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.