Locke- Truth and Self Identity

"..in the despair of knowing anything; nor, on the other side, question everything and disclaim all knowledge, because some things are not to be understood."


i think Locke is trying to state that no matter what we ask there are things you wont know. Basically like things that are just a certain way because they are. why is the sky actually blue? who controls the nuerons in the brain? he is saying things are better yet not figured out.

Locke - Innateness 2

In Chapter 2, going on about innateness, Locke starts talking about how children and "idiots" don't show that they have any "impressions" in their mind by innateness.

"If therefore children and idiots have souls, have minds, with those impressions upon them, they must unavoidably perceive them, and necessarily know and assent to those truths; which since they do not, it is evident that there are no such impressions."

When someone is mentally challenged, which I'm assuming that is what Locke meant by saying "idiot", they might have some innateness in them but they're capable of showing it because their mental disability.  When a baby is drinking their bottle.  They automatically know they have to suck for the milk to come out of the bottle.  No one can teach them that.  They just know and I think that is a form of innateness.

Locke - Innateness

In chapter 2, Locke talks about innateness and how God gave us the gift to see.  But is seeing colors on objects apart of innateness?

"For I imagine, anyone will easily grant, that it would be impertinent to suppose the ides of colours innate in a creature to whom God have given sight, and a power to receive them by the eyes from external objects: and no less unreasonable would it be to attribute several truths to the impressions of nature and innate characters, when we may observe in ourselves faculties fit to attain as easy and certain knowledge of them as if they were originally imprinted on the mind."

How do we really know the colors we see is what everyone else sees?  Is my red your red?  I think Colors had to be imprinted on the mind at one point.  When we were little our parents would point to things and say this is red, the ball is blue, the grass is green, etc.  We learned what the colors looked like by the first object our parents showed us.  But then again in Psychology I learned that we don't actually see colors.  They're wavelengths bouncing off lighting and other things.  I'm not sure on this one, it can go many ways.  

Locke - Self Identity and Truth

In the beginning of Chapter 1, Locke talks about knowledge and understanding it.

"..in the despair of knowing anything; nor, on the other side, question everything and disclaim all knowledge, because some things are not to be understood."

"Our business here is not to know all things, but whose which concern our conduct."

Everyone always wants to know the answers to everything.  They want to know what is truth and what is not.  But are some things really that important to know?  Do we really NEED to know everything.  Back when we read Descartes he wanted all his knowledge he had was true but in Locke he understands that we don't really need to know everything.  Somethings are just not supposed to be found or explained.

Locke- Self Identity

In chapter 27

Locke says that we are the same person that we are conscious of our past and future thoughts and actions in the same way as we are conscious of our present thoughts and actions. If consciousness is this "thought" which doubles all thoughts, then personal identity is only founded on the repeated act of consciousness:

It means you are who you are...your memories reflect who you are in everyday life...this is what it means when you are conscious in our present thoughts. Its how you refelct from the past use for the present and future.

Locke- Self Identity

Locke says that identity is that he claims comes from consciousness........

Hdee is trying to say that you are dealing with the current thoughts in your head at any given time.He is trying to say when there is a specific idea in your head you think about it and you relate to past moments in your life and then you also use it with every day current life. That makes your identity yours..only you have that idea and can relate it with those specific memories...

Locke-Truth

In the beginning of the first book Locke talks about rules of a method to search the bounds between knowledge and opinion. This brings me back Descartes Discourse 2. It is almost similar. Descartes was trying to find the truth behind everything. Well, isn't that the same as opinion verses knowledge? Locke also did steps to do this like Descartes did.

"First. I shall inquire into the original of those ideas, notions, or whatever else you please to call them, which a man observes, and is conscious to himself he was in his mind, and the ways whereby the understanding comes to be furnished with them."

"Secondly. I Shall endeavor to show what knowledge the understanding hath by those ideas, and the certainty, evidence, and extent of it."

"Thirdly. I shall make some inquiry into the nature and grounds of faith or opinion; whereby I mean. that assent which we give to any proposition as true, of whose truth yet we have no certain knowledge: and here we shall have occasion to examine the reasons and degrees of assent"

Locke- the problem of self identity

Locke is discussing the problem of self identity as we dont actually start off with a self identity of our own. Locke is saying that we were born with a clean slate and that as we grow up society starts to mold you into the person you are.

Ruosso says something describing Locke as well. I cant remember the quote exactly but it says "man seems to be free but we are still in chains"

It basically means that we al start off as a clean slate and that self identity develops as you develop in society.

any objections?

Meditations 6-senses

"For I knew by experience that these ideas came upon me utterly without my consent, to the extent that, which as I may, I could not sense any object unless it was present to a sense organ. Nor could I fail to sense it when it was present. And since the ideas perceived by sense were much more vivid and explicit and even, in their own way, more distinct than any of those that I deliberately and knowingly formed through meditation or that I found impressed on my memory, it seemed impossible that they came from myself. Thus the remaining alternative was that they came from other things. Since I had no knowledge of such things except from those same ideas themselves, I could not help entertaining the thought that they were similar to those ideas."

Here Descartes clearly realizes that mind and body (senses) are two separate things. He doesn't know how but he knows that he alone does not think of certain things that come into his head, and thats where the mind plays a role. They are different, but one needs the other to work. I don't think the mind could work without the body, and the body could work without the mind.

Meditations VI

The issue of mind and body in Med 6 is controversial. There is an unexplainable connection between the two, however, they are very different. Will the mind outlive the body because the mind is something that is always existing and we cannot see it? Or will the body outlive the mind because the mind is not capable of doing anything without the body? Descartes kind of goes back and forth with this one because going back to his previous ideas in discourse, he believes there is no doubt in truth.

meditation 6 - Nature/Enstinct

"I call hunger, warn me to have something to eat, or why should dryness in the the throat warn me to take something to drink, and so on? I plainly had no explanation other than that I had been taught this way be nature." - (Descartes 95)

This i think, is truly Descartes talking about raw enstinct. Even when we are babies we dont know how to talk or read or even walk. But when we were hungry or had to poop we made it known by ensticnt. The enstinct told Descartes that his throat hurt and he needed some water. In reality enstinct is nature....

any objections?

Discourse 2-Poor Knowledge of Science

the reason why descarte had a bad knowledge of science is because he had different people telling him otherwise.

I dont blame him for not believing anything someone else said. I feel like it could be compared to a more modern situation. If your trying to buy a present for someone you will usually get a laundry list of opinions telling you what they think. I think D is really smart for not litstening at all. By chucking all their opinions out the window, he became a true philospopher and proved it on his own which is also apart of his four rules that he discussed in Discourse 2...any objections?

Discourse Part 2

"And as for myself, I would unquestionably have been counted among these latter persons if I had always had only one master or if I had not known at all the differences that have always existed among the opinions of the most learned.....And I considered how one and the same man with the very same mind, were he brought up from infancy among the French or the Germans, would become different from what he would be had he always lived among the Chinese or the cannibals, and how, even down to the styles of our clothing, the same thing that pleased us ten years ago, and that perhaps will again please us ten years, hence, now seems to us extravagant and ridiculous.

Here Descartes makes a very valuable point. I agree that the ideas of one single person are more understandable and as close to the truth as you can possibly get, over the ideas of many people. If you think about it, one persons ideas are right to the point, so you don't have multiple views on a certain subject, but with the point of view of more than one person, it leaves room for doubt and less truth.