Locke Bk II Ch. 9 pt .8- Molineux's Problem

Locke had a lawyer friend named Molineux who posed a very interesting and very relevant question for empiricism. Molineux says that suppose a man grew up blind from birth, and was taught to identify and to tell the difference between certain physical objects and shapes, such as a cube and a sphere, via touch. The man learns to identify figures like these by sliding his hands around the figure and feeling the shape of it. Here is the question: If someone placed a cube and a sphere on a table in front of this man, and if he was instantly endowed with the ability to see, would he be able to identify each object as a cube or a sphere? Molineux answers "no", because the man has yet to experience that what affects his touch in a certain way can affect his eyes correspondingly. This is something that no one could teach him while he was blind, he would have to learn it from experience. Locke agrees wholeheartedly with Molineux.

Simple Ideas

In Book II, Locke wishes to show where knowledge comes from, since he feels he has clearly shown where it does not come from. He basically says that all knowledge comes from simple ideas and simple ideas come from experience. Therefore implying that knowledge comes from experience. Locke says that the only 2 ways a mind can pick up simple ideas is through sensation or by reflection. Sensation deals with the senses, meaning we obtain information through sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. Reflection deals with actions of the mind; such as thinking, doubting, etc.

I agree with Locke on this subject. I think that all knowledge we have must come from our senses and experience. It seems that there is no other way for us to obtain any information. As Locke pointed out in Book I, innate ideas are impossible since not everybody agrees on a single thing, so therefore there is no other way for us to obtain knowledge except through senses.

Locke Book II Ch. 8, 1-6:Positive & Privative Causes

In the beginning of chapter eight, Locke discusses an interesting approach to the concept of privation. Although a cause may be privative, the idea which it causes may nonetheless be positive. Take the example that Locke gives of the colors black and white. Although we know that our experience of blackness is caused by a privation (i.e., the lack of light), the idea of blackness is something positive. When we speak of darkness or blackness, we do not need to be thinking of it as the absence of light or white. This holds true for painters, for whom black is a positive color, even though the color black itself may simply be a privation of the color white. This seems problematic, though, and Locke would agree, because its not clear that black is caused by the lack of white as much as darkness is caused by the lack of light. another example would be a hole. A hole is caused by a lack of material substance in something physical. For example, a hole in a plastic bucket is a hole by virtue of it being a location without plastic. nevertheless, we can meaningfully speak of the shape of the hole in the bucket without having to first speak of the shape of the bucket around the hole. We could relate this same type of reasoning to shadows. A Shadow is caused by light being blocked by something, and the shadow takes the shape of that something which is blocking the light. So although the shadow is really just an absence of light, the shape of the shadow s a shape of something positive, namely the shape of whatever is causing the shadow.

Locke: Skepticism

In book four Locke outlines three plans for treating the problem of skepticism, about whether or not the world really exists outside of our mind. This idea comes from Locke's theory of knowledge. In other words if we only have the access to the ideas in our minds and which come from our minds, how do we know know thier is actually a real world outside of our minds. He uses three strategies to over come the skeptic viewpoint.

The first strategy he uses is a weak stategy to simply say can you really doubt that thier is an actual world out there. The second strategy is to simply put it, who really cares if thier is an actual world out there as long as we understand enough to get around in the world we are in. The third strategy he uses seven experiences to explain that thier is an actual world. 1. There is a realness to percieveing objects that we don't get from memories or imagination. 2. We cannot get ideas without using the sense organs. 3. We are able to only recieve ideas in certain situations so it cannot be the organs working by themselves. 4. We gain ideas passively. 5. Ideas are sometimes accompanied with pleasure and pain, though our dreams do not. 6. Senses ofter bear witness to other peoples reports. 7. Two people can share the same experience.

I agree with his third strategy againt skepticism, i think he does a good job using the senses to describe why thier has to be a real world beyond our mind. Though i think he does a very poor job with the first two strategies. In the first one it is basically a childish argument, thats just stupid so why believe it. The second one is more uplifting but does not really do anything against the skeptic viewpoint. Its just saying who cares if thier is no real world just know this world enough to get by.

Locke: Nature of Knowledge

In book four Locke talks about the nature of knowledge. According to Locke knowledge is what the mind is able to percieve with a connection or without a connection between two or more of our ideas that we have. So Locke goes on to say that since we are only relating ideas that we already have the knowledge that we have cannot be knowlege of the world around us. He then talks about four arguments and disagreements about how reason can bring fourth knowledge. The first argument he talks about is identity, blue is blue and blue is not yellow. In other words blue has its own idenity of blueness and thus blue can't be yellow cause it doesn't have the identity of yellowness. The second argument deals with relation, in the case of two triangles that have the equal sides are called equal triangles. The third argument is coexistence which is fire is always going to be put out by water, things react in harmony to thier counterpart. Finally the last category he talks about is the realization that existence belongs to the idea's themselves and not to the mind.

Locke then talks about how thier are three degrees of knowledge which are intuition, demonstration and sensitive knowledge. Intuition, this is when we see a agreement or disagreement right when the argument is understood. Demonstration is the idea that we need some sort of proof to be able to understand and know that it is right and finally. Sensitive knowledge which deals with existence of an external world, basically what we percieve is the external world as we know it.

Locke: Where knowledge comes from

In the second book, Locke talks about where knowledge comes from. Locke first starts out talking about how knowledge is a build-up of ideas (simple ideas and complex ideas). Simple ideas are then combined to create complex ideas, thus simple ideas are the single basic units of knowledge. He then talks about how thier are two types of experiences in which we gain simple ideas. The first one is through sensation or the body experiencing the world through senses, touch, taste, smell, sight and hearing. The second type of experience is reflection or the mind turning in on itself and recongnizes on its own functions, thinking and so on.

Then Locke talks about how he breaks down simple ideas into four categories. The first is ideas we get from a single sense, such as hearing a car pass by outside. The second is ideas we get from combining two senses. The third is ideas that come out from relfection of the mind and the fourth and final category is ideas that come from the combination of senses and relfection.

Finally Locke breaks down complex ideas also into four categories. Modes, which are ideas that cannot exist in and of themselves like numbers. Substance , which are men or animals such as a single substaning thing or a army as in a collection of substaning things. Relations, which are father, sister and so on. Finally the last category is abstract generals, which are man or sheep, not talking about any particular man or sheep just the general idea of man or sheep.

Discourse 6

Earlier i talked about how Descarte gave a long and winded discussion about why he first shouldn't publish his works and then for why he should publish some of his works over other works he had produced. Though looking back at this i realized he had another important reason for why he didn't want to publish his works. This reason deals with persecution from other philosphers, scientists and religious authorities. His biggest worry was persecution from the Inquisition, after Galileo was condemded by them for his writtings, this was a real worry back then in the 1640's for philosphers, scientists and any one else talking about new ideas.