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Ideas for 'works', 'Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed)' and 'Reply to Fourth Objections'

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3 ideas

18. Thought / D. Concepts / 2. Origin of Concepts / b. Empirical concepts
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'.
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.
18. Thought / D. Concepts / 2. Origin of Concepts / c. Nativist concepts
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.