display all the ideas for this combination of texts
15 ideas
| 15997 | We are so far from understanding the workings of natural bodies that it is pointless to even try [Locke] |
| Full Idea: As to a perfect science of natural bodies (not to mention spiritual beings) we are, I think, so far from being capable of any such thing, that I conclude it lost labour to seek after it. | |
| From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 4.03.28) | |
| A reaction: It seems to me that Locke has an excellent grasp of the nature of science, except for his extraordinary and misjudged pessimism about what it might achieve. |
| 225 | The unlimited has no shape and is endless [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The unlimited partakes neither of the round nor of the straight, because it has no ends nor edges. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 137e) |
| 233 | Some things do not partake of the One [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The others cannot partake of the one in any way; they can neither partake of it nor of the whole. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 159d) | |
| A reaction: Compare Idea 231 |
| 2062 | The only movement possible for the One is in space or in alteration [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If the One moves it either moves spatially or it is altered, since these are the only motions. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 138b) |
| 231 | Everything partakes of the One in some way [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The others are not altogether deprived of the one, for they partake of it in some way. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 157c) | |
| A reaction: Compare Idea 233. |
| 15978 | I take 'matter' to be a body, excluding its extension in space and its shape [Locke] |
| Full Idea: 'Matter' is a partial and more confused conception, it seeming to me to be used for the substance and solidity of body, without taking in its extension and figure. | |
| From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 3.10.15) | |
| A reaction: The 'without taking in' I take to mean that matter is an abstraction (of the psychological kind) from the character of physical bodies. Matter does not exist without having an extension and figure. |
| 15170 | We distinguish species by their nominal essence, not by their real essence [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Our ranking, and distinguishing natural substances into species consists in the nominal essences the mind makes, and not in the real essences to be found in things themselves. | |
| From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 3.06.11) | |
| A reaction: Note that, as far as I can see, Locke never denies the existence of real essences, or even that we might occasionally know them. He is here merely describing, fairly accurately, I think, his empiricist view of how these categories have come about. |
| 15993 | If we observe total regularity, there must be some unknown law and relationships controlling it [Locke] |
| Full Idea: The things that, as far as observation reaches, we constantly find to proceed regularly, do act by a law set them; but yet by a law that we know not; ..their connections and dependencies being not discoverable in our ideas, we need experimental knowledge. | |
| From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 4.03.29) | |
| A reaction: In Idea 15992 he expressed scepticism about the amount of regularity that is actually found, with many so-called 'kinds' being quite irregular in their members. I agree. The only true natural kinds are the totally regular ones. Why a 'law'? |
| 12497 | Causes are the substances which have the powers to produce action [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Power being the source from whence all action proceeds, the substances wherein these powers are, when they exert this power into act, are called 'causes'. | |
| From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 2.22.11) | |
| A reaction: This is causes as actual entities, rather than as conjunctions of events. Personally I find this view of Locke's very congenial, no matter how unfashionable it may be. |
| 12550 | If we knew the minute mechanics of hemlock, we could predict that it kills men [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Did we know the mechanical affections of the particles of rhubarb, hemlock, opium and a man, ...we should be able to tell beforehand that rhubarb will purge, hemlock kill, and opium make a man sleep. | |
| From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 4.03.25) | |
| A reaction: Locke was adamant that we could never know such things, but I take it that we now do know them, and that this is precisely what science aims at. I'm beginning to think that the entire aim of science is to predict nature. |
| 15966 | Boyle and Locke believed corpuscular structures necessitate their powers of interaction [Locke, by Alexander,P] |
| Full Idea: Both Boyle and Locke believe in necessary connections in nature; full knowledge of a corpuscular structure would enable us to deduce, without trial, particular powers of interaction. | |
| From: report of John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694]) by Peter Alexander - Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles 03.3 | |
| A reaction: I take this view to be correct. Is the necessity analytic, because that is how you define the 'structures'? If not, what is the basis for the claim? |
| 15984 | The corpuscular hypothesis is the best explanation of the necessary connection and co-existence of powers [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Human understanding is scarce able to substitute better than the corpuscularian hypothesis in an explication of the qualities of bodies, which will afford us a fuller and clearer discovery of the necessary connection and co-existence of the powers. | |
| From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 4.03.16) | |
| A reaction: [considerably reworded] Locke is committed to natural necessities, in a way entirely rejected by Hume. The picture given in this remark perfectly embodies scientific essentialism, though elsewhere Locke is more cautious. |
| 15950 | We will only understand substance when we know the necessary connections between powers and qualities [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Which ever hypothesis be clearest and truest, ...our knowledge concerning corporeal substances, will be very little advanced.. , till we are made see, what qualities and powers of bodies have a necessary connection or repugnancy one with another. | |
| From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 4.03.16) | |
| A reaction: A part from the emphasis on powers, this sounds a bit like Armstrong's account, that laws are the necessary connections between properties. It is scientific essentialism because Locke expects researchers to discover this stuff. |
| 7713 | We identify substances by supposing that groups of sensations arise from an essence [Locke] |
| Full Idea: We come to have the ideas of particular sorts of substance, by collecting such combinations of simple ideas as are by observation of men's senses taken notice of to exist together, and are supposed to flow from the unknown essence of that substance. | |
| From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 2.23.03) | |
| A reaction: Locke is notoriously somewhat ambiguous and unclear about some of his views, but this remark seems to make him the father of modern scientific essentialism. Note that this is an empiricist happily referring to an unperceived best explanation. |
| 12545 | Other spirits may exceed us in knowledge, by knowing the inward constitution of things [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Other spirits, who see and know the nature and inward constitution of things, how much must they exceed us in knowledge? | |
| From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 4.03.06) | |
| A reaction: I take it that Locke was describing his own posterity, without realising it. It seems to me that modern physics has reached a place which Locke firmly pronounced impossible for human beings, and it has revealed many 'inward constitutions'. |