display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
9 ideas
| 12477 | We get the idea of power from our own actions, and the interaction of external bodies [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Observing in ourselves that we can at pleasure move several parts of our bodies, which were at rest; the effects also that natural bodies are able to produce in one another, occurring every moment to our senses, we both these ways get the idea of power. | |
| From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 2.07.08) | |
| A reaction: This I take to be one of the most important concepts in our understanding of the world, a concept which died out in the eighteenth century, and has now reappeared in scientific essentialism. |
| 12490 | Power is active or passive, and has a relation to actions [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Power is twofold, as able to make, or able to receive any change. The one we may call 'active', and the other 'passive' power. ..And power includes in it some kind of relation (a relation to action or change). | |
| From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 2.21.02) | |
| A reaction: How deep does the distinction between active and passive power go? Are they unified at some bottom level of description? |
| 12521 | We can only know a thing's powers when we have combined it with many things [Locke] |
| Full Idea: We can never be sure that we know all the powers that are in any one body, till we have tried what changes it is fitted to give to or receive from other substances, in their several ways of application. | |
| From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 2.31.08) | |
| A reaction: This must include the possibility that some combinations are never tried, in nature or by us, and so the powers remain permananently hidden. Maybe the combination of copper and element 147 produces chaffinches. |
| 15974 | The essence of whiteness in a man is nothing but the power to produce the idea of whiteness [Locke] |
| Full Idea: In substances the most frequent [ideas] are of powers; v.g. 'a man is white' signifies that the thing that has the essence of a man has also in it the essence of whiteness, which is nothing but the power to produce the idea of whiteness in one with eyes. | |
| From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 3.08.01) | |
| A reaction: Alexander cites this to support his claim that the powers are the same as the textures, but the quotation seems neutral about what actually constitutes the powers, and Idea 15971, seems to separate powers from textures. |
| 15976 | What is the texture - the real essence - which makes substances behave in distinct ways? [Locke] |
| Full Idea: What is that texture of parts, that real essence, that makes lead, and antinomy fusible; wood and stone not? | |
| From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 3.06.09) | |
| A reaction: This quotation gives better support to Alexander's claim in Idea 15973. Locke actually says plainly that the texture (i.e. powerful combination of fine-grained corpuscles) is the essence of these substances (with, presumably, intrinsic powers). |
| 15983 | Locke explains powers, but effectively eliminates them with his talk of internal structure [Locke, by Alexander,P] |
| Full Idea: I suggest that Locke has explained the power, …but there is no longer any need to talk of powers since we can go straight from the internal structure to the phenomenon. | |
| From: report of John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694]) by Peter Alexander - Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles 7 | |
| A reaction: This is rather the view of fans of categorical properties (as opposed to dispositions). If the corpuscles don't involve forces, this reading makes sense. It is, of course, wrong. |
| 6487 | Locke, Berkeley and Hume did no serious thinking about universals [Robinson,H on Locke] |
| Full Idea: None of Locke, Berkeley or Hume shows any sign of serious thinking about the relation of their concepts of quality, idea or impression to the problem of universals; it is as if they thought this issue had disappeared. | |
| From: comment on John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694]) by Howard Robinson - Perception 1.4 | |
| A reaction: Maybe they were right. Personally I think there is a real problem of universals, but the history of philosophy has lots of cases of deep worries about problems that don't seem to bother anyone else. |
| 7717 | All things that exist are particulars [Locke] |
| Full Idea: All things that exist are particulars. | |
| From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 3.03.01) | |
| A reaction: This slogan is the essence of nominalism, the denial that universals exist as well as particulars. |
| 7718 | Universals do not exist, but are useful inventions of the mind, involving words or ideas [Locke] |
| Full Idea: General and universal belong, not to the real existence of things, but are the inventions and creatures of the understanding, made by it for its own use, and concern only signs, whether words, or ideas. | |
| From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], III.3.11) | |
| A reaction: This places Locke as a thoroughgoing nominalist. However, while the most basic question of all is said to be 'why does anything exist?', another pretty good one is 'Why do things resemble one another?'. Maybe the universal had to come first? |