1) On page 149, when Locke is talking about how we come to form general ideas it reminded me a lot about Piaget's theory of schemas. When a child is starting to experience the world, they have so much information that is coming at them so they must find ways to cluster some part of information together to start to make sense of the world (which are what Piaget calls schemas), where as they go the schemas change/ add information to a particular group. In Locke's example of page 149 section 8, 'nurse' and 'Momma' are each one category or schema, but as the child gets older and learns more, they learn to categorize them both as 'humans'. So I thought it was interesting how you the word schema was pretty much synonymous with Locke's general ideas and how they come to be. 2) The phrase 'clear and distinct' works its way into a lot of the readings of each philosopher, but they sometimes describe different aspects of what is clear and distinct. On page 199 section 1, Locke talks of inuitive knowledge by saying "the mind is filled with the clear light of it. All the certainty and evidentness of all our knowledge depends on this intuition."
On page 159, Locke says "Knowledge, then, seems to me to be nothing but the perception of the connection and agreement, or disagreement and incompatibility, of any of our ideas." I really agree with this because knowledge is unique and particular to each individual's experience and perception. We could be harboring objectively incorrect information, but it is still knowledge--albeit false knowledge.
Also, on page 157, Locke makes a great point when using the rainbow as an example. No matter the semantics, the definition, and the nomenclature of a thing, such as a rainbow, a blind man since birth can never truly understand what a rainbow is. One's own firsthand experience, sensation, and perception is very important to forming information and knowledge. This theoretical blind man can be told what a rainbow is, but will never truly understand the idea like the average non-blind person.
1. I passage I found of importance in this reading is when Locke writes, "First, ‘essence’ may be taken for the very being of any thing—what makes it be what it is. Using the term in this way, a thing’s ‘essence’ is its internal constitution—the real but usually unknown inner nature on which its perceptible qualities depend." (Locke 152). Locke seems to place a great importance on this word and breaks it down into two different categories, the real and the nominal. 2. Following these thoughts of what essences are, Locke writes, "On the other hand, essences considered as ideas established in the mind with names attached to them are supposed to remain steadily the same, whatever changes the particular substances undergo." (154) I find this passage important too because it is here that Locke claims everything to be changeable expect God and essences that are ideas. Locke proclaims that the idea attached to a particular species such like a horse or man, will remain safe and unchangeable.
I find it very interesting when Locke talks about simple ideas and how they can not be defined, because words that could be shown to have the meaning have to consist of multiple words that signify the same thing. So my understanding is thatsimple ideas, since they ddo not have a combination of complex words or any sort of complexity, that they can't be defined.
"There is actual knowledge, which is the mind’s view of how any two of its present ideas agree or disagree, or of how they are related to one another." I am confused by this claim, how can actual knowledge be truthful if it goes through ones mind and how they view whatever the knowledge is? Would there not be bias?
1. I like Locke because he makes me think about topics I never thought about. When he talks about general words, he concludes “the only general items there are have been created by us, and they are ‘general’ only in the sense that we can use them to signify or represent many particulars. Their meaning is nothing but a relation that is added to them by the human mind.” (151). I think that his idea that men relates general terms to one another makes sense, just as the idea that people group particulars to form general terms by looking at the qualities they share sounds reasonable too.
2. When Locke says “Knowledge consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of two ideas, so its clearness or obscurity consists in the clearness or obscurity of that perception, not of the ideas themselves” (202), I couldn’t help but wonder what makes a person’s perception differ to another person’s perception and how that would affect the way people experience or perceive the agreements and disagreements of ideas, as I believe that the clearness or obscurity of their perceptions would differ too.
Locke really leans into nominalism and I think that it is for the best. I am fairly comfortable with the idea that a word for a thing is only a general idea of the thing, and it symbolizes what particular things have in common, minus the things that they do not have in common. I particularly like how this solution avoids any universals like platonic ideals or forms.
I also appreciate how thorough Locke is throughout. I think he embodies best practice when he clarifies how words can be singular or plural although retain their generality, clarify what a a definition really is, and so on.
I wonder if Locke would go so far as to deny the existence of absolute Truth at all, instead supposing that what we call true is what we all agree is true. I know his metaphysics prevents this move, but It seems to follow fairly naturally if one replaces Locke’s metaphysics with a materialistic, naturalistic, and humanistic on that became more common in the 20th century.
In Locke's Chapter III: General Terms, I did not like it the reading. It seems that Locke was repeating himself over and over again. In the beginning of the Chapter, he talks about particular things in most languages are in general terms. I understood that but then he states, "It is impossible to every particular thing to have a name of its own" (Locke 148). That makes sense because in difference countries, different words have different meaning. That just goes along with the different languages that each country has. What I did not like about the reading is Locke does not put this as a factor.
2. In Chapter I: Knowledge in general, Locke brought up a very interesting point about knowledge. He states "Knowledge is applied to several ways in which the mind can possess the truth" (Locke 197). He explains that there is two types of knowledge, actual and habitual. The way I thought of this explanation was street knowledge (habitual) and book knowledge (actual).
1.) I found it interesting how Locke attempts to describe what knowledge is in general. He states that knowledge is simply the agreement or disagreement of our ideas. When agreement occurs, then knowledge is obtained while when disagreement is reached, then there is no knowledge but just beliefs. This theory may be slightly dangerous for those who advocate for truth since gaining knowledge is just an agreement of two ideas and no need for discerning whether the idea or knowledge is right or wrong.
2.) I also found interesting Locke’s three degrees of knowledge. The first degree is called intuitive knowledge which occurs when an individual reaches agreement or disagreement of two ideas immediately. The second degree is called demonstrative knowledge which happens when a person does not obtain the intuitive knowledge immediately but needs an intervention of an intermediate idea in order to reach agreement or disagreement of two ideas. This sounds more reasonable of an approach since individuals do not know everything and need to reflect on things or ideas that they haven’t learned.
1) Locke explains how the essence of something and conforming to the abstract idea of that substances is the same thing. We use this to group things together such as man or people. We are all different in race, shape, language, but we all share the same basic factors of a human. 2) Locke explains further how we cannot grasp these abstract ideas unless we stat with simple ideas first. But we cannot define simple ideas because when defining a word we use other ideas and terms to describe what we are talking about. But because simple ideas are not combined with anything else, they cannot be described by anything else.
1) On page 149, when Locke is talking about how we come to form general ideas it reminded me a lot about Piaget's theory of schemas. When a child is starting to experience the world, they have so much information that is coming at them so they must find ways to cluster some part of information together to start to make sense of the world (which are what Piaget calls schemas), where as they go the schemas change/ add information to a particular group. In Locke's example of page 149 section 8, 'nurse' and 'Momma' are each one category or schema, but as the child gets older and learns more, they learn to categorize them both as 'humans'. So I thought it was interesting how you the word schema was pretty much synonymous with Locke's general ideas and how they come to be.
ReplyDelete2) The phrase 'clear and distinct' works its way into a lot of the readings of each philosopher, but they sometimes describe different aspects of what is clear and distinct. On page 199 section 1, Locke talks of inuitive knowledge by saying "the mind is filled with the clear light of it. All the certainty and evidentness of all our knowledge depends on this intuition."
On page 159, Locke says "Knowledge, then, seems to me to be nothing but the perception of the connection and agreement, or disagreement and incompatibility, of any of our ideas." I really agree with this because knowledge is unique and particular to each individual's experience and perception. We could be harboring objectively incorrect information, but it is still knowledge--albeit false knowledge.
ReplyDeleteAlso, on page 157, Locke makes a great point when using the rainbow as an example. No matter the semantics, the definition, and the nomenclature of a thing, such as a rainbow, a blind man since birth can never truly understand what a rainbow is. One's own firsthand experience, sensation, and perception is very important to forming information and knowledge. This theoretical blind man can be told what a rainbow is, but will never truly understand the idea like the average non-blind person.
1. I passage I found of importance in this reading is when Locke writes, "First, ‘essence’ may be taken for the very being of any thing—what makes it be what it is. Using the term in this way, a thing’s ‘essence’ is its internal constitution—the real but usually unknown inner nature on which its perceptible qualities depend." (Locke 152). Locke seems to place a great importance on this word and breaks it down into two different categories, the real and the nominal.
ReplyDelete2. Following these thoughts of what essences are, Locke writes, "On the other hand, essences considered as ideas established in the mind with names attached to them are supposed to remain steadily the same, whatever changes the particular substances undergo." (154) I find this passage important too because it is here that Locke claims everything to be changeable expect God and essences that are ideas. Locke proclaims that the idea attached to a particular species such like a horse or man, will remain safe and unchangeable.
I find it very interesting when Locke talks about simple ideas and how they can not be defined, because words that could be shown to have the meaning have to consist of multiple words that signify the same thing. So my understanding is thatsimple ideas, since they ddo not have a combination of complex words or any sort of complexity, that they can't be defined.
ReplyDelete"There is actual knowledge, which is the mind’s view of how any two of its present ideas agree or disagree, or of how they are related to one another." I am confused by this claim, how can actual knowledge be truthful if it goes through ones mind and how they view whatever the knowledge is? Would there not be bias?
1. I like Locke because he makes me think about topics I never thought about. When he talks about general words, he concludes “the only general items there are have been created by us, and they are ‘general’ only in the sense that we can use them to signify or represent many particulars. Their meaning is nothing but a relation that is added to them by the human mind.” (151). I think that his idea that men relates general terms to one another makes sense, just as the idea that people group particulars to form general terms by looking at the qualities they share sounds reasonable too.
ReplyDelete2. When Locke says “Knowledge consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of two ideas, so its clearness or obscurity consists in the clearness or obscurity of that perception, not of the ideas themselves” (202), I couldn’t help but wonder what makes a person’s perception differ to another person’s perception and how that would affect the way people experience or perceive the agreements and disagreements of ideas, as I believe that the clearness or obscurity of their perceptions would differ too.
Locke really leans into nominalism and I think that it is for the best. I am fairly comfortable with the idea that a word for a thing is only a general idea of the thing, and it symbolizes what particular things have in common, minus the things that they do not have in common. I particularly like how this solution avoids any universals like platonic ideals or forms.
ReplyDeleteI also appreciate how thorough Locke is throughout. I think he embodies best practice when he clarifies how words can be singular or plural although retain their generality, clarify what a a definition really is, and so on.
I wonder if Locke would go so far as to deny the existence of absolute Truth at all, instead supposing that what we call true is what we all agree is true. I know his metaphysics prevents this move, but It seems to follow fairly naturally if one replaces Locke’s metaphysics with a materialistic, naturalistic, and humanistic on that became more common in the 20th century.
In Locke's Chapter III: General Terms, I did not like it the reading. It seems that Locke was repeating himself over and over again. In the beginning of the Chapter, he talks about particular things in most languages are in general terms. I understood that but then he states, "It is impossible to every particular thing to have a name of its own" (Locke 148). That makes sense because in difference countries, different words have different meaning. That just goes along with the different languages that each country has. What I did not like about the reading is Locke does not put this as a factor.
ReplyDelete2. In Chapter I: Knowledge in general, Locke brought up a very interesting point about knowledge. He states "Knowledge is applied to several ways in which the mind can possess the truth" (Locke 197). He explains that there is two types of knowledge, actual and habitual. The way I thought of this explanation was street knowledge (habitual) and book knowledge (actual).
1.) I found it interesting how Locke attempts to describe what knowledge is in general. He states that knowledge is simply the agreement or disagreement of our ideas. When agreement occurs, then knowledge is obtained while when disagreement is reached, then there is no knowledge but just beliefs. This theory may be slightly dangerous for those who advocate for truth since gaining knowledge is just an agreement of two ideas and no need for discerning whether the idea or knowledge is right or wrong.
ReplyDelete2.) I also found interesting Locke’s three degrees of knowledge. The first degree is called intuitive knowledge which occurs when an individual reaches agreement or disagreement of two ideas immediately. The second degree is called demonstrative knowledge which happens when a person does not obtain the intuitive knowledge immediately but needs an intervention of an intermediate idea in order to reach agreement or disagreement of two ideas. This sounds more reasonable of an approach since individuals do not know everything and need to reflect on things or ideas that they haven’t learned.
1) Locke explains how the essence of something and conforming to the abstract idea of that substances is the same thing. We use this to group things together such as man or people. We are all different in race, shape, language, but we all share the same basic factors of a human.
ReplyDelete2) Locke explains further how we cannot grasp these abstract ideas unless we stat with simple ideas first. But we cannot define simple ideas because when defining a word we use other ideas and terms to describe what we are talking about. But because simple ideas are not combined with anything else, they cannot be described by anything else.