103 ideas
| 2797 | As coherence expands its interrelations become steadily tighter, culminating only in necessary truth [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: As our system grows in coherence, the interrelations between its parts becomes tighter and tighter;… at the limit contingent truth vanishes, leaving only necessary truth. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 14.7) |
| 2768 | The correspondence theory also has the problem that two sets of propositions might fit the facts equally well [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: The correspondence theory as well as the coherence theory has the problem of more than one set of truths. Why can't two sets of propositions "fit the facts" equally well? | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 8.2) |
| 2765 | Rescher says that if coherence requires mutual entailment, this leads to massive logical redundancy [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: Rescher complains that if coherence requires mutual entailment, then what is entailed is logically redundant, and the whole system is infected with mutual redundancy. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 8.1) |
| 2769 | If one theory is held to be true, all the other theories appear false, because they can't be added to the true one [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: From the point of view of someone with a theory every other theory is false, because it cannot be added to the true theory. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 8.2) |
| 2766 | Even with a tight account of coherence, there is always the possibility of more than one set of coherent propositions [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: No matter how tight our account of coherence we have to admit that there may be more than one set of coherent propositions (as Russell pointed out (1907)). | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 8.2) |
| 2781 | Realism says that most perceived objects exist, and have some of their perceived properties [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: Realism in the theory of perception is that objects we perceive usually do exist, and retain some at least of the properties we perceive them as having. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 10.2) |
| 2745 | A pupil who lacks confidence may clearly know something but not be certain of it [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: Why isn't certainty required for knowledge? Because we are often prepared to allow that someone does in fact have knowledge when the person is so uncertain they would not claim knowledge for themselves (the 'diffident schoolboy'). | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 2.1) |
| 2755 | If senses are fallible, then being open to correction is an epistemological virtue [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: In my view, once we admit that our beliefs about our sensory states are not infallible, incorrigibility would be a vice rather than a virtue. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 4.3) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be axiomatic among modern philosophers, and I certainly agree with it. |
| 5677 | Naïve direct realists hold that objects retain all of their properties when unperceived [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: The naïve direct realist holds that unperceived objects are able to retain properties of all the types we perceive them as having, which includes not only a shape and a size, but also a colour, a taste and a smell. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 10.3) | |
| A reaction: This I take to be a completely untenable view, if we are including the qualia of red, sweet or pungent among the properties. It seems uncontroversial that objects retain the capacity to cause redness etc. when they are unperceived. |
| 5678 | Scientific direct realism says we know some properties of objects directly [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: The scientific direct realist accepts the directness of our perception of the world, but restricts his realism to a special group of properties, ..not including those which are dependent for their existence upon the existence of a perceiver. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 10.3) | |
| A reaction: Dancy goes on to say that this distinction is a 'close relative' of Locke's primary/secondary distinction. Am I a direct realist or a representative realist about primary properties? Maybe the distinction dissolves as we unravel the true process. |
| 5681 | Maybe we are forced from direct into indirect realism by the need to explain perceptual error [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: Direct realism is unlikely to be able to provide an explanation of perceptual error without collapsing into indirect realism. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 10.3) | |
| A reaction: If there is an error, there must be two things which don't match: the perception, and the reality. This seems to me a powerful reason for preferring indirect or representative realism. I like the idea that we make mental 'models' (rather than inferences). |
| 5682 | Internal realism holds that we perceive physical objects via mental objects [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: Indirect realism holds that in perception we are indirectly aware of the physical objects around us in virtue of a direct awareness of internal, non-physical objects. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 10.4) | |
| A reaction: This may be a slightly prejudicial definition which invites insoluble questions about the ontological status of the internal 'objects'. It seems to me obvious that we create some sort of inner 'models' or constructions in the process of perception. |
| 5683 | Indirect realism depends on introspection, the time-lag, illusions, and neuroscience [Dancy,J, by PG] |
| Full Idea: The four standard reasons for preferring indirect to direct realism are introspection of our mental processes, the time-lag argument, the argument from illusion, and the findings of neuroscience. | |
| From: report of Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 10.4) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
| A reaction: Ultimately one's views about realism depend on one's views of the mind/brain, and it is the last of the four reasons that sways me. We know enough about the complexity of the brain to accept that it represents reality, with no additional ontology. |
| 2778 | Phenomenalism includes possible experiences, but idealism only refers to actual experiences [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: Phenomenalism talks about actual and possible experiences, whereas idealism confines itself to the actual experiences. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 9.5) |
| 5684 | Eliminative idealists say there are no objects; reductive idealists say objects exist as complex experiences [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: The eliminativist idealist holds that there is no such thing as a material object; there is nothing but experience (idea, sensation). The reductive idealist holds that there are material objects, but they are nothing other than complexes of experience. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 10.6) | |
| A reaction: Dancy says Berkeley was of the latter type. The distinction doesn't strike me as entirely clear. I can't make much sense of the words 'are' or 'exist' in the second theory. To say it is only experiences translates (to me) as 'doesn't exist'. |
| 2777 | Extreme solipsism only concerns current experience, but it might include past and future [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: Extreme solipsism only considers present experiences, but more relaxed solipsism may include past and possible future experiences. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 9.5) |
| 2794 | Knowing that a cow is not a horse seems to be a synthetic a priori truth [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: The fact that a cow is not a horse is a candidate for a priori synthetic truth. It doesn't seem to be analytic, because you can know what a cow is without knowing what a horse is. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 14.3) |
| 2780 | Perception is either direct realism, indirect realism, or phenomenalism [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: There are three main families of theories of perception: direct realism, indirect realism, and phenomenalism. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 10.2) |
| 5679 | We can't grasp the separation of quality types, or what a primary-quality world would be like [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: There is doubt about whether our experience of the world is such that we can conceive of the sort of separation of primary and secondary qualities which the scientific view calls for, and can understand what the world is like with no secondary qualities. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 10.3) | |
| A reaction: Dancy attributes these doubts to Berkeley (e.g. Idea 3837). I think what is claimed here is false. Obviously we spend our whole lives immersed in secondary qualities, but separating the different aspects is precisely what scientists (and philosophers) do. |
| 5680 | For direct realists the secondary and primary qualities seem equally direct [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: For a direct realist our awareness of colour and heat can hardly be of a different order from our awareness of shape and size. Both sorts of properties are presented with equal directness. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 10.3) | |
| A reaction: This is a good objection to 'direct scientific realism', which claims direct apprehension of primary qualities alongside a totally relative view of secondary qualities. The best response seems to be to move to a representative view of primary properties. |
| 2782 | We can be looking at distant stars which no longer actually exist [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: An object such as a distant star can have ceased to exist by the moment at which we are directly aware of it. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 10.2) |
| 2775 | It is not clear from the nature of sense data whether we should accept them as facts [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: The question whether something which appears as datum should remain as accepted fact is one which is not even partially determined by its origin as datum. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 8.5) |
| 2784 | Appearances don't guarantee reality, unless the appearance is actually caused by the reality [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: If I stare at a white wall with my brain wired to a virtual reality computer, and it generates a white wall, we wouldn't say I am seeing reality. It seems that the wall itself must in some way cause my perception of it. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 11.4) | |
| A reaction: But suppose the computer generated in my mind an image of the wall which was actually in front of me? And suppose the computer got its image from the identical wall next door, not from mine? And it was only judged identical because the architect said so |
| 2785 | Perceptual beliefs may be directly caused, but generalisations can't be [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: A perceptual belief that p can have as its main cause the fact that p. More general facts (all men are mortal; e=mc2) cannot be the main cause of my belief, even if they do function causally in some way. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 11.5) | |
| A reaction: Note that the perceptual belief can be the "main" cause; it seems to me that most beliefs are caused by judgements, though I may normally accept beliefs which are directly caused by perception, if I have no reason to challenge them. |
| 2788 | If perception and memory are indirect, then two things stand between mind and reality [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: If perception is indirect as well as memory, this means there are two direct objects of awareness between the remembering mind and the original object. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 12.2) |
| 2787 | Memories aren't directly about the past, because time-lags and illusions suggest representation [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: Direct realism about memory believes the memory is the past. But the time-lag argument and various illusions are powerful here, suggesting indirect realism involving a memory image. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 12.2) |
| 2791 | Phenomenalism about memory denies the past, or reduces it to present experience [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: Eliminative phenomenalism about memory holds that there is no such thing as the past, just certain present experiences; reductive phenomenalism holds that there is a past, but it is no more than a complex of those present experiences. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 12.4) |
| 2790 | I can remember plans about the future, and images aren't essential (2+3=5) [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: Memory is not solely concerned with the past, let alone one's own past (I remember that I must be in London next week), and need not involve images (2+2=4). | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 12.3) | |
| A reaction: I can hardly remember the future, so I presume I am remembering my past commitment to go to London, even if I visualise the future with me in London. The non-necessity of images seems right. I can remember the Mona Lisa without a precise image. |
| 2754 | Foundations are justified by non-beliefs, or circularly, or they need no justification [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: Foundationalism can get rid of the regress argument with one of three types of belief: those justified by something other than beliefs, those which justify themselves, or those which need no justification. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 4.3) | |
| A reaction: A nice clear trilemma, and none of them will do, which is why foundationalism is false. I vote for Davidson's view, that only a belief can justify another belief. |
| 2749 | For internalists we must actually know that the fact caused the belief [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: The internalist would claim that even if the belief is caused by the true fact to which it refers, it is also necessary that the believer believes that this is how their belief arose, and not some other way. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 3.5) | |
| A reaction: I'm converted to internalism. If the belief is externally supported in the right way, then it may well be a true belief, but knowledge needs critical faculties, and justifications which can be articulated. |
| 2770 | Internalists tend to favour coherent justification, but not the coherence theory of truth [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: Internalists such as Keith Lehrer tend to suggest that we adopt a coherence theory of justification but reject the coherence theory of truth. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 8.3) | |
| A reaction: I agree with Lehrer. Truth just isn't coherence, for all sorts of well known reasons (found in this database!). High coherence can be totally false. For justification, though, it is the best we have. |
| 2752 | Foundationalism requires inferential and non-inferential justification [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: The core of any form of foundationalism is the view that there are two forms of justification - inferential and non-inferential - and that non-inferential justification must be possible to avoid a sceptical regress. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 4.1) | |
| A reaction: The foundation may be non-inferential, but is it also non-evidential, or devoid of any support at all, apart from its own eloquent self? I can't buy that, I'm afraid. |
| 2771 | Foundationalists must accept not only the basic beliefs, but also rules of inference for further progress [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: Foundationalists suppose we need not only basic beliefs, but also principles of inference to move to the more sophisticated superstructure. We may understand what justifies the basic beliefs, but what about the inference principles? | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 8.3) | |
| A reaction: Very nice question. Of course, you can't justify everything, but each part of a system can be scrutinised in turn by the other parts (with scrutinising principles tested pragmatically). |
| 2756 | If basic beliefs can be false, falsehood in non-basic beliefs might by a symptom [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: Falsehood in a non-basic belief would be a reason to doubt the basic beliefs which support it, once we have admitted that basic beliefs can be false. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 4.3) | |
| A reaction: The yearning for foundations arises from the yearning for certainty. If one embraces the fallibilist view of knowledge, as I do, then there is little motivation for foundationalism. |
| 2753 | Beliefs can only be infallible by having almost no content [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: Infallible beliefs must have vanishingly small content. No belief with enough content to support the superstructure in which we are really interested is going to be infallible. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 4.2) | |
| A reaction: I see no reason why a foundationalist should not be a fallibilist, rather than insisting on the infallibility of their basic beliefs. I don't, though, see how basic beliefs can count as knowledge. |
| 2773 | Coherentism gives a possible justification of induction, and opposes scepticism [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: Coherentists feel that their approach provides a possible justification for induction, and offers a general stance from which the sceptic can be defused, if not rebutted. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 8.3) | |
| A reaction: These are two good reasons why I vote for coherentism (about justification, NOT about truth). Coherence is the main tool for leading us to the best explanation. |
| 2779 | Idealists must be coherentists, but coherentists needn't be idealists [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: An idealist should perhaps be a coherentist, but there seems to be no reason why the coherentist should be an idealist; the link between the two is all one-way. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 9.5) | |
| A reaction: I don't see why an idealist shouldn't be a rationalist foundationalist, with a private reality full of certainties founded on simple a priori truths. Personally I'm an empiricist coherentist, this week. |
| 2786 | For coherentists justification and truth are not radically different things [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: The coherentist idea is that justification and truth are not properties of radically different types. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 11.6) | |
| A reaction: Oh. And I thought I was a coherentist. It take it that keeping coherence for foundations separate from coherence as truth is absolutely basic. The latter is nonsense. |
| 2767 | If it is empirical propositions which have to be coherent, this eliminates coherent fiction [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: If coherence is grounded in, and is trying to make sense of, a set of empirical propositions, this will eliminate some of the more fanciful sets of coherent propositions, such as the complete Sherlock Holmes stories. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 8.2) | |
| A reaction: Interestingly, I suspect that embracing the coherence view of justification drives one back to empiricisim (pace Bonjour), because that is the most authoritative part of the pattern of beliefs. |
| 2776 | Externalism could even make belief unnecessary (e.g. in animals) [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: One reading of the externalist approach may lead to a rejection of the belief condition for knowledge (in animals, perhaps). | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 9.3) | |
| A reaction: At this point the concept of 'knowledge' seems to disperse into the mist. This pushes me to a 'setting the bar high' view of knowledge. Otherwise plants will have it, and we don't want that. |
| 2746 | How can a causal theory of justification show that all men die? [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: How can a causal analysis of justification show that I know that all men die? | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 2.3) | |
| A reaction: I presume he means that inductive generalisations can't be purely causal. The claim that men are immortal is absurd because it is 'unconnected' to what actually happens. |
| 2747 | Causal theories don't allow for errors in justification [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: Causal accounts of justification do not allow for the possibility that a false belief may still be justified. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 2.4) | |
| A reaction: Good. If you switch to what you only think is the cause of your belief, you have gone internalist and ruined the party. You can't deny that a falsehood can be justified, or justification is vacuous. |
| 2772 | Coherentism moves us towards a more social, shared view of knowledge [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: An advantage of coherentism is that it directs attention away from the individual's struggle to achieve knowledge (the classical conception), and points to knowledge as a social phenomenon, shared, and increased by means of sharing. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 8.3) | |
| A reaction: This is exactly the view which I now embrace. Internal coherence is the basis, but that spills out into the community, and into books, and into the relativity of social acceptance. |
| 2743 | What is the point of arguing against knowledge, if being right undermines your own argument? [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: What is the point of arguing that justified belief is impossible, for if you were right there could be no reasons for your conclusion? | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 1.3) |
| 2751 | Probabilities can only be assessed relative to some evidence [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: In Probability Calculus probability is only assessed relative to some evidence. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 4.1) |
| 2757 | The argument from analogy rests on one instance alone [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: As an inductive argument Mill's argument from analogy (other people have inputs and outputs like mine, so the intermediate explanation must be the same) is weak because it is based on a single instance. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 5.3) | |
| A reaction: The argument may be 'weak' as a piece of pure logic, but when faced with a strange situation, one's own case seems like crucial evidence, like a single eye-witness to a crime. |
| 2758 | You can't separate mind and behaviour, as the analogy argument attempts [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: The analogy argument makes the error (as Wittgenstein showed) of assuming that mind is quite separate from behaviour, and yet I can understand what it is for others to have mental states, which is contradictory. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 5.3) | |
| A reaction: It has always seemed to me that Wittgenstein is excessively behaviourist, and he always seems to be flirting with eliminative views of mind, so he was never bothered about other minds. Minds aren't separate from behaviour, but they are distinct. |
| 2744 | Verificationism (the 'verification principle') is an earlier form of anti-realism [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: Verificationism (the 'verification principle') is an earlier form of anti-realism. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 1.note) | |
| A reaction: If the one true God announced that there is a real world out there, I might take that as a verification of the fact. |
| 2760 | Logical positivism implies foundationalism, by dividing weak from strong verifications [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: The foundationalist claim that there are inferential and non-inferential justifications is mirrored by the claim of logical empiricism (the verification principle) that all significant statements are either strongly or weakly verifiable. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 6.2) | |
| A reaction: I take it to be characteristic of both to divide the support for something into two types, one of which is basic, and the other built up on the basics. The first step is to decide what is basic. |
| 2761 | If the meanings of sentences depend on other sentences, how did we learn language? [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: It is clearly possible to learn a language from scratch, because we have all done it, but if holism is true and the meaning of each sentence depends on the meanings of others, how did we do it? | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 7.2) | |
| A reaction: The question of 'how did it ever get started?' actually seems to block almost every explanation of everything that ever happens. How do I begin to move my hand? |
| 14080 | Are causal descriptions part of the causal theory of reference, or are they just metasemantic? [Kaplan, by Schaffer,J] |
| Full Idea: Kaplan notes that the causal theory of reference can be understood in two quite different ways, as part of the semantics (involving descriptions of causal processes), or as metasemantics, explaining why a term has the referent it does. | |
| From: report of David Kaplan (Dthat [1970]) by Jonathan Schaffer - Deflationary Metaontology of Thomasson 1 | |
| A reaction: [Kaplan 'Afterthought' 1989] The theory tends to be labelled as 'direct' rather than as 'causal' these days, but causal chains are still at the heart of the story (even if more diffused socially). Nice question. Kaplan takes the meta- version as orthodox. |
| 2763 | There is an indeterminacy in juggling apparent meanings against probable beliefs [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: Indeterminacy stems from an interplay between belief and meaning, as with a man who tells you he keeps two rhinoceri in the fridge and squeezes the juice of one for a drink each morning. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 7.4) | |
| A reaction: I don't understand why an 'interplay' is called an 'indeterminacy'. Typical philosophers. Close examination will usually show whether the change is just in belief, or just in meaning, or in both. |
| 2762 | Charity makes native beliefs largely true, and Humanity makes them similar to ours [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: One criterion for successful translation is that it show native beliefs to be largely true (Principle of Charity), and another is that it imputes to natives beliefs we can make sense of them having (Principle of Humanity). | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 7.4) | |
| A reaction: The trouble with such guidelines is that they always have to be 'all things being equal'. Sometimes the natives are really idiotic, and sometimes their attitudes seem quite inhuman. |
| 19906 | All countries are in a mutual state of nature [Locke] |
| Full Idea: All commonwealths are in a state of Nature one with another. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 153) | |
| A reaction: A striking remark. It is easy to think that the state of nature no longer exists. International law attempts to rectify this, but diplomacy is much more like negotiations in nature than it is like obedience to laws. |
| 19882 | We are not created for solitude, but are driven into society by our needs [Locke] |
| Full Idea: God, having made man such a creature that, in His own judgement, it was not good for him to be alone, put him under strong obligations of necessity, convenience, and inclination, to drive him into society. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 077) | |
| A reaction: This is almost Aristotelian, apart from the individualistic assumption that we are 'driven' into society. The only time I see other people looking generally happy is when they are sitting around at leisure and talking to other people. |
| 19864 | In nature men can dispose of possessions and their persons in any way that is possible [Locke] |
| Full Idea: The estate all men are naturally in is perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons as they think fit, within the bounds of the laws of nature. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 004) | |
| A reaction: Note that they have possessions, so property is not an invention of society, but something which society should protect. Presumably Locke thinks they could sell themselves into slavery, which Rousseau rejects. |
| 19865 | There is no subjection in nature, and all creatures of the same species are equal [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Creatures of the same species and rank, promiscuously born to all the same advantages of Nature, are also equal one among another, without subordination or subjection. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 004) | |
| A reaction: The birds in my garden don't behave as if that were true. Physical strength is surely a natural inequality. |
| 19866 | The rational law of nature says we are all equal and independent, and should show mutual respect [Locke] |
| Full Idea: The state of Nature has a law of Nature to govern it, which obliges everyone, and reason, which is that law, teaches mankind that all being equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 006) | |
| A reaction: He adds that this is because we are all the property of God. Locke is more optimistic than Hobbes or Rousseau about this, since he thinks we have a natural obligation to be nice. |
| 19872 | The animals and fruits of the earth belong to mankind [Locke] |
| Full Idea: All the fruits the earth naturally produces, and beasts it feeds, belong to mankind in common, as they are produced by the spontaneous hand of Nature. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 026) | |
| A reaction: Not a popular view among 21st century ecologists, I guess, but this remains the implicit belief of anyone who goes hunting in the woods, and our enclosed gardens seem to endorse the idea. |
| 19907 | There is a natural right to inheritance within a family [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Every man is born with a right before any other man, to inherit, with his brethren, his father's goods. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 190) | |
| A reaction: If a child is fully grown, they may well have drifted into a state of partial ownership of the goods of the parent, of which it would be hard then to deprive them. It is hard to see this as a natural right of tiny orphaned infants. |
| 19863 | Politics is the right to make enforceable laws to protect property and the state, for the common good [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Political power is the right of making laws, with penalties up to death, for the preserving of property, employing the force of community in the execution of such laws, in defence of the commonwealth, and only for the common good. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 003) | |
| A reaction: Since political power can be used for selfish corruption and genocide, this isn't very accurate, so I take it this is how power ought to be exercised! Notice that defence gets equal billing with his famous defence of property. |
| 5654 | The Second Treatise explores the consequences of the contractual view of the state [Locke, by Scruton] |
| Full Idea: In his second Treatise, Locke gave us perhaps the first extended account of the true logical consequences of Hobbes's contractual view of the state. | |
| From: report of John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690]) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy Ch.14 | |
| A reaction: The issue seems to boil down to an opposition between the Cartesian and the Aristotelian view of the individual, with Locke following Descartes. The alternative, endorsed by Hegel, which I prefer, is that the state is part of human nature. |
| 19888 | A society only begins if there is consent of all the individuals to join it [Locke] |
| Full Idea: The beginning of politic society depends upon the consent of the individuals to join into and make one society. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 106) | |
| A reaction: This is the dramatic new political idea (originating with Hobbes), that all of the members must (at some point) consent to the state. In practice we are all born into a state, so it is not clear what this means in real life. |
| 6702 | If anyone enjoys the benefits of government (even using a road) they give tacit assent to its laws [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Every man, that hath an possession, or enjoyment, of any part of the dominions of any government, doth thereby give his tacit consent, and is obliged to obedience to the laws, ..whether it be barely travelling on the highway. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 119), quoted by Gordon Graham - Eight Theories of Ethics Ch.8 | |
| A reaction: Locke's famous assertion of an unspoken and inescapable contract, to which we are all subject. Hume gave an effective reply (Idea 6703). Locke has a point though. The more you accept, the more obliged you are. I accept the law more as I get older. |
| 19909 | A politic society is created from a state of nature by a unanimous agreement [Locke] |
| Full Idea: That which makes the community, and brings men out of the loose state of Nature into one politic society, is the agreement that everyone has with the rest to incorporate and act as one body. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 211) | |
| A reaction: Geography usually keeps commonwealths in place once they have been established, but some of them become disfunctional hell holes because they are trapped in perpetual disagreement. |
| 19910 | A single will creates the legislature, which is duty-bound to preserve that will [Locke] |
| Full Idea: The essence and union of the society consisting in having one will; the legislative, when once established by the majority, has the declaring and, as it were, keeping of that will. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 212) | |
| A reaction: Not far from Rousseau's big idea, apart from the emphasis on the 'majority'. Rousseau reduced the role of the general will to preliminaries and basics, but wanted close to unanimity, so that everyone accepts being a subject, to government and law. |
| 19893 | Anyone who enjoys the benefits of a state has given tacit consent to be part of it [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Every man that hath any possession or enjoyment of any part of the dominions of any government doth thereby give his tacit consent, and is as far forth obliged to obedience to the laws of that government, during such enjoyment. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 119) | |
| A reaction: I wondered at the age of about 18 whether I had given tacit consent to be a British citizen. Locke says you only have to travel freely down the highways to give consent! We are all free, of course, to apply for citizenship elsewhere. But Idea 19894. |
| 19894 | You can only become an actual member of a commonwealth by an express promise [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Nothing can make any man a subject or member of a commonwealth but his actually entering into it by positive engagement, and express promise and compact. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 122) | |
| A reaction: In practice the indigenous population never do this. But it a clear distinction for foreign residents in any country. States cannot induct resident foreigners into their army, or allow them to vote. |
| 19892 | Children are not born into citizenship of a state [Locke] |
| Full Idea: It is plain, by the practices of governments themselves, as well as by the laws of right reason, that a child is born a subject of no country nor government. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 118) | |
| A reaction: At what age do they become citizens, given that there is no induction ceremony? If a small British child were attacked overseas, we would expect the British government to defend its rights. |
| 19885 | Absolute monarchy is inconsistent with civil society [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Absolute monarchy, which by some men is counted for the only government in the world, is inconsistent with civil society, and so can be no form of civil government at all. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 090) | |
| A reaction: This is because citizens do not have a 'decisive' power to appeal for redress of injuries. Rousseau thought that there could be an absolute monarchy, as long as the general will agreed it, and its term of office could be brought to an end by the assembly. |
| 19886 | The idea that absolute power improves mankind is confuted by history [Locke] |
| Full Idea: He that thinks absolute power purifies men's blood, and corrects the baseness of human nature, need but read the history of this, or any other age, to be convinced to the contrary. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 092) | |
| A reaction: I can't imagine who proposed the view that Locke is attacking, but it will have been some real 17th century thinker. Attitudes to monarchy changed drastically in England, but Louis XIV was still ruling in France. |
| 19903 | Despotism is arbitrary power to kill, based neither on natural equality, nor any social contract [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Despotical power is an absolute, arbitrary power one man over another, to take away his life whenever he pleases; and this is a power which neither Nature gives, for it has made no such distinction between one man and another, nor compact can convey. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 172) | |
| A reaction: Colonies of seals, walruses and apes seem to display despotism, based on physical strength, though that is largely to do with mating. There could be such a compact, but Locke would regard it as invalid. |
| 19905 | People stripped of their property are legitimately subject to despotism [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Forfeiture gives despotical power to lords for their own benefit over those who are stripped of all property. ...Despotical power is over such as have no property at all. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 173) | |
| A reaction: Nasty! Shylock is stripped of his property by Venice, so these things happened. This is taking the significance of property a long way beyond its role at the beginning of Locke's book. Property is the start of society, but then becomes your passport. |
| 19904 | Legitimate prisoners of war are subject to despotism, because that continues the state of war [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Captives, taken in a just and lawful war, and such only, are subject to a despotical power, which, as it arises not from compact, so neither is it capable of any, but is the state of war continued. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 205) | |
| A reaction: How long after a war finishes is such despotism legitimate? What happened to the German prisoners in Russia in 1945? Locke defined despotism as the right to kill, but that is expressly contrary to the rules of war, look you. |
| 19895 | Even the legislature must be preceded by a law which gives it power to make laws [Locke] |
| Full Idea: The first and fundamental positive law of all commonwealths is the establishing of the legislative power, as the first and fundamental natural law which is to govern even the legislative. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 134) | |
| A reaction: I think Rousseau says that there cannot be a law which enables the general will to set up legislative powers. It just seems to be something which happens. Locke is threatened with an infinite regress. What legitimises the enabling law? |
| 19900 | The executive must not be the legislature, or they may exempt themselves from laws [Locke] |
| Full Idea: It may be too great temptation to human frailty, apt to grasp at power, for the same persons to have the power of making laws to also have in their hands the power to execute them, whereby they may exempt themselves. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 143) | |
| A reaction: The main principles of modern constitutions are devised to avoid corruption. If people were incorruptible (yeah, right) the world would presumably be run very differently, and rather more efficiently, like a good family. |
| 19902 | Any obstruction to the operation of the legislature can be removed forcibly by the people [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Having erect a legislative with the power of making laws, when they are hindered by any force from what is so necessary to society, and wherein the safety and preservation of the people consists, the people have a right to remove it by force. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 155) | |
| A reaction: I doubt if he was thinking of the French Revolution, but this will clearly have application to the English events of 1642. The Speaker of the Commons was held down in his chair in the 1620s, so that some legislation could be enacted. |
| 19908 | Rebelling against an illegitimate power is no sin [Locke] |
| Full Idea: It is plain that shaking off a power which force, and not right, hath set over any one, though it have the name of rebellion, yet it is no offence against God. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 196) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Hezekiah at 2 Kings 18.7] At this time the English Civil War was referred to as the 'Great Rebellion' (so this is an interesting and brave remark of Locke's), though few people would think that Charles I had illegitimate power. |
| 19911 | If legislators confiscate property, or enslave people, they are no longer owed obedience [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Whenever the legislators endeavour to take away and destroy the property of the people, or reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 222) | |
| A reaction: This might fit Louis XVI in 1788. Locke was certainly not averse to consideration the situations in which revolution might be justified. He was trying to be even-handed about 1642. Locke seems to think that without property you ARE a slave. |
| 19901 | The people have supreme power, to depose a legislature which has breached their trust [Locke] |
| Full Idea: There remains still in the people a supreme power to remove or alter the legislative, when they find the legislative act contrary to the trust reposed in them. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 149) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the most important aspect of representative democracy. It is not the power of people to make decisions, but the power to get rid of bad rulers. |
| 19887 | Unanimous consent makes a united community, which is then ruled by the majority [Locke] |
| Full Idea: When any number of men have, by the consent of every individual, made a community, they have thereby made that community into one body, with a power to act as one body, which is only by the will and determination of the majority. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 096) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be presume democracy without discussion, although the formation of the community is by universal consent, which is the 'general will'. Rousseau has the constitution also made almost unanimously, not by a majority. |
| 19913 | A master forfeits ownership of slaves he abandons [Locke] |
| Full Idea: A master forfeits the dominion over his slaves whom he hath abandoned. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 237) | |
| A reaction: How often did slave owners take a day off, I wonder? Presumably slaves will take back their freedom, even if the masters haven't 'forfeited' their ownership, so Locke's point is fairly academic. |
| 19883 | Slaves captured in a just war have no right to property, so are not part of civil society [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Slave are captives taken in a just war, and by right of Nature subjected to the absolute dominion and arbitrary power of their masters. ...Being not capable of any property, they cannot in that state be considered any part of civil society. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 085) | |
| A reaction: If the test of citizenship is being capable of holding property, presumably children and mentally damaged people (including the very old) will also fail to qualify. I see no principled reason why slaves should not be allowed to vote. Note 'just' war. |
| 19870 | If you try to enslave me, you have declared war on me [Locke] |
| Full Idea: He who makes an attempt to enslave me thereby puts himself into a state of war with me. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 017) | |
| A reaction: So presumably actual slaves are in a state of permanent war with their owners. What of a woman who is enslaved by her husband? |
| 19871 | Freedom is not absence of laws, but living under laws arrived at by consent [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Liberty of man in society is to be under no other legislative power but that established by consent in the commonwealth. Freedom is not (as Filmer suggests) doing what you please while not tied by any laws. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 022) | |
| A reaction: That sounds plausible if the consent is unanimous, but a minority is not free if the laws made by a large majority are a sort of persecution. |
| 19880 | All value depends on the labour involved [Locke] |
| Full Idea: It is labour that puts the difference of value on everything. ...Whatever bread is worth more than acorns, wine than water, that is wholly owing to labour and industry. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 040) | |
| A reaction: In capitalism this is nonsense. Supply and demand fix all the values. Locke has slid from labour bestowing ownership to labour bestowing value. No one gets paid on the basis of how hard they work, except on piece rates. |
| 19884 | There is only a civil society if the members give up all of their natural executive rights [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Wherever any number of men so unite into one society as to quite every one his executive power of the law of Nature, and to resign it to the public, there and there only is a civil society. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 089) | |
| A reaction: This seems to mean that you must give up your active ('executive') natural rights, but not your passive ones (which are inviolable). |
| 19873 | We all own our bodies, and the work we do is our own [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Every man has a 'property' in his own 'person'. This nobody has any right to it but himself. The 'labour' of his body and the 'work' of his hands, we may say, are properly his. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 027) | |
| A reaction: He doesn't have any grounds for this claim. Why doesn't a cow own its body? He slides from my ownership of my laborious efforts to my ownership of what I have been working on. I can't acquire your car by servicing it. |
| 6580 | Locke (and Marx) held that ownership of objects is a natural relation, based on the labour put into it [Locke, by Fogelin] |
| Full Idea: Locke thought that property ownership reflected a natural relationship; for him the primordial notion of the ownership of an object is a function of the labour that one puts into it; Marx held a similar view. | |
| From: report of John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690]) by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.3 | |
| A reaction: Marx would have to think that, in order to believe that capitalist ownership of the means of production used by the workers was a fundamental injustice. A deeper Marxism might see the whole idea of 'ownership' as a capitalist (or feudal) conspiracy. |
| 20520 | Locke says 'mixing of labour' entitles you to land, as well as nuts and berries [Wolff,J on Locke] |
| Full Idea: The great advantage of Locke's 'labour-mixing' argument is that it seems it can justify the appropriation of land, as well as nuts and berries. | |
| From: comment on John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690]) by Jonathan Wolff - An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) 5 'Locke' | |
| A reaction: The argument is dubious at best, and plausibly downright wicked. How much labour achieves ownership? What of previous people who worked the land but never thought to claim 'ownership'? Suppose I do more labour than you on 'your' land? |
| 19875 | A man's labour gives ownership rights - as long as there are fair shares for all [Locke] |
| Full Idea: The 'labour' being the unquestionable property of the labourer, no man but he can have a right to what that is once joined to, at least where there is enough, and as good left in common for others. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 027) | |
| A reaction: The qualification at the end is a crucial (and problematic) addition to his theory. What is the situation when an area of wilderness is 98% owned? What of the single source of water? Who gets the best parts? Getting there first seems crucial. |
| 19874 | If a man mixes his labour with something in Nature, he thereby comes to own it [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Whatever a man removes out of the state that Nature hath provided and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with it, and joined something to it that is his own, and thereby makes it his property. ...This excludes the common right of other men. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 027) | |
| A reaction: This is Locke's famous Labour Theory of Value. Does picking it up count as labour? Putting a fence round it? Paying someone else to do the labour? Do bees own their honey? Settlers in the wilderness own nothing on day one? |
| 19877 | Fountain water is everyone's, but a drawn pitcher of water has an owner [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Though the water running in the fountain be every one's, yet who can doubt but that in the pitcher is his only who drew it out? | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 029) | |
| A reaction: This would certainly be the normal consensus of a community, as long as there is plenty of water. The strong and fit gatherers get all the best firewood, so I suppose that is just tough on the others. |
| 19876 | Gathering natural fruits gives ownership; the consent of other people is irrelevant [Locke] |
| Full Idea: If the first gathering of acorns and apples made them not a man's, nothing else could. ...Will anyone say he had no right to them because he had not the consent of all mankind to make them his? | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 028) | |
| A reaction: The ideas of Nozick are all in this sentence. Does this idea justify the enclosure of common land? The first member of the community who thought of Locke's labour theory had a huge head's start. Liberal individualism rampant. |
| 19878 | Mixing labour with a thing bestows ownership - as long as the thing is not wasted [Locke] |
| Full Idea: How far has God given us all things 'to enjoy'? As much as any one can make use of to any advantage of his life before it spoils, so much he may by his labour fix a property in. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 031) | |
| A reaction: This adds a very different value to Locke's theory, because the person seems to be answerable to fellow citizens if they harvest important resources and then waste them. Where do luxuries fit in? |
| 19898 | Soldiers can be commanded to die, but not to hand over their money [Locke] |
| Full Idea: The sergeant that can command a soldier to march up to the mouth of a cannon ...cannot command that soldier to give him one penny of his money. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 139) | |
| A reaction: A very nice and accurate illustration of a principle which runs so deep that it does indeed look like a basis of society. |
| 19879 | A man owns land if he cultivates it, to the limits of what he needs [Locke] |
| Full Idea: As much land as a man tills, plants, improves, cultivates, and can use the product of, so much is his property. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 032) | |
| A reaction: Industrial farming rather changes this picture. Does the man himself decide how much he can use the product of, or do the neighbours tell him where his boundaries must be? 'Reason not the need', as King Lear said. What if he stops cultivating it? |
| 19881 | The aim of law is not restraint, but to make freedom possible [Locke] |
| Full Idea: The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom, for where there is no law there is no freedom. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 057) | |
| A reaction: This fits both the liberal and the communitarian view of the matter. Talk of 'freedom' is commonplace in England by this date, where it is hardly mention 60 years earler. John Lilburne almost single-handedly brought this about. |
| 19868 | It is only by a law of Nature that we can justify punishing foreigners [Locke] |
| Full Idea: If by the law of Nature every man hath not a power to punish offences against [the state], as he soberly judges the case to require, I see not how the magistrates of any community can punish an alien of another country. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 009) | |
| A reaction: This is a nice point. You can't expect to be above the law in a foreign country, but you have entered into no social contract, unless visiting a place is a sort of contract. Intrusions into air space are often accidental visits. |
| 19867 | Reparation and restraint are the only justifications for punishment [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Reparation and restraint are the only two reasons why one man may lawfully do harm to another, which is that we call punishment. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 008) | |
| A reaction: But by 'reparation' does be mean retribution, or compensation? He doesn't rule out capital punishment, but that may qualify as maximum restraint. |
| 19912 | Self-defence is natural, but not the punishment of superiors by inferiors [Locke] |
| Full Idea: It is natural for us to defend life and limb, but that an inferior should punish a superior is against nature. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 236) | |
| A reaction: He is obliquely referring to the execution of Charles I, even though he may have been legitimately overthrown. I wonder what exactly he means by 'superior' and 'inferior'. An idea from another age! |
| 19869 | Punishment should make crime a bad bargain, leading to repentance and deterrence [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Each transgression may be punished to that degree, and with so much severity, as will suffice to make it an ill bargain to the offender, give him cause to repent, and terrify others from doing the like. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 012) | |
| A reaction: I gather that the consensus among experts is that the biggest deterrence is a high likelihood of being caught, rather than the severity of the punishment. |
| 19899 | The consent of the people is essential for any tax [Locke] |
| Full Idea: The legislative power must not raise taxes on the property of the people without the consent of the people given by themselves or their deputies. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 142) | |
| A reaction: He will be thinking of the resistance to Ship Money in the 1630s, which was a step towards civil war. The people of Boston, Ma, may have read this sentence 80 years later! |