Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Letters to Edward Stillingfleet', 'talk' and 'The Parts of Animals'

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4 ideas

9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 3. Individual Essences

15990	Every individual thing which exists has an essence, which is its internal constitution [Locke]
	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.
	From: John Locke (Letters to Edward Stillingfleet [1695], Letter 1), quoted by Simon Blackburn - Quasi-Realism no Fictionalism
	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.

11. Knowledge Aims / B. Certain Knowledge / 1. Certainty

15994	If it is knowledge, it is certain; if it isn't certain, it isn't knowledge [Locke]
	Full Idea: What reaches to knowledge, I think may be called certainty; and what comes short of certainty, I think cannot be knowledge.
	From: John Locke (Letters to Edward Stillingfleet [1695], Letter 2), quoted by Simon Blackburn - Quasi-Realism no Fictionalism
	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.

15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 8. Brain

23218	The brain has no responsibility for sensations, which occur in the heart [Aristotle]
	Full Idea: And of course, the brain is not responsible for any of the sensations at all. The correct view is that the seat and source of sensation is the region of the heart.
	From: Aristotle (The Parts of Animals [c.345 BCE]), quoted by Matthew Cobb - The Idea of the Brain 1
	A reaction: [Need a reference] Hippocrates's assertion a century earlier made no impression on the great man. I wish he had been a little more circumspect with his own view.

15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 5. Qualia / b. Qualia and intentionality

7272	Maybe lots of qualia lead to intentionality, rather than intentionality being basic [Gildersleve]
	Full Idea: A common modern reductive view of the mind is that a hierarchy of intentional systems eventually produce qualia, but it might be the other way around. The mind is 'qualia-upon-qualia', with units of minimal qualia building up into intentional thought.
	From: Harry Gildersleve (talk [2005]), quoted by PG - Db (ideas)
	A reaction: If qualia are seen as existing at the most basic level of the brain, this may well imply panpsychism. It certainly says that basic brain cells are capable of minimal experiences. The idea that thought is essentially qualitative is very intriguing.