which
cannot be rendered by a single expression in the language of other
nations among whom the custom in question is not found. The elements most
frequently employed in the formation of mixed modes are ideas of the two
fundamental activities, thinking and motion, together with power, which is
their source. Locke discusses simple modes in more detail, especially
those derived from the ideas of space, time, unity, and power.
Modifications of space are distance, figure, place, length; since any
length or measure of space can be repeated to infinity, we reach the idea
of immensity. As modes of time are enumerated succession (which we perceive
and measure only by the flow of our ideas), duration, and lengths or
measures of duration, the endless repetition of which yields the idea of
eternity. From unity are developed the modes of numbers, and from the
unlimitedness of these the idea of infinity. No idea, however, is richer
in modes than the idea of power. A distinction must be made between active
power and passive power, or mere receptivity. While bodies are not capable
of originating motion, but only of communicating motion received, we notice
in ourselves, as spiritual beings, the capacity of originating actions and
motions. The body possesses only the passive power of being moved, the mind
the active power of producing motion. This latter is termed "will." Here
Locke discusses at length the freedom of the will, but not with entire
clearness and freedom from contradictions (cf. below).
Modes are conditions which do not subsist of themselves, but have need of
a basis or support; they are not conceivable apart from a thing whose
properties or states they are. We notice that certain qualities always
appear together, and habitually refer them to a substratum as the ground of
their unity; in which they subsist or from which they proceed. Substance
denotes this self-existent "we know not what," which has or bears the
attributes in itself, and which arouses the ideas of them in us. It is the
combination of a number of simple ideas which are presumed to belong to one
thing. From the ideas of sensation the understanding composes the idea of
body, and from the ideas of reflection that of mind. Each of these is just
as clear and just as obscure as the other; of each we know only its effects
and its sensuous properties; its essence is for us entirely unknowable.
Instead of the customary names, material and immaterial substances,
Locke recommends cogitative and incogitative substances, since it is not
inconceivable that the Creator may have endowed some material beings with
the capacity of thought. God,--the idea of whom is attained by uniting the
ideas of existence, power, might, knowledge, and happiness with that of
infinity,--is absolutely immaterial, because not passive, while finite
spirits (which are both active and passive) are perhaps only bodies which
possess the power of thinking.
While the ideas of substances are referred to a reality without the mind as
their archetype, to which they are to conform and which they should image
and represent, Relations(e.g. husband, greater) are free and immanent
products of the understanding. They are not copies of real things, but
represent themselves alone, are their own archetypes. We do not ask whether
they agree with things, but, conversely, whether things agree with them
(Book iv. 4.5). The mind reaches an idea of relation by placing two things
side by side and comparing them. If it perceives that a thing, or a
quality, or an idea begins to exist through the operation of some other
thing, it derives from this the idea of the causal relation, which is the
most comprehensive of all relations, since all that is actual or possible
can be brought under it. Cause is that which makes another thing to begin
to be; effect that which had its beginning from some other thing. The
production of a new quality is termed alteration; of artificial things,
making; of a living being, generation; of a new particle of matter,
creation. Next in importance is the relation of identity and diversity
Since it is impossible for a thing to be in two different places at the
same time and for two things to be at the same time in the same place,
everything that at a given instant is in a given place is identical with
itself, and, on the other hand, distinct from everything else (no matter
how great the resemblance between them) that at the same moment exists in
another place. Space and time therefore form the principium
individuationis By what marks, however, may we recognize the identity of
an individual at different times and in different places? The identity of
inorganic matter depends on the continuity of the mass of atoms which
compose it; that of living beings upon the permanent organization of
their parts (different bodies are united into one Animal by a common
life); personal identity consists in the unity of self-consciousness, not
in the continuity of bodily existence (which is at once excluded by the
change of matter). The identity of the person or the ego must be carefully
distinguished from that of substance and of man. It would not be impossible
for the person to remain the same in a change of substances, in so far as
the different beings (for instance, the souls of Epicurus and Gassendi)
participated in the same self-consciousness; and, conversely, for a spirit
to appear in two persons by losing the consciousness of its previous
existence. Consciousness is the sole condition of the self, or personal
identity.--The determinations of space and time are for the most part
relations. Our answers to the questions "When?" "How long?" "How large?"
denote the distance of one point of time from another (e.g. the birth of
Christ), the relation of one duration to another (of a revolution of the
sun), the relation of one extension to another well-known one taken as a
standard. Many apparently positive ideas and words, as young and old, large
and small, weak and strong, are in fact relative. They imply merely the
relation of a given duration of life, of a given size and strength, to that
which has been adopted as a standard for the class of things in question. A
man of twenty is called young, but a horse of like age, old; and neither of
these measures of time applies to stars or diamonds. Moral relations, which
are based on a comparison of man's voluntary actions with one of the three
moral laws, will be discussed below.
The inquiry now turns from the origin of ideas to their cognitive value
or their validity beginning (in the concluding chapters of the second
book) with the accuracy of single ideas, and advancing (in Book iv., which
is the most important in the whole work) to the truth of judgments. An idea
is real when it conforms to its archetype, whether this is a thing, real
or possible, or an idea of some other thing; it is adequate when the
conformity is complete. The idea of a four-sided triangle or of brave
cowardice is unreal or fantastical, since it is composed of incompatible
elements, and the idea of a centaur, since it unites simple ideas in a
way in which they do not occur in nature. The layman's ideas of law or of
chemical substances are real, but inadequate, since they have a general
resemblance to those of experts, and a basis in reality, but yet only
imperfectly represent their archetypes. Nay, further, our ideas of
substances are all inadequate, not only when they are taken for
representations of the inner essences of things (since we do not know these
essences), but also when they are considered merely as collections of
qualities. The copy never includes all the qualities of the thing, the less
so since the majority of these are powers, i.e. consist in relations to
other objects, and since it is impossible, even in the case of a single
body, to discover all the changes which it is fitted to impart to, or
to receive from, other substances. Ideas of modes and relations are all
adequate, for they are their own archetypes, are not intended to represent
anything other than themselves, are images without originals. An idea of
this kind, however, though perfect when originally formed, may become
imperfect through the use of language, when it is unsuccessfully intended
to agree with the idea of some other person and denominated by a current
term. In the case of mixed modes and their names, therefore, the
compatibility of their elements and the possible existence of their objects
are not enough to secure their reality and their complete adequacy; in
order to be adequate they must, further, exactly conform to the meaning
connected with their names by their author, or in common use. Simple
ideas are best off, according to Locke, in regard both to reality and to
adequacy. For the most part, it is true, they are not accurate copies of
the real qualities, of things, but only the regular effects of the powers
of things. But although real qualities are thus only the causes and not
the patterns of sensations, still simple ideas, by their constant
correspondence with real qualities, sufficiently fulfill their divinely
ordained end, to serve us as instruments of knowledge, i.e. in the
discrimination of things.--An unreal and inadequate idea becomes false only
when it is referred to an object, whether this be the existence of a thing,
or its true essence, or an idea of other things. Truth and error belong
always to affirmations or negations, that is, to (it may be, tacit)
propositions. Ideas uncombined, unrelated, apart from judgments, ideas,
that is, as mere phenomena in the mind, are neither true nor false.
Knowledge is defined as the "perception of the connexion and agreement, or
disagreement and repugnancy" of two ideas; truth, as "the right joining or
separating of signs, i.e. ideas or words." The object of knowledge
is neither single ideas nor the relations of ideas to things, but the
relations of ideas among themselves This view was at once paradoxical
and pregnant. If all cognition, as Locke suggests in objection to his own
theory, consists in perceiving the agreement or disagreement of our ideas,
are not the visions of the enthusiast and the reasonings of sober thinkers
alike certain? are not the propositions, A fairy is not a centaur, and a
centaur is a living being, just as true as that a circle is not a triangle,
and that the sum of the angles of a triangle is equal to two right angles?
The mind directly perceives nothing but its own ideas, but it seeks a
knowledge of things! If this is possible it can only be indirect
knowledge--the mind knows things through its ideas, and possesses criteria
which show that its ideas agree with things.
Two cases must be clearly distinguished, for a considerable number of our
ideas, viz., all complex ideas except those of substances, make no claim
to represent things, and consequently cannot represent them falsely. For
mathematical and moral ideas and principles, and the truth thereof, it is
entirely immaterial whether things and conditions correspondent to them
exist in nature or not. They are valid, even if nowhere actualized; they
are "eternal truths," not in the sense that they are known from childhood,
but in the sense that, as soon as known, they are immediately assented
to.[1] The case is different, however, with simple ideas and the ideas of
substances, which have their originals without the mind and which are to
correspond with these. In regard to the former we may always be certain
that they agree with real things, for since the mind can neither
voluntarily originate them (e.g. cannot produce sensations of color
in the dark) nor avoid having them at will, but only receive them from
without, they are not creatures of the fancy, but the natural and regular
productions of external things affecting us. In regard to the latter, the
ideas of substances, we may be certain at least when the simple ideas which
compose them have been found so connected in experience. Perception has
an external cause, whose influence the mind is not able to withstand. The
mutual corroboration furnished by the reports of the different senses, the
painfulness of certain sensations, the clear distinction between ideas from
actual perception and those from memory, the possibility of producing and
predicting new sensations of an entirely definite nature in ourselves and
in others, by means of changes which we effect in the external world (e.g.
by writing down a word)--these give further justification for the trust
which we put in the senses. No one will be so skeptical as to doubt in
earnest the existence of the things which he sees and touches, and to
declare his whole life to be a deceptive dream. The certitude which
perception affords concerning the existence of external objects is indeed
not an absolute one, but it is sufficient for the needs of life and the
government of our actions; it is "as certain as our happiness or misery,
beyond which we have no concernment, either of knowing or being." In regard
to the past the testimony of the senses is supplemented by memory, in
which certainty [in regard to the continued existence of things previously
perceived] is transformed into high probability; while in regard to the
existence of other finite spirits, numberless kinds of which may be
conjectured to exist, though their existence is quite beyond our powers of
perception, certitude sinks into mere (though well-grounded) faith.
[Footnote 1: Thus it results that knowledge, although dependent on
experience for all its materials, extends beyond experience. The
understanding is completely bound in the reception of simple ideas; less so
in the combination of these into complex ideas; absolutely free in the act
of comparison, which it can omit at will; finally, again, completely bound
in its recognition of the relation in which the ideas it has chosen
to compare stand to one another. There is room for choice only in the
intermediate stage of the cognitive process; at the beginning (in the
reception of the simple ideas of perception, a, b, c, d), and at the end
(in judging how the concepts a b c and a b d stand related to each other),
the understanding is completely determined.]
More certain than our sensitive knowledge of the existence of external
objects, are our immediate or intuitive knowledge of our own existence
and our mediate or demonstrative knowledge of the existence of God.
Every idea that we have, every pain, every thought assures us of our own
existence. The existence of God, however, as the infinite cause of all
reality, endowed with intelligence, will, and supreme power, is inferred
from the existence and constitution of the world and of ourselves. Reality
exists; the real world is composed of matter in motion and thinking beings,
and is harmoniously ordered. Since it is impossible for any real being to
be produced by nothing, and since we obtain no satisfactory answer to the
question of origin until we rise to something existent from all eternity,
we must assume as the cause of that which exists an Eternal Being, which
possesses in a higher degree all the perfections which it has bestowed upon
the creatures. As the cause of matter and motion, and as the source of all
power, this Being must be omnipotent; as the cause of beauty and order in
the world, and, above all, as the creator of thinking beings, it must be
omniscient. But these perfections are those which we combine in the idea
of God.
Intuitive knowledge is the highest of the three degrees of knowledge. It is
gained when the mind perceives the agreement or disagreement of two ideas
at first sight, without hesitation, and without the intervention of any
third idea. This immediate knowledge is self-evident, irresistible, and
exposed to no doubt. Knowledge is demonstrative when the mind perceives the
agreement (or disagreement) of two ideas, not by placing them side by side
and comparing them, but through the aid of other ideas. The intermediate
links are called proofs; their discovery is the work of the reason, and
quickness in finding them out is termed sagacity. The greater the number
of the intermediate steps, the more the clearness and distinctness of the
knowledge decreases, and the more the possibility of error increases.
In order for an argument (e. g, that a = d) to be conclusive, every
particular step in it (a = b, b = c, c = d) must possess intuitive
certainty. Mathematics is not the only example of demonstrative knowledge,
but the most perfect one, since in mathematics, by the aid of visible
symbols, the full equality and the least differences among ideas may be
exactly measured and sharply determined.
Besides real existence Locke, unsystematically enough, enumerates three
other sorts of agreement between ideas,--in the perception of which he
makes knowledge consist,--viz., identity or diversity (blue is not yellow),
relation (when equals are added to equals the results are equal), and
coexistence or necessary connexion (gold is fixed). We are best off in
regard to the knowledge of the first of these, "identity or diversity," for
here our intuition extends as far as our ideas, since we recognize every
idea, as soon as it arises, as identical with itself and different from
others. We are worst off in regard to "necessary connexion." We know
something, indeed, concerning the incompatibility or coexistence of certain
properties (e. g, that the same object cannot have two different sizes
or colors at the same time; that figure cannot exist apart from extension):
but it is only in regard to a few qualities and powers of bodies that we
are able to discover dependence and necessary connexion by intuitive or
demonstrative thought, while in most cases we are dependent on experience,
which gives us information concerning particular cases only, and affords no
guarantee that things are the same beyond the sphere of our observation and
experiment. Since empirical inquiry furnishes no certain and universal
knowledge, and since the assumption that like bodies will in the same
circumstances have like effects is only a conjecture from analogy, natural
science in the strict sense does not exist. Both mathematics and ethics,
however, belong in the sphere of the demonstrative knowledge of relations.
The principles of ethics are as capable of exact demonstration as those of
arithmetic and geometry, although their underlying ideas are more complex,
more involved, hence more exposed to misunderstanding, and lacking in
visible symbols; though these defects can, and should, in part be made good
by careful and strictly consistent definitions. Such moral principles as
"where there is no property there is no injustice," or "no government
allows absolute liberty," are as certain as any proposition in Euclid.
The advantage of the mathematical and moral sciences over the physical
sciences consists in the fact that, in the former, the real and nominal
essences of their objects coincide, while in the latter they do not; and,
further, that the real essences of substances are beyond our knowledge. The
true inner constitution of bodies, the root whence all their qualities, and
the coexistence of these, necessarily proceed, is completely unknown to us;
so that we are unable to deduce them from it. Mathematical and moral ideas,
on the other hand, and their relations, are entirely accessible, for they
are the products of our own voluntary operations. They are not copied from
things, but are archetypal for reality and need no confirmation from
experience. The connexion constituted by our understanding between the
ideas crime and punishment (e. g, the proposition: crime deserves
punishment) is valid, even though no crime had ever been committed, and
none ever punished. Existence is not at all involved in universal
propositions; "general knowledge lies only in our own thoughts, and
consists barely in the contemplation of our own abstract ideas" and their
relations. The truths of mathematics and ethics are both universal and
certain, while in natural science single observations and experiments are
certain, but not general, and general propositions are only more or less
probable. Both the particular experiments and the general conclusions are
of great value under certain circumstances, but they do not meet the
requirements of comprehensive and certain knowledge.
The extent of our knowledge is very limited--much less, in fact, than
that of our ignorance. For our knowledge reaches no further than our ideas,
and the possibility of perceiving their agreements. Many things exist of
which we have no ideas--chiefly because of the fewness of our senses and
their lack of acuteness--and just as many of which our ideas are only
imperfect. Moreover, we are often able neither to command the ideas
which we really possess, or at least might attain, nor to perceive their
connexions. The ideas which are lacking, those which are undiscoverable,
those which are not combined, are the causes of the narrow limits of human
knowledge.
There are two ways by which knowledge may be extended: by experience, on
the one hand, and, on the other, by the elevation of our ideas to a state
of clearness and distinctness, together with the discovery and systematic
arrangement of those intermediate ideas which exhibit the relation of other
ideas, in themselves not immediately comparable. The syllogism, as an
artificial form, is of little value in the perception of the agreements
between these intermediate and final terms, and of none whatever in the
discovery of the former. Analytical and identical propositions which merely
explicate the conception of the subject, but express nothing not already
known, are, in spite of their indefeasible certitude, valueless for the
extension of knowledge, and when taken for more than verbal explanations,
mere absurdities. Even those most general propositions, those "principles"
which are so much talked of in the schools, lack the utility which is so
commonly ascribed to them. Maxims are, it is true, fit instruments for the
communication of knowledge already acquired, and in learned disputations
may perform indispensable service in silencing opponents, or in bringing
the dispute to a conclusion; but they are of little or no use in the
discovery of new truth. It is a mistake to believe that special cases (as
5 = 2 + 3, or 5 = 1 + 4) are dependent on the truth of the abstract rule
(the whole is equal to the sum of its parts), that they are confirmed by
it and must be derived from it. The particular and concrete is not only
as clear and certain as the general maxim, but better known than this,
as well as earlier and more easily perceived. Nay, further, in cases
where ideas are confused and the meanings of words doubtful, the use of
axioms is dangerous, since they may easily lend the appearance of proved
truth to assertions which are really contradictory.
Between the clear daylight of certain knowledge and the dark night of
absolute ignorance comes the twilight of probability. We find ourselves
dependent on opinion And presumption, or judgment based upon probability,
when experience and demonstration leave us in the lurch and we are,
nevertheless, challenged to a decision by vital needs which brook no delay.
The judge and the historian must convince themselves from the reports of
witnesses concerning events which they have not themselves observed; and
everyone is compelled by the interests of life, of duty, and of eternal
salvation to form conclusions concerning things which lie beyond the limits
of his own perception and reflective thought, nay, which transcend all
human experience and rigorous demonstration whatever. To delay decision and
action until absolute certainty had been attained, would scarcely allow
us to lift a single finger. In cases concerning events in the past, the
future, or at a distance, we rely on the testimony of others (testing their
reports by considering their credibility as witnesses and the conformity of
the evidence to general experience in like cases); in regard to questions
concerning that which is absolutely beyond experience, e.g. higher
orders of spirits, or the ultimate causes of natural phenomena, analogy is
the only help we have. If the witnesses conflict among themselves, or with
the usual course of nature, the grounds pro And con must be carefully
balanced; frequently, however, the degree of probability attained is so
great that our assent is almost equivalent to complete certainty. No
one doubts,--although it is impossible for him to "know,"--that Caesar
conquered Pompey, that gold is ductile in Australia as elsewhere, that iron
will sink to-morrow as well as to-day. Thus opinion supplements the lack of
certain knowledge, and serves as a guide for belief and action, wherever
the general lot of mankind or individual circumstances prevent absolute
certitude.
Although in this twilight region of opinion demonstrative proofs are
replaced merely by an "occasion" for "taking" a given fact or idea "as true
rather than false," yet assent is by no means an act of choice, as the
Cartesians had erroneously maintained, for in knowledge it is determined by
clearly discerned reasons, and in the sphere of opinion, by the balance of
probability. The understanding is free only in combining ideas, not in its
judgment concerning the agreement or the repugnancy of the ideas compared;
it lies within its own power to decide whether it will judge at all, and
what ideas it will compare, but it has no control over the result of the
comparison; it is impossible for it to refuse its assent to a demonstrated
truth or a preponderant probability.
In this recognition of objective and universally valid relations existing
among ideas, which the thinking subject, through comparisons voluntarily
instituted, discovers valid or finds given, but which it can neither alter
nor demur to, Locke abandons empirical ground (cf. p. 155) and approaches
the idealists of the Platonizing type. His inquiry divides into two very
dissimilar parts (a psychological description of the origin of ideas and a
logical determination of the possibility and the extent of knowledge), the
latter of which is, in Locke's opinion, compatible with the former, but
which could never have been developed from it. The rationalistic edifice
contradicts the sensationalistic foundation. Locke had hoped to show the
value and the limits of knowledge by an inquiry into the origin of ideas,
but his estimate of this value and these limits cannot be proved from the
a posteriori origin of ideas--it can only be maintained in despite of
this, and stands in need of support from some (rationalistic) principle
elsewhere obtained. Thinkers who trace back all simple ideas to outer and
inner perception we expect to reject every attempt to extend knowledge
beyond the sphere of experience, to declare the combinations of ideas
which have their origin in sensation trustworthy, and those which are
formed without regard to perception, illusory; or else, with Protagoras,
to limit knowledge to the individual perceiving subject, with a consequent
complete denial of its general validity. But exactly the opposite of all
these is found in Locke. The remarkable spectacle is presented of a
philosopher who admits no other sources of ideas than perception and the
voluntary combination of perceptions, transcending the limits of experience
with proofs of the divine existence, viewing with suspicion the ideas of
substance formed at the instance of experience, and reducing natural
science to the sphere of mere opinion; while, on the other hand, he
ascribes reality and eternal validity to the combinations of ideas formed
independently of perception, which are employed by mathematics and ethics,
and completely abandons the individualistic position in his naïve faith in
the impregnable validity of the relations of ideas, which is evident to all
who turn their attention to them. The ground for the universal validity of
the relations among ideas as well as of our knowledge of them, naturally
lies not in their empirical origin (for my experience gives information to
me alone, and that only concerning the particular case in question), but in
the uniformity of man's rational constitution. If two men really have the
same ideas--not merely think they have because they use similar
language--it is impossible, according to Locke, that they should hold
different opinions concerning the relation of their ideas. With this
conviction, that the universal validity of knowledge is rooted in the
uniformity of man's rational constitution, and the further one, that we
attain certain knowledge only when things conform to our ideas, Locke
closely approaches Kant; while his assumption of a fixed order of relations
among ideas, which the individual understanding cannot refuse to recognize,
and the typical character assigned to mathematics, associate him with
Malebranche and Spinoza. In view of these points of contact with the
rationalistic school and his manifold dependence on its founder, we may
venture the paradox, that Locke may not only be termed a Baconian with
Cartesian leanings, but (almost) a Cartesian influenced by Bacon. The
possibility must not be forgotten, however, that rationalistic suggestions
came to him also from Galileo, Hobbes, and Newton.[1]
[Footnote 1: Cf. the article by Benno Erdmann cited p. 156, note.]
Intermediate between knowledge and opinion stands faith as a form of assent
which is based on testimony rather than on deductions of the reason,
but whose certitude is not inferior to that of knowledge, since it is a
communication from God, who can neither deceive nor be deceived. Faith
and the certainty thereof depend on reason, in so far as reason alone can
determine whether a divine revelation has really been made and the meaning
of the words in which the revelation has come down to us. In determining
the boundaries of faith and reason Locke makes use of the
distinction--which has become famous--between things above reason,
according to reason, and contrary to reason. Our conviction that God exists
is according to reason; the belief that there are more gods than one, or
that a body can be in two different places at the same time, contrary
to reason; the former is a truth which can be demonstrated on rational
grounds, the latter an assumption incompatible with our clear and distinct
ideas. In the one case revelation confirms a proposition of which we
were already certain; in the other an alleged revelation is incapable
of depriving our certain knowledge of its force. Above reason are those
principles whose probability and truth cannot be shown by the natural use
of our faculties, as that the dead shall rise again and the account of the
fall of part of the angels. Among the things which are not contrary to
reason belong miracles, for they contradict opinion based on the usual
course of nature, it is true, but not our certain knowledge; in spite of
their supernatural character they deserve willing acceptance, and receive
it, when they are well attested, whereas principles contrary to reason must
be unconditionally rejected as a revelation from God. Locke's demand for
the subjection of faith to rational criticism assures him an honorable
place in the history of English deism. He enriched the philosophy of
religion by two treatises of his own: The Reasonableness of Christianity
1695, and three Letters on Tolerance 1689-1692. The former transfers the
center of gravity of the Christian religion from history to the doctrine of
redemption; the Letters Demand religious freedom, mutual tolerance among
the different sects, and the separation of Church and State. Those sects
alone are to receive no tolerance which themselves exercise none, and which
endanger the well-being of society; together with atheists, who are
incapable of taking oaths. In other respects it is the duty of the state to
protect all confessions and to favor none.
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