John!... Locke over-there!

Hello,

John Locke’s essay was called The Essay on Human Understanding, first published in 1960s in which he describes the mind at birth as a blank slate; the essay is about the foundation of human knowledge and understanding. It was hugely influential regarding empiricism in modern philosophy. Locke’s work influenced many enlightenment philosophers such as Hume and Berkeley. The Enlightenment or The Age of Enlightenment, is used to describe the time in Western Philosophy in the eighteenth century, when reason was put forward as the best, and the source of authority.

The essay is split up into four different books, most of the interesting ideas happen in book II. In the rest of this entry I will try to summarise each of the books.

Book II of the Essay tells us of Locke's theories, these include his distinction between ideas we just accept which he calls simple ideas, these could be things such as “red”, “sweet” or “round” compared to the complex ideas, which we have to work on such as numbers, causes and effects, abstract ideas, ideas of substances, identity, and diversity. Locke also shows the differences between the primary qualities of bodies – which properly exist or as he says truly exist, like shape, motion and the arrangement of particles, and the secondary qualities that are "powers to produce various sensations in us" such as "red" and "sweet."

These secondary qualities, Locke claims, are dependent on the primary qualities. So primary qualities exist, and these create the secondary qualities. For example if something’s primary qualities are: red, sweet and round. It’s secondary qualities will be it’s an apple which are "powers to produce various sensations in us".

Book I

Locke's big idea is that the mind of a newborn baby is a blank slate (or tabula rasa) this means he thinks that all ideas we have are from experience. Book I of the Essay is essentially an attack on the doctrine of innate ideas, this idea meant that we have ideas that we intrinsically know from birth. Locke said that some ideas are in the mind from an early age, but stated that these ideas still come from the senses when we were in the womb (differences between colors or tastes). This still goes against the doctrine of innate ideas as it still says that we still require empirical evidence. If we all have of a concept of ‘sweetness’, it is not because this is an innate idea, but because we were all exposed to sweet tastes at an early age.

Following from this line of thought, Locke also argued that people have no innate principles, this means that no one naturally knows from right or wrong. Locke did say that if we have innate principles they would have to rely upon our innate ideas, which he says does not exist. One of Locke's big arguments against innate ideas is the fact that there is no truth to which all people agree with. He argued against a number of propositions that rationalist offer as universally accepted truth, like the ‘principle of identity’, to which he said that young children are unaware of their own identity.

Book II

Whereas Book I was rejecting the doctrine of innate ideas first done by Descartes and the rationalists, Book II explains that every idea comes from experience either by sensation or reflection which Locke explains as:

"the perception of the operations of our own mind within us, as it is employed about the ideas it has got".

Book III

Everything that exists is a particular thing. Frisky, Snowball, and Tiger are pets in the external world, but there is no cat. Most of our terms are general rather than particular i.e. a cat could be Frisky, Snowball, and Tiger. In book III Locke asks in How do we get these general terms? Since words refer to ideas, general terms, naturally, refer to general ideas. General ideas are produced through a process of abstraction. We take our ideas of Frisky, Tiger, Felix, and Snowball, and we attend to what is similar in all of these, discarding what is different. From what is common to all of them (fur, soft, meow, arched shape, etc.), we form a new idea.

Book IV

"Of Knowledge and Opinion," gives us the theory of knowledge. Locke begins with a strict definition of knowledge, one which says most sciences (apart from mathematics and morality) are pointless. Knowledge, according to Locke, is having strong internal relations that work, without any reference to the outside world. He lists the four sorts of relations between ideas that would count as knowledge identity/diversity, relation, coexistence, actual existence, he then goes on to distinguish between three grades of knowledge. The remainder of the book is discussing opinion or belief, which is the best we can expect to gain for our intellectual endeavors.

So essentially Locke's Essay on Human Understanding would get an A* from any Philosophy teacher as he totally influenced the Western Philosophers who agree with the idea of empiricism.

I challenge you to a Dual(ism)!

Hello,

Dualism is a theory about the link between mind and matter. It starts by saying the events in the mind (ie when we think) are not physical, this means the mind exists outside of the body, giving the mind a soul like quality. Dualism theories apparently started as far back as Plato and Aristotle, which is a key reason why to many, this theory as wrong. They think this due to the incorrect understanding of the anatomy. Because of there lack of understanding Plato and Aristotle argued, that humans intelligence (to them the 'mind is the seat of all knowledge') could not be explained with the physical body.

The most well known example of dualism came from Descartes, he also like P&A stated that the mind is nonphysical. Descartes was the first to show the mind was connected with awareness of our own existence; because of this he was able to formulate the Cogito ergo sum this was a huge breakthrough, but he sort of spoiled when he then said the mind was different to the brain. Dualism is the biggest problem with Descartes and since his work was published it is often the starting point of philosophers picking holes in his work.

One argument against Dualism is called Causal Interaction, this states that how come if the mind is non-physical we can have memories from touching physical objects, for example: "you never forget how to ride a bike" or muscle memory; when a song you used to know on the piano comes back to you, even if you haven't played in a while. So for Dualism work in these situations it must therefore must still be capable to effect the physical world - despite not being apart of it. The main answer to this solution was provided by Arnold Geulincx was that Causal Interaction was simply that it's a miracle. To be honest I'm not that convinced.

I think that the reason Dualism was so popular when Aristotle and Plato were around was simply they did not have the knowledge of anatomy to have any better ideas. The picture below is an illustration by Descartes, in which he explains how the body reacts to pain...

The fire (no, it's not a cabbage) moves the skin, this action then opens a pore causing the 'animal spirit' of the fire flow through the tube in the diagram this tube then inflates, causing swelling in the leg muscle this results in the moving of the foot out of danger. Nothing to do with nerve endings or pain receptors.

A more modern argument for Dualism is the Zombie Argument, yes that's it's name. It was a thought experiment by (psychologist) David Chalmers, in which he says that zombies can act as humans, by for example saying 'ouch!' if they bang their knee even if they don't feel the pain. It's a long shot but I could be a zombie, you wouldn't know, because I act exactly like you. This experiment aimed to show how things can still be human with out a mind. Similar to the brian in the vat; accept the negligible possibility but then move on.

Dualism is the opposite of Monism where the mind is the brain, it's what most people think know as dualism is generally accepted as a big mistake, by Plato, Aristotle and Descartes, apart from that they were all right.

Sign on the dotted line...

Hello,

The Social Contact - what we sacrifice in order to be looked after by the sate. We give up some of our rights to maintain order as in the long-run it seems better than the alternative (we've all seen Mad Max).

The heart of the idea of the social contract may be stated simply: Each of us places his person and authority under the supreme direction of the general will, and the group receives each individual as an indivisible part of the whole... Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

The Social Contract (1762) is the work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau in which Rousseau ponders the ideal setup for our political communities, he wrote the book in order to solve all the problems which he listed in the Discourse on Inqualilty (1754). In his first book he attempted to answer question: What is the origin of equality among men, and is it authorized by natural law? He answered this by looking at the natuaral, physical, ethical, political problems. So the Social Contact is the sequel.

Rousseau thinks that for the government to work effectively it must be sanctioned by the people, this is when the King/Queen step in to act as the public voice. If their people don't like the political leader the monarch can say no, you can't lead on the publics behalf... In England Gordon Brown would ask the Queen for permission to take charge, it's very unlikely she would refuse - what's her alternative? 

Rousseau says that a perfect society would work best if it were to be run by the general will of it's population. He doesn't specify how this would be done... it would take a long time, especially in a big country. Although he does suggest regular meetings in which citizens can have a say in the general will - achievable in a small town, but much harder to accommodate the whole of London.

He goes on to say that without the viewpoint of the people the government isn't viable, he says the views of the public can not be shown via a representative as this is no the true voice of the people. So according to these ideas a School Council doesn't even make the grade, so how could a whole country achieve it?

The following are from the Social Contract, and are what Rousseau tries to answer;

1) The Sovereign, having no force other than the legislative power, act by only means of the laws; and the laws being solely the authentic acts of the general will. 

2)Every law the people has not ratified in person is null and void - is in fact, not law.

3) The legislative power belongs to the people, and can belong to it alone.

The social contract was pivotal in the reformations of in Europe but especially in France. One theme in the social contract was the idea that the monarch did not have the divine right to rule, Rousseau says that it's the people in the form if the Sovereign which have that right, hence the revolution in France. King Louis XVI said he had the divine right to rule - which the French had enough with (along with other things). 

The aim of the social contract is to find out if we can have a viable political presence. Rousseau says yes we can, as long as the people remove themselves from a state of nature, ie not just doing what we want all the time but entering a social contract with our fellow man. The Contact would create new laws, which would mean giving up rights in order for us to be the same and free. This may have annoyed people, but Rousseau says you can exit the contact by leaving the society you are living in. According to Rousseau; liking the Sex Pistols is not true rebellion. Being truly rebellious would be living  in a cave, as a consequence retuning to our state of nature.

Rousseau sates that any society must have two parts. The first being a Sovereign acting on behalf of the people and the second being the government, these two are very separate. They must be due to the fact the Monarch can't deal with every matter, therefore is not united and will be destroyed (similar if people pick a choose what laws to follow will result in  a collapse of the law). The government must be separate so it can continue when the monarchy collapses.

Rousseau says that the larger the territory, then the more power the government has over it's population. He says this as the government is only as powerful as it's people (more people = more power). Rousseau would say that a large country with a monarch has the most power as it there is lots of people with little civil servants between the people and the monarch. Where as in a large bureaucratic government there is more power to be delegated amongst it's self so it has less power. 

Due to this theory Rousseau sates that countries with small sates are where freedom flourishes best (such as Geneva, where Rousseau came from, so no bias there then). Rousseau argues it's the most effective as there is less steps between people and the rulersand due to a smaller population makes it easier to find the general will of the people. (The postman handing out a survey about free school meals for children along with the bills, for example)