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7724
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All the ideas written on the white paper of the mind can only come from one place - experience [Locke]
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Full Idea:
Let us suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper, void of all characters, without any ideas. How comes it to be furnished? Whence has it all the materials of reason and knowledge? To this I answer, in one word, from Experience.
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From:
John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 2.01.02)
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A reaction:
In the face of Kant's wonderfully rich account of the mind, this simple empiricism seems to be horribly naïve, but it could be defended by saying that all the other paraphernalia of the mind (associations, categories etc) are not in any way ideas.
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12555
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The constant link between whiteness and things that produce it is the basis of our knowledge [Locke]
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Full Idea:
The idea of whiteness or bitterness, as it is in the mind, exactly answering that power which is in any body to produce it, has all the real conformity it can, or ought to have, with things without us. This conformity is sufficient for real knowledge.
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From:
John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 4.04.05)
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A reaction:
I take this to say that consistent covariation with certain things in the world is the best criterion we can find for our knowledge of secondary, and hence primary, qualities. Why they two covary is beyond our ken. Sounds right.
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16637
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The absolute boundaries of our thought are the ideas we get from senses and the mind [Locke]
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Full Idea:
The simple ideas we receive from sensation and reflection are the boundaries of our thoughts; beyond which the mind, whatever efforts it would make, is not able to advance one jot.
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From:
John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 2.23.29), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 09.3
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A reaction:
My view is that this is wrong, simply because it takes no account of inference to the best explanation. We reach the boundaries of experience, and then we think about it, and penetrate beyond. His 'reflection' doesn't seem to mean that.
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2793
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It is unclear how identity, equality, perfection, God, power and cause derive from experience [Locke, by Dancy,J]
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Full Idea:
Locke tried to show how all ideas were derived from experience by examining cases, but it was an uphill struggle; difficult cases include the ideas of identity, equality, perfection, God, power and cause.
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From:
report of John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694]) by Jonathan Dancy - Intro to Contemporary Epistemology 14.2
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