Hume: Compatibilism

Hume believes that determinism and freewill are compatible. I have always had issues with compatibilists because determinism and freewill appear to contradict each other. Determinism implies that everything happens for a physical, statistical reason. All of the facts about one moment, when considered along with the laws of nature, determine all of the facts about the very next moment. Freewill does not seem to fit into this equation because there is no room human decision. Even if we think we are making decisions in a deterministic world, we are not because every decision is determined by facts about the past (like the person P choosing between actions A and B, which I talked about in my last post on liberty). I think that people are normally inclined to think that we have freewill because we are constantly making choices and we feel in control of those choices. When considered along with determinism, however, it seems possible that maybe we are not in control of the decisions we make. Perhaps we choose to do something because all of the facts about the world and the laws of nature in the very moment before we made the decision determined that we would make that decision. So, suppose there are two routes that I can take from campus to my house---one is faster, with lots of highways, and the other is longer, with back roads and a nice scenery--and I need to decide which route I'm going to take home today during rush hour. Although I may feel in control of my decision to take the scenic route to avoid traffic, the facts about the world and the laws of nature at that moment played a role in determining my decision. Fact #1, there is traffic on the highways because it's rush hour. Fact #2, I hate traffic. Fact #3, the scenic route will take less time today at this time. Fact #4, I enjoy the scenic route. All of these facts (and laws about nature, I suppose, because I cannot drive through the traffic and things like that) determined what decision I would make.

Hume: Liberty

Hume's discussion of liberty is not as detailed as his discussion of necessity. That bothers me because I agree with everything he says about necessity, but I'm unsure of some of the things he says about liberty. His general description of liberty is that person P is at liberty with respect to performing a certain act A if and only if, if P were to choose to do A then he would be able to do A. Although this seems to give a satisfactory explanation for freewill, I think that Hume is restricting himself. In this definition, he is not presenting P with a choice--there is only act A. What if P had to make a decision between A and B, and he can only choose one even though he wants to do both. If he chooses A, then how do we know that he was at liberty to choose and perform B (or even that he was at liberty to choose and perform A)? We cannot affirm that he chose A because he was at liberty to do so unless we send him back in time and see if he can choose B in the exact same moment and situation. Otherwise, it is just as possible that he chose A because all of the facts about the world and the laws of nature determined that he would choose A at that time and in that situation. Although liberty sounds like a nice thing to believe, I am always pushed towards thinking it isn't true for reasons like this.

Hume: True Doctrine of Necessity

Hume talks about the true doctrine of necessity to begin his argument for compatibilism. His definition of determinism (necessity) is: "It is universally allowed, that matter, in all its operations, is actuated by a necessary force, and that every natural effect is so precisely determined by the energy of its cause, that no other effect, in such particular circumstances, could possibly have resulted from it." (54) In order to back this up, Hume proposes the idea of a world in which one event never resembled another. Every object and "scene of nature" is so entirely new to us that we cannot comprehend any connections between them. If this was the case, then we could say that events and objects followed each other, but we could never assert that one was produced by another. We would not have any knowledge of cause and effect. He concludes from this that our understanding of necessity and causation (and their existence in general) is evident from the uniformity of nature and the predictability of human actions. He asserts that if we are presented with an event or object for which we cannot understand a cause, then we must assume that we are simply incapable of understanding its cause. I'm inclined to agree with Hume on these points, as everything appears to have some physical or natural cause and we are not subject to randomness.

Of Miracles 2

Hume goes on in this section to discuss four reasons why he feels that there isn't or ever has been enough evidence to prove miracles to be true. He starts off by saying that there has never been a miracle that has had a large number of trustworthy people testify for it. In order for a miracle to be considered possible or true, there would have to be a decent number of sane people that agree on the same event occurring and can give the same details of the event. The second reason Hume gives is basically that our imagination runs wild and that although we should believe we should believe what we have known to be true in the past, we can't help but believe things that surprise us. The third reason Hume gives us against miracles is that a majority of reports of miracles occur amongst ignorant or uneducated people who do not have the sense to question the testimony of a fellow citizen. The final reason he gives to doubt miracles is that miracles from each religion differ and oppose each other and therefore could never be agreed upon by every religion in the world.

I definitely agree with Hume on this subject. Miracles have never had any evidence to support them and a majority of the time, when they are investigated, they are explained pretty quickly. I think he is right in assuming that people love the unknown and love to believe things that surprise them rather than use their common sense to reason that the experience could not be true.

Of Miracles 1

In section 10, Hume discusses miracles and says that we really have no reason to believe in miracles or to consider them foundational to religion. He says that all knowledge we have of miracle comes from the account of others and what they say they have seen, which should make us more skeptical of them. He goes on to say that there is no evidence that miracles exist and we should not believe something that we do not have evidence for. He says that the only evidence we have for miracles is the testimony of others, but the laws of nature show evidence of against miracles. Since we have observed and have evidence that the laws of nature are true and a miracle is, by definition, a violation of these laws, it leads us to believe that miracles cannot be true.

Probability

In section 6, Hume says that chance does not exist in the world, but "our imagination of the real cause of any event has the same influence on the understanding, and begets a like species of belief or opinion." (pg 37) He says that there is a probability that arises from a superiority of chances on any side. Hume uses an example of a die to demonstrate his point and says that if it was marked with a certain figure or number on 4 sides and marked with a different symbol on the other 2 sides, the symbol that is on 4 sides would be more likely to appear than the symbol on 2 sides. He goes on to say the if 1000 sides were marked with a different one, the probability would be even higher.
Later in this section, Hume says that the probability of the die is the same as probability of causes. Some of the effects from causes are relatively constant while others are more irregular. He says that when this happens, philosophers do not claim its due to an irregularity in nature, he says "but suppose that some secret causes, in the particular structure of parts, have prevented the operation."
I think Hume may be onto something here; He's right to assume that there is a kind of probability to every effect and that some effects are more probable than others. It is not simply due to chance that certain causes almost always have the same effect. Although there are some effects we may not know the probability of, this doesn't mean that the effects are chances.

Kant and The analytic synthetic distinction

There are two types of propositions, those that are analytic and those that are synthetic. An analytic proposition is constructed by analyzing a concept, while a synthetic proposition is constructed by synthesizing (or putting together) concepts. Analytic propositions do not add any new knowledge, that is, the predicate is contained conceptually in the subject. Synthetic propositions amplify knowledge, that is, the predicate contains something not thought of in the subject. Kant takes this distinction a step further. While it seems obvious that a posteriori knowledge (knowledge from sense experience) is synthetic, and that a priori knowledge (knowledge independent of experience) is analytic, Kant introduces the a priori synthetic. Here are some examples of the three types of propositions:

a priori analytic: "Triangles have three sides"
- Here the predicate " have three sides" is part of the definition of what a triangle is: a three angled, three sided, closed planar figure.

a priori synthetic: "The sum of the interior angles of a triangle is equal to 180 degrees"
- this fact concerning triangles can be proven apart from sense experience. We can derive this fact simply by what we know about a triangle by its definition.

a posteriori synthetic: "The sides of the pyramids at Giza are triangular"
- This is a contingent (as opposed to necessary, as all true a priori propositions are) fact about the world, and it requires sense experience in order to be discovered.

Locke's External World

One of Locke's main points is obviously that we only know things through experience. So, you can only know what a chair is if you have experienced a chair in the external world (or, perhaps, you perceived all the parts of the chair in the external world and thereby inferred what a chair is). What I'm interested in here is that Locke kind of just assumes that the external world exists, rather than making an argument for it. Descartes dabbled in the question, so I was surprised to find that Locke did not pay much attention to it. Certainly, according to Locke, since we do not have any innate ideas, we cannot just know that the external world exists. So, at one point, Locke talks about how it has to be true that the external world exists because it is the best explanation for the evidence at hand. This is not a solid explanation, but rather an assumption that fits nicely into his other arguments. Although I am not one to doubt the existence of the external world, I find it interesting that Locke didn't tackle the issue wholeheartedly.

Knowledge of Future Events

In section 4, Hume discusses our knowledge of future events and suggests that we base all of this knowledge on things we've already experienced. He gives 2 types of reasoning that may help us to determine if it is a good idea to base future knowledge on past events. The first type, "demonstrative reasoning" is based on relations of ideas. Hume says that since there is no contradiction in suggesting that the future will resemble the past, we cannot know that it will by means of demonstrative reasoning. The second type is moral reasoning, which is based on matters of fact. He says that since moral reasoning ends up going in circles, it also does not help us. Hume ends this section by saying that there is no form of reasoning that can show how we connect similarities between past and present. I think that there must be some type of reasoning that we use in order to connect past experience to future and learn from it. If there wasn't I would imagine we would never learn from our mistakes.

Laws of Association

Hume discusses the links between ideas in section 3. He says that all ideas are connected in some way and gives three ways that this is accomplished. The first is resemblance, where a picture of a thing will make us think of that thing. The second is contiguity in time or place. This is when a specific thing is discussed and that discussion leads to the discussion of similar things. The third way is cause and effect, which is when we think of one thing and it leads us to think of what follows from it. This seems to make a lot of sense to me. It seems like anytime we think of anything something else always seems to come from it and this is how we form new ideas.

Impressions and Ideas

In sections 2 & 3, Hume discusses impressions and ideas and distinguishes between the two. He says that impressions are "lively and vivid" and ideas deal with memory and imagination, therefore they are less "lively and vivid". Hume says that impressions are "all are more lively perceptions, when we hear, or see, or feel, or hate, or desire, or will". He continues to say that ideas are merely the memories of impressions. Since Hume is an empiricist, this means he feels all our knowledge must come from impressions.

Hume on Moral Responsibility

I spoke in earlier posts about Hume's compatibilism when it comes to the question of free will. Hume believes that it is possible for necessity and liberty to coexist, mainly, as I argued, because one is free to act according to one's own desires. I said that even if these desires are determined by previous states of the world as well as the laws according to which it works, liberty is not infringed upon. Here is another question: If even one's desires are determined (according to which one makes decisions and acts), can they be held morally responsible for their actions?

First of all, this enough is clear: man is not responsible for his existence. Man is a contingent being, that is, man is dependent upon external factors for his existence. I said in earlier posts that even if a person could not have acted otherwise, he may still be free, namely because he acted necessarily according to the components that make him who he is. But can we be resentful (or grateful) to someone even if they could not have done otherwise? This question is in contemporary philosophy referred to as the question of reactive attitudes. Hume has this to say:

"A man who is robbed of a considerable sum; does he find his vexation for the loss any wise diminished by these sublime reflections? Why then should his moral resentment against the crime be supposed incompatible with them? Or why should not the acknowledgment of a real distinction between vice and virtue be reconcilable to all speculative systems of philosophy, as well as that of a real distinction between personal beauty and deformity?"

So Hume has made a point. Just because the world may have not been able to be other than what it is doesn't mean we can't distinguish between what is desirable and undesirable in it. But Hume only half answers the question of reactive attitudes. The tough question is not whether or not we can justifiably resent the actions, but whether or not we can justifiably resent the person who acted in such and such a way. I agree that determinism should not give us reason to give up moral distinctions, but I am quite unsatisfied with Hume's answer in that he does not address the real difficulty. Should we punish an individual for an undesirable action or simply recognize that it was undesirable (and possible try to rehabilitate the person instead of punishing him or her)?

More about Locke's argument against innate ideas...

When I think about Locke's argument against innate ideas, Plato's story of the slave boy in the Meno comes to mind. In the Meno, Socrates takes a slave boy through a mathematical experiment. He tells the boy that the area of a square whose sides are each 2' long is 4' squared. He then asks what the area is of a square whose sides are each 4' long. The slave boy initially doubles the area of the square, since the length of the sides was doubled. Socrates asks the boy questions until he reveals the correct answer. My question then arises: does the slave boy really have some kind of innate notion about mathematics (or, further, that he had an innate notion about the area of a square with 4' sides)?

I don't think he does. I think Socrates' questions prompt the slave boy to recall little bits of information that he has learned about numbers, addition, shape, and size. I think the questions also prompted him to use this information in such a way that he could infer the answer by way of reasoning. I'm not sure what Locke says about innate abilities as opposed to innate ideas, but it does seem as though we are born with certain innate abilities--how to think, how to breath, how to rationalize, how to compare, etc... While sometimes we may be taught how to refine and improve these abilities, we certainly do not need to be taught how to breathe before doing so...

Locke: Against Descartes & innate ideas

As I spoke about in an earlier post, Locke does not believe in innate ideas. Descartes, on the other hand, loves innate ideas. The cogito rests on that principle, as you don't need any sensation or perception from the outside world in order to think and determine that you therefore exist. Descartes also uses "nature taught me so" as an explanation for various arguments that he tackles (one is what particularly makes humans more intelligent than animals; another is what accounts for the pairing of a particular mind with a particular body). "Nature taught me so" is obviously just another way of saying that he was born with that innate idea.

Locke argues against innate ideas and asserts that neither speculative (logical & metaphysical) nor practical (ethical) principles are known to us at birth. He argues that such principles are not universal among humans. He also claims that if they were universal, then they could easily be explained by way of self-evidence and/or shared experience. Another argument he uses is that children and the mentally handicapped are not familiar with these principles, and nothing could account for their sudden loss and eventual regain (in the case of children) of them. I'm inclined to believe Locke's argument because everything I know seems to come from outside sources--either someone told me, or I learned it by comparing it to something else. So, for example, I know that 2+2=4 because someone taught me how to count and add numbers. I know that I'm kind of short because I've seen a lot of other people who are taller than me.

Locke: Higher intelligence of humans

Something I found interesting about Locke was that his opinions on the difference between humans and other animals are similar to those of Descartes. They both believe that humans have the ability to use the information they receive through perception, sensation, and reflection, in order to expand their intelligence. They are capable of discerning and comparing, which Locke argues is the basis for human knowledge. Without being able to distinguish one object from another and compare facts about them, we would have little to no intelligence whatsoever.

Descartes would agree with this idea to a certain extent, since he would be inclined to say "nature taught me so" at some point. But I still think he would like Locke's explanation for the difference, despite the fact that Locke thinks all knowledge originates as a sensation that is reflected upon. Descartes never really committed to a solid explanation for what makes humans different (his argument seemed to boil down to "just 'cause"), but this seems to be the direction he was heading in--just that humans have the ability to rationalize, evaluate, etc ...

Hume- the harmony of liberty and necessity pt. II

My last post laid out a definition of liberty that was compatible with the necessity of causality. I said that since nothing prohibits us from acting according to our determinations, we are free. Here is a possible objection: "Okay, it may be that you have the freedom to act according to certain desires that you have, but those desires themselves are determined in such a way that you cannot act any other way than how you do. In short, for any action you make, you could not have done otherwise." Here is my response (and probably also Hume's): I grant that I can not act in any other way that I do. That would be absurd. My actions may be determined by my desires, and my desires may also be themselves determined by an endless causal chain preceding them, but my freedom of will is actually secured by determinism, not endangered by it. Let me explain. In order for me to be a self-determining being, that is, a being who determines my own actions, it must be the case that I can effectively translate my own desires into action. My actions follow from certain desires, dispositions, inclinations, and deliberations that I have. These are all part of who I am. It is the necessity of causality that makes it possible for me to act on these desires, deliberations, dispositions, and inclinations that I have, rather than on any other factors. Some think that I need to be the first cause of my actions in order to be free, but if this were the case, and my actions were not determined by anything, then it would not be possible to have any actions. It is universally accepted that everything owes its existence to a prior cause, so if there were no prior cause to my actions, then I could not have any actions at all. Either that, or my actions would be a product of chance. Chance, though, doesn't really exist. It is not a physical object, it has no measure of mass or energy, and has no power in producing any effect. The word chance is a word used to describe one's ignorance (that is, we say that something is left to chance when we do not understand or cannot calculate all of the factors involved in a causal relation). Even if there was such a thing as chance, and my actions were not preceded by anything that determined what they would be, it hardly seems that chance would grant me the kind of freedom that I am looking for, because in order for my actions to be free, they need to arise from my desires and other factors that I identify with.

To sum this all up, I am free enough because I have the freedom to act according to my own desires. There seems no rational reason for wanting any more freedom than this, nor does it seem possible that there could conceivably be any freedom greater than this.

Hume- The harmony of liberty and necessity

Hume says that it is universally accepted that there are such things as necessary connections between causes and effects, even if it is only via the experience of the constant conjunction of events that furnishes us with this understanding. Many are concerned, though, that this causal necessity gives rise to a determinism which inhibits our freedom of will. If every event is necessitated by a prior event, then how can our actions be free? If it is the case that there are necessary connections between events (which we call causes and effects), then we know that our actions can be traced back on a causal chain of events that well predates our own existence. Understanding, and even arguing for this, Hume says that we are nonetheless free. How? Hume is a compatibilist of sorts, which means that he thinks that determinism is compatible with free will (and moral responsibility for that matter). Hume says that it boils down to this: "By liberty, then, we can only mean a power of acting or not acting, according to the determinations of the will; that is, if we choose to remain at rest, we may; if we chose to move, we also may." Since nothing is prohibiting us from acting according to our own determinations, we can be said to be free.

Locke: Sensation and reflection

Locke, as an empiricist, obviously believes that we are all born with our minds as a blank slate (tabula rasa), and we learn ideas and concepts through experience. The two sources of our ideas are sensation and reflection. The argument for sensation is obvious--you must perceive via the senses in order to understand what it really is. This contributes to Locke's rainbow argument for definitions of complex ideas. Even if you described every little detail of a rainbow (order of the colors, size, brightness, etc) and individual who has never sensed color would not understand the concept. This person who was blind from birth has not had anything etched onto his blank slate in regards to vision. Therefore, he does not know what it's like to see color, nor does he truly understand the difference between red and blue. Locke describes the reflection part of his argument as "the perception of the operations of our own mind within us, as it is employed about the ideas it has got." This accounts for our abilities to remember, discern, reason, judge, etc. I think that Locke's discussion of reflection gives his argument solid ground, as we all know that sensations can quickly fade away. Without the reflection part of his argument, we would be a blank slate after each passing moment. The ability to remember and analyze lets us retain past sensations via ideas and concepts.

Locke: Simple and complex words/ideas

Locke is not very impressed by language. He finds it an imperfect medium through which we attempt to express our ideas, but often fail to do so. He is most satisfied with simple words which reflect simple ideas. These unambiguous words, like "sweet" and "bitter," will not cause controversy in conversation. Simple words, then, do not require definitions as their meanings are universally understood. Moreover, it would be impossible to apply an accurate definition to a simple word because the definition would consist of various synonyms, creating a complex description of something that has no composition at all.

Complex words, on the other hand, are subject to interpretation, like "modesty." People will have different opinions on the word, and they will entertain different ideas when the word is mentioned. Therefore, Locke insists upon having strict definitions for complex words, as this is the only way to sustain a concrete language. Still, Locke says that one must have experienced all of the simple ideas that make up the complex idea in order to fully understand the complex idea. He uses the example of a rainbow: a person born blind would not understand what a rainbow really is, even if it is described to him in exact detail.

Connection of Ideas

In book three Hume talks a good deal about the connection that exists between all ideas. Hume talks about three principles by which ideas may be connected. The first principle he talks about is resemblance, this is where we see a picture of a tree and we then think about the tree. The second principle he talks about is contiguity of time and place, this is where if we are to mention one apartment we then get to discussing others. The last principle he talks about is cause and effect, where when we think of a cut or scrape and then we think about the pain that followed it. Hume then goes on to say that he has no reason to not put out more prinicples for the connection of ideas, expect for the fact that he can not come up with anymore. Though he does then say that even though he can't think of anymore no more are needed. For example, association by means of contrast or contrariety can be seen as a combination of resemblance and causation.

Imagination

In the second book Hume talks about imagination and how the human mind is an unlimited organ. Hume states that our imagination is merely the compounding of ideas. Hume comes up with two points to explain this idea. First he says that all complex ideas are merely compounded out of simple ideas and these simple ideas come from simple impressions (everyday things like human form and intelligence). Hume uses the example of God being a supremely good and intelligent being. We have the idea of goodness and intelligent and allowing them to have no limit allows us to imagine the being of God. Second Hume talks about how our imagination is limited to the impressions we are able to take in. So for example a person that is blind is not able to imagine color and a person that is deaf could not imagine sound.

Origin of Ideas

According to Hume thier is a distinction between impressions and ideas. Hume says that ideas are the weaker form of impressions. They are lacking something that impressions have, they are less vivacious. Impressions according to Hume are sensations and ideas are memories and ideas. Hume gives the example of a person eating an orange. The impressions of eating the orange, taste, feel and smell are stronger then some one imagining eating an orange. Hume then goes on to say that both the color red and anger are considerend impressions (everything we hear, see, touch, smell, feel and love) and ideas arise when we reflect back on those impressions.

Easy & Obvious Philosophy vs. Accurate & Abstract Philosophy

Hume begins the "Enquiry" by saying that there are two kinds of philosophical thinking. The first is "easy and obvious philosophy" and the second is "accurate and abstract philosophy". He describes the first as being written in a poetic style and that it uses examples from everyday life so we can see the difference between right and wrong.He says that this type of philosophy is popular and follows from common sense, therefore there are rarely errors in it.

The second philosophy, accurate and abstract philosophy, does not direct our behavior. Instead, it focuses on what causes that behavior and why we do the things we do and uses abstract reasoning to attempt to make sense of it. He says that since this area of philosophy does not use common sense, errors are made often and because of this, this area is sometimes rejected.

Hume goes on to say that the best objection against A&A philosophy is that it is a confused attempt to explain what we don't know by blind prejudice. Hume's reply to this is that this should be more reason for us to study it closely.

Hume on Causality Part III: Implications for Science

Given the considerations in my last two posts, we can ask questions of major consequence. The first is: what, then, given a new understanding of how we make inferences concerning causality, are the implications for science? What kind of certainty can we really furnish? Can we really say that we know that one event will follow another simply because it always has in the past? An this brings us back to one of Hume's initial questions: What reason (if we say that we indeed do know that one event will follow another because of past experiences) do we have for believing that the future will be like the past? It does not seem like we have any real reasons other than our deeply-implanted beliefs which are a result of custom and habit.

Here is the big question for science: What is a law?
A law is supposed to be a rule that dictates how nature behaves. A law is supposed to give us certainty in knowing how one body willact in a given situation. But given Hume's considerations, it seems like a law is more like a description of our past experience. Saying that something is a law of nature might be similar to saying "Well, physical bodies have behaved in such and such manner in the past without fail, so much so that we conclude that they will always behave in this way". Here is the killer for realists about scientific laws: Are the words "law" and "causality" really just useful fictions for describing our experience of the world? Maybe these words do not refer to anything that really exists out there in the physical world- maybe they are just useful terms to help us express what we are trying to say when it comes to explaining scientific theories.

Hume on Causality Pt. II: The Problem of Induction

Given the considerations in my last post, it seems evident that there must be something wrong with how we make inferences concerning cause and effect. If what we call 'cause' is really just "an object, followed by another, and where all the objects, similar to the first, are followed by objects similar to the second"(Hume, VII pt. II), then it seems that our idea of causality is not one produced by knowledge, but actually by habit or custom. What we really mean, then, when we say that something causes something else, is that in the past, it has always been the case that one event follows another. We do not actually have knowledge of what it is in the one event/object that "causes" the other event or object to happen. That is, we are ignorant of the force or power which compels one event to follow another. Our reasoning, if any, proceeds in this manner of induction:

Premise 1. At time q event A was accompanied by event B.
Premise 2. At time r event A was accompanied by event B.
Premise 3. At time s event A was accompanied by event B
Premise 4. At time t event A was accompanied by event B.

CONCLUSION: Event A causes event B.

Hume points out that we would never infer the conclusion after only one instance of the above happening. If we only observed it once, we would say only that events A and B were conjoined in our experience. But because we experience a constant conjunction of event A and B, we infer that there is some type of connection between them, which we call causality. We do not see this connection, nor do we know what it is.

Hume on Causality

Hume is concerned with the inferences we make concerning what we call "cause" and "effect". He asks what the basis is for one to see one event follow another and then to conclude that the first event caused the second. First of all, this inference is not made on the basis of a priori reasoning, that is, reasoning which precedes experience. Rather, the inference is based on what we experience. What reason do we have, Hume asks, for concluding that since one event was followed by another in the past, that this conjuction will hold for the future. Take bread, for example. Hume asks what justification we have for believing that since bread has nourished us in the past, that objects similar to the bread we have eaten in the past will also nourish us. In other words, what reason do we have for believing that the future will be like the past? But we almost never conclude that there is a causal relation between two events until we have experienced them cnjoined in many instances. For example, fire has never in the past failed to be accompanied by heat, nor snow by cold, so we naturally make the inference that fire causes heat and snow causes coldness. Since we have not discovered WHY the one event follows the other, but that we continue to make the inference that the two events are causally related anyway, Hume concludes that it is not because of any reasoning that we make the inference, but because of habit/custom.

Cause and Effect

Locke talks about how all reasoning concerning matter of fact are founded in the relation of cause and effect. What he is saying is that we can go beyond the evidence of our memory and senses. So if you were to ask a man why he may believe his friend is in another country, what would be his reasons for this if he did not know he really was or not in another country. He might answer with former knowledge he had of that friend talking about wanting to go to that country or promises. Again like before a man stranded on a desart island finds i watch. He did know see or know anyone else on this island but form cause and effect he knows that there must have been someone else there.

Imagination (perception)

Locke talks about perception or imagination in terms of them being confined to very narrow limits. He goes on to say that the creative power of the mind is no more than us combining, augmenting and transposing the senses and experiences we have gathered throughout life. Like the example about the gold mountain or the virtuous horse. Neither might not actually exist but in our imagination we can combine the idea of things we know. So we could imagine a gold mountain because we have the idea of gold and of mountain. Just like we have an idea of virtue and of a horse to imagine a virtuous horse. So all the materials that make up thinking are derived from our inward and outward perceptions of the world around us.

Thoughts and Perceptions

In section two Locke talks about distinguishing between the two classes of perception of the mind. The first class that Locke talks about is thoughts or ideas. He calls thoughts and ideas the less forcible and lively of the two classes. The other idea he talks about is impressions and by impressions, Locke is talking about our more lively perceptions what we see, we hear, feel and love. So thoughts and ideas are the incorporation of our perceptions. Locke goes on then to say that nothing is more unbound then the thought of man, not even nature and reality can contain our thoughts. People’s bodies might be confined to this planet and might not be able to leave physically but mentally with our thoughts we are able to go and see anything with our thoughts.

Knowledge

Unlike the rationalists, who think that knowledge is limitless, and the skeptics, who think we are incapable of knowing anything at all, Locke takes the middle ground and says that knowledge is possible, but it's limited. He says that a person can only be said to know something when they see why it is necessarily so. He says our minds are not capable of grasping every necessary connection there is. This is mainly because he is an empiricist and feels that all our knowledge comes from experience and we cannot experience neccessary connections. The natural world consists of observable;e properties and since he feels we cannot grasp the connections of these things we observe we can never truly know everything.

I definitely agree with Locke's position here. I think it's naive of the rationalists to believe that it is possible for anybody to ever know everything and obviously we have some knowledge of our world so we can't say that we cannot know anything. I think that Locke has the right idea that the capacity of our minds can hold an enormous amount of information, but there is a limit to everything.

Abuses of Language

Locke focuses on the problems with language in book 3. He says that words refer to ideas and that we shouldn't use a word if there is not a clear idea of what that word refers to. He says that the only way we can guarantee that language does not lead us astray is to define our terms and stick to strict policies of usage. I agree with Locke on this point about our language. There are so many different views of words with each area of the country and in different parts of the world.

Complex Ideas

In book 2, Locke discusses simple and complex ideas. He says that there are 4 types of complex ideas; modes, substances, relations and abstract generals. He says that modes are ideas without the notion of self-subsistence. Substances are self-subsisting things or collections of self-subsisting things. Relations are relational concepts.

He says that there are 3 methods that complex ideas are created by. In the first method, ideas are put together through combination, by taking simple ideas that come to the mind naturally through sensation or ideas from the imagination. In the second method, ideas come from a comparison of simple ideas. In this method, the similarities and differences of 2 or more simple ideas are observed and the complex ideas of relations results from it. The last method, abstraction, is when the ideas that have been joined by the mind are separated by the mind.

Is it possible to be both determined and free?

It is a common debate in philosophy over whether or not man is a free agent, that is, if he acts freely. Determinism is the proposition that everything is determined by prior states of the world and the laws of nature. If man is part of the physical world, including his brain (which would include his thoughts, desires, deliberations, emotions, etc.), then it seems that he is determined to be what he is and to do what he does. If man is determined, is it possible that he may still be able to have free will? At first glance one might think that the two, determinism and free will, are incompatible, that is, that it's either one way or the other. But this may not be the case, it may not be as simple as that. It depends how you define free will.

One formulation is that free will is the the power to do otherwise. Here's an example. I went to class today. If I really had free will, according to this definition, then I must have had the power to have not gone to class. But if I am determined to do what I do, then I could not have done anything other than what I did do, and then I cannot have free will according to this definition.
Try out this definition: Free will is the power to be able to do what you want to do. This definition is much less problematic. Take the example of me going to class today. I went to class because I want to get a good grade. No one prohibited me from going, I went because I wanted to go. It may be that I am determined to have the desires that I have (such as the desire to want to get good grades in school and the desire to go to class), but nevertheless I was free to do what I wanted to do. With this definition of free will, I can be both determined and free at the same time.

Locke gives a lot of his own thoughts on freedom and the will in Locke Bk. II, Chap. XXI.