display all the ideas for this combination of texts
9 ideas
| 6712 | For Locke, abstract ideas are our main superiority of understanding over animals [Locke, by Berkeley] |
| Full Idea: Locke seemed to think the having abstract general ideas is what puts the widest difference in point of understanding betwixt man and beast. | |
| From: report of John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694]) by George Berkeley - The Principles of Human Knowledge Intro §11 | |
| A reaction: I currently favour meta-thought (thought about thought) as the distinction of homo sapiens, but maybe abstraction is an aspect of that, because you have to pick out common factors amongst a variety of experiences. |
| 7654 | What matters about neuro-science is the discovery of the functional role of the chemistry [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: Neuro-science matters because - and only because - we have discovered that the many different neuromodulators and other chemical messengers that diffuse throughout the brain have functional roles that make important differences. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Sweet Dreams [2005], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: I agree with Dennett that this is the true ground for pessimism about spectacular breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, rather than abstract concerns about irreducible features of the mind like 'qualia' and 'rationality'. |
| 12496 | Complex ideas are all resolvable into simple ideas [Locke] |
| Full Idea: All our complex ideas are ultimately resolvable into simple ideas, of which they are compounded and originally made up. | |
| From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 2.22.09) | |
| A reaction: This can certainly be challenged. I guess we form the concept of a 'bird' before we form the concept of a 'feather'. How ideas are arrived at is quite different from ways in which they can be analysed and broken down. |
| 15967 | The word 'idea' covers thinking best, for imaginings, concepts, and basic experiences [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Idea being that term which serves best to stand for the object of understanding when a man thinks, I use it to express what is meant by Phantasm, Notion, Species, or whatever it is, which the Mind can be employ'd about in thinking. | |
| From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 1.01.08), quoted by Peter Alexander - Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles 04.1 | |
| A reaction: Compare my earlier Idea 6486, which caricatures Locke. Alexanders says Phantasms are uncaused mental images, Notions are concepts, and Species is an appearance of an object or quality to the mind. Locke deliberately covered them all. |
| 6486 | Ideas are the objects of understanding when we think [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Ideas are whatsoever is the object of a man's understanding whenever a man thinks. | |
| From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 1.01.08) | |
| A reaction: Robinson quotes this to show how infuriatingly vague Locke is about ideas. Obviously they can be further analysed into a variety of mental events, ranging from inputs to reactions to judgements. |
| 12475 | All our ideas derive either from sensation, or from inner reflection [Locke] |
| Full Idea: External material things, as the objects of sensation; and the operations of our own minds within, as the objects of reflection, are to me the only originals from whence all our ideas take their beginning. | |
| From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 2.01.04) | |
| A reaction: The obvious opposition comes from claims about innate ideas. That a great deal is innate is fairly obvious, but it seems very hard to demonstrate that any of it qualifies as 'ideas'. |
| 17735 | Simple ideas are produced in us by external things, and they match their appearances [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Simple ideas are not fictions of our fancies, but the natural and regular productions of things without us, really operating upon us. ...They represent to us things under those appearances which they are fitted to produce in us. | |
| From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 4.04.04) | |
| A reaction: Quoted by Jenkins to support her arguments for empirical knowledge being encoded in our concepts (which then produce a priori knowledge). I approve. This is the sort of realism in Locke which Berkeley and Hume shy away from. |
| 12471 | Innate ideas are nothing, if they are in the mind but we are unaware of them [Locke] |
| Full Idea: To say a Notion is imprinted n the Mind, and yet at the same time to say, that the mind is ignorant of it, and never yet took notice of it, is to make this Impression nothing. | |
| From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 1.02.05) | |
| A reaction: Not much of an argument, given that Locke would accept that we remember things, but have enormous difficulty recalling them. The introspective evidence of innateness I take to be the obviousness of a new idea, when it strikes. |
| 5827 | A species of thing is an abstract idea, and a word is a sign that refers to the idea [Locke] |
| Full Idea: That which general words signify is a sort of things; and does it by being a sign of an abstract idea in the mind; ..so that the essences (or species) of things are nothing else but these abstract ideas. | |
| From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694]), quoted by Stephen P. Schwartz - Intro to Naming,Necessity and Natural Kinds §II | |
| A reaction: This has come in for a lot of criticism, culminating in Putnam saying that meanings 'ain't in the head' (Idea 4099). Wittgenstein's 'beetle in the box' problem is also partly aimed at it (Idea 4147). Locke misses the social aspect of language. |