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15990
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Every individual thing which exists has an essence, which is its internal constitution [Locke]
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Full Idea:
I take essences to be in everything that internal constitution or frame for the modification of substance, which God in his wisdom gives to every particular creature, when he gives it a being; and such essences I grant there are in all things that exist.
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From:
John Locke (Letters to Edward Stillingfleet [1695], Letter 1), quoted by Simon Blackburn - Quasi-Realism no Fictionalism
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A reaction:
This is the clearest statement I have found of Locke's commitment to essences, for all his doubts about whether we can know such things. Alexander says (ch.13) Locke was reacting against scholastic essence, as pertaining to species.
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15994
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If it is knowledge, it is certain; if it isn't certain, it isn't knowledge [Locke]
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Full Idea:
What reaches to knowledge, I think may be called certainty; and what comes short of certainty, I think cannot be knowledge.
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From:
John Locke (Letters to Edward Stillingfleet [1695], Letter 2), quoted by Simon Blackburn - Quasi-Realism no Fictionalism
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A reaction:
I much prefer that fallibilist approach offered by the pragmatists. Knowledge is well-supported belief which seems (and is agreed) to be true, but there is a small shadow of doubt hanging over all of it.
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9035
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If judgement of a characteristic is possible, that part of abstraction must be complete [Price,HH]
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Full Idea:
If we are to 'judge' - rightly or not - that this object has a specific characteristic, it would seem that so far as the characteristic is concerned the process of abstraction must already be completed.
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From:
H.H. Price (Thinking and Experience [1953], Ch.III)
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A reaction:
Personally I think Price is right, despite the vicious attack from Geach that looms. We all know the experiences of familiarity, recognition, and identification that go on when see a person or picture. 'What animal is that, in the distance?'
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9034
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There may be degrees of abstraction which allow recognition by signs, without full concepts [Price,HH]
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Full Idea:
If abstraction is a matter of degree, and the first faint beginnings of it are already present as soon as anything has begun to feel familiar to us, then recognition by means of signs can occur long before the process of abstraction has been completed.
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From:
H.H. Price (Thinking and Experience [1953], Ch.III)
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A reaction:
I like this, even though it is unscientific introspective psychology, for which no proper evidence can be adduced - because it is right. Neuroscience confirms that hardly any mental life has an all-or-nothing form.
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9036
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There is pre-verbal sign-based abstraction, as when ice actually looks cold [Price,HH]
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Full Idea:
We must still insist that some degree of abstraction, and even a very considerable degree of it, is present in sign-cognition, pre-verbal as it is. ...To us, who are familiar with northern winters, the ice actually looks cold.
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From:
H.H. Price (Thinking and Experience [1953], Ch.IV)
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A reaction:
Price may be in the weak position of doing armchair psychology, but something like his proposal strikes me as correct. I'm much happier with accounts of thought that talk of 'degrees' of an activity, than with all-or-nothing cut-and-dried pictures.
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9030
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Abstractions can be interpreted dispositionally, as the ability to recognise or imagine an item [Price,HH]
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Full Idea:
An abstract idea may have a dispositional as well as an occurrent interpretation. ..A man who possesses the concept Dog, when he is actually perceiving a dog can recognize that it is one, and can think about dogs when he is not perceiving any dog.
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From:
H.H. Price (Thinking and Experience [1953], Ch.IX)
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A reaction:
Ryle had just popularised the 'dispositional' account of mental events. Price is obviously right. The man may also be able to use the word 'dog' in sentences, but presumably dogs recognise dogs, and probably dream about dogs too.
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9029
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If ideas have to be images, then abstract ideas become a paradoxical problem [Price,HH]
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Full Idea:
There used to be a 'problem of Abstract Ideas' because it was assumed that an idea ought, somehow, to be a mental image; if some of our ideas appeared not to be images, this was a paradox and some solution must be found.
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From:
H.H. Price (Thinking and Experience [1953], Ch.VIII)
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A reaction:
Berkeley in particular seems to be struck by the fact that we are incapable of thinking of a general triangle, simply because there is no image related to it. Most conversations go too fast for images to form even of very visual things.
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