12476
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Every external object or internal idea suggests to us the idea of unity [Locke]
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Full Idea:
Existence and unity are two other ideas that are suggested to the understanding, by every object without, and every idea within. ..And whatever we can consider as one thing, whether a real being, or idea, suggests to the understanding the idea of unity.
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From:
John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 2.07.07)
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A reaction:
It seems to me blatantly obvious that there is a close tie between this fact of metaphysics or psychology (or both) and the notion of a 'unit' in mathematics. Without this faculty of 'identifying' things, there would be no numbers or counting.
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12501
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The mind can make a unity out of anything, no matter how diverse [Locke]
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Full Idea:
There are no things so remote, nor so contrary, which the mind cannot, by its art of composition, bring into one idea, as is visible in that signified by the name 'Universe'.
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From:
John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 2.24.03)
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A reaction:
This encourages ideas like unrestricted mereological composition, and the existence of the trout-turkey, but Locke is only saying that we can think of things that way. We can still strongly resist bizarre unities, and look only for natural ones, or none.
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9083
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The mind creates abstractions by generalising about appearances of objects, ignoring time or place [Locke]
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Full Idea:
The mind makes the particular ideas, received from particular objects, to become general,..by considering them as they are in the mind such appearances, separate from all other circumstances of real existence, as time or place. This is called ABSTRACTION.
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From:
John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 2.09.09)
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A reaction:
What is distinctive here is that abstraction works on 'appearances' within the mind (which might be labelled 'sense-data'), rather than on the actual properties of the objects. Presumably abstraction can work on inferred unobservable properties?
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