Locke 5

Here are some of the arguments Locke makes in trying to establish the primary/secondary distinction.

1. Alterations in conditions which can hardly be thought to alter the properties actually in an object alter the looks of it.

'Let us consider the red and white colours in porphyry. Hinder light from striking on it, and its colours vanish; it no longer produces any such ideas in us: upon the return of light it produces these appearances on us again. Can any one think any real alterations are made in the porphyry by the presence or absence of light; and that those ideas of whiteness and redness are really in porphyry in the light, when it is plain it has no colour in the dark? It has, indeed, such a configuration of particles, both night and day, as are apt, by the rays of light rebounding from some parts of that hard stone, to produce in us the idea of redness, and from others the idea of whiteness; but whiteness or redness are not in it at any time, but such a texture that hath the power to produce such a sensation in us.'

Essay, Bk II, Ch. VIII, Section 19

2. Only primary qualities are inseparable from their subjects.

3. There cannot be a body without a shape or a size, but there can be a body without taste or smell.

4. Secondary qualities do not exist unperceived.

5. When sounds are not being heard, they don't exist.

'The ideas of the primary alone really exist. The particular bulk, number, figure, and motion of the parts of fire or snow are really in them,- whether any one's senses perceive them or no: and therefore they may be called real qualities, because they really exist in those bodies. But light, heat, whiteness, or coldness, are no more really in them than sickness or pain is in manna. Take away the sensation of them; let not the eyes see light or colours, nor the ears hear sounds; let the palate not taste, nor the nose smell, and all colours, tastes, odours, and sounds, as they are such particular ideas, vanish and cease, and are reduced to their causes, i.e. bulk, figure, and motion of parts.'

Locke, Essay, Bk II, Ch. VIII, Section 17.

6. The ideas caused by secondary qualities do not resemble the qualities in the bodies themselves.

7. The sound a trumpet makes is nothing like the vibrations in the lips which causes it.

8. If I put my hand in the fire, the fire causes both heat and pain: the pain is not in the object, so why should the heat be?

9. Lukewarm water can appear hot to one hand and cold to another, so the quality of 'hot' cannot be in the water.

'Ideas being thus distinguished and understood, we may be able to give an account how the same water, at the same time, may produce the idea of cold by one hand and of heat by the other: whereas it is impossible that the same water, if those ideas were really in it, should at the same time be both hot and cold. For, if we imagine warmth, as it is in our hands, to be nothing but a certain sort and degree of motion in the minute particles of our nerves or animal spirits, we may understand how it is possible that the same water may, at the same time, produce the sensations of heat in one hand and cold in the other; which yet figure never does, that never producing- the idea of a square by one hand which has produced the idea of a globe by another. But if the sensation of heat and cold be nothing but the increase or diminution of the motion of the minute parts of our bodies, caused by the corpuscles of any other body, it is easy to be understood, that if that motion be greater in one hand than in the other; if a body be applied to the two hands, which has in its minute particles a greater motion than in those of one of the hands, and a less than in those of the other, it will increase the motion of the one hand and lessen it in the other; and so cause the different sensations of heat and cold that depend thereon.'

Essay, Bk II, Ch. VIII, Section 21

10. Colours look different under a microscope, so they can't be in the object.

11. Physical alterations to an object alter its looks and taste

'Pound an almond, and the clear white colour will be altered into a dirty one, and the sweet taste into an oily one. What real alteration can the beating of the pestle make in any body, but an alteration of the texture of it?'

Essay, Bk II, Ch. VIII, Section 20

(Descartes had argued (among other things): Secondary qualities are only perceptible through a single sense.

Malebranche had argued: the perception of secondary qualities varied with the position of the observer, and so cannot be 'in' the object. E.g. a thing appears to have a different colour depending on the angle of perception, or the light.)

Locke's picture of the mind

It is not a physical container, of course, but if you have ideas which sometimes associate together (and sometimes don't) the picture is of them being together in a way that is parallel to being spatially together. We, and Locke, speak easily of ideas being 'in' the mind, and this is picturing the mind as a sort of 'container' for ideas. (Because it's not a real physical container, but its the equivalent in some way of a physical container we might speak of a 'quasi' container.) Locke calls the mind a 'cabinet':

Eg: " The senses at first let in particular ideas, and furnish the yet empty cabinet, and the mind by degrees growing familiar with some of them, they are lodged in the memory, and names got to them." Essay Bk II Ch. 2 Section 15.)

But Locke also speaks of the mind as 'perceiving' ideas. And also of the mind manipulating ideas (as we shall see). So the picture is a confused one. Or perhaps there are two pictures, one of the mind as a container, the other as the mind as a sort of 'inner eye'.

So you have the picture of the mind of a as a container holding ideas, and also containing some kind of perceiver/manipulator of those ideas. You may think this isn't a coherent picture at all when you think about it, but it is one we have gone along with for centuries. Ryle called it the myth of the ghost in the machine.

One difference from Descartes' picture: the mind can exist in the absence of consciousness.

Another point of difference from Descartes which I find very interesting: Locke thought it might be that configurations of physical corpuscules could think. So he rejected the Cartesian defence of dualism - like any sensible person.

Continuing identity of a person

You should review here an introduction to the problem of the continuing identity of a person, eg here.

As we have seen, Locke tried hard to rid himself of the Scholastic notions of 'substance' with which Descartes was still working. So he doesn't agree with Descartes that what constitutes the identity of a person over time is a matter of the continuing existence of a substance, the 'thinking substance' which Descartes is what a person essentially is.

Locke's view is that a person A existing now is the same person as person B who existed at a time in the past if and only if A remembers being B. At any rate this seems to be what Locke is saying:

'For, it being the same consciousness that makes a man be himself to himself, personal identity depends on that only ...' Locke, Essay, Book 2 Chapter XXVII Para 10

1. Thomas Reid's objection, expressed in the story of an ageing general, who remembers doing things he did when a junior officer but has no memory of doing things as a boy. As a junior officer on the other hand he did remember things he did as a boy. If Locke is right about the memory criterion it would follow from this that while the general was the same person as the junior officer, and the junior officer was the same person as the boy, the general would not be the same person as the boy.

2. Surely you can have false memories, apparently remembering doing something that B did, but being mistaken.

Locke's conception of the human being - the punctual self

Charles Taylor argues that one of the distinctive things about Locke's understanding of human beings is his belief that they are capable of remaking themselves. He says Locke believes that there is nothing to the self that is beyond this power of reconstruction - nothing that is immutable.

But this raises the question, What sort of a thing is it that can have this power? It is a thing which has no 'essential' properties - for all of them are vulnerable to change - unless you say that the essential thing about a human being is exactly its power to reconstruct itself ... Taylor calls this conception of the self, which he fathers on Locke, the 'punctual self', because it proposes that the self is just a point, the power to change, but no extensions of properties essential to it at all.

In articulating this conception of the 'punctual' self Locke is expressing an ideal of a human agent 'able to remake himself [sic] by methodical and disciplined action.' Taylor, Sources of the Self , Cambridge, 1989, CUP, p. 159. Taylor argues, this is an ideal which answered to the times, argues Taylor - and became one of the foundation stones of the Modern world.

Theory of Meaning

'Theories of language' may sound fearfully daunting. But the theory of language in Locke is not at all complicated, at least in principle. You may discover yourself to be a Lockean.

His doctrine is simply this: words get their meaning by standing for ideas. The meaning of a word is the idea it stands for.

Notice that this conception depends on the conception of an idea, and is only tight and philosophically weighty, as it were, insofar as the conception of an idea is tight. I mean it depends on it being pretty clear what an idea is.

Remember that Descartes seemed to have used 'idea' to cover a number of things which today seem distinguishable. For the main part these different things were distinguishable then. They were not distinguished because the idea of an idea in its modern sense was only beginning to be hacked out, as part of the construction of the mind for which Descartes was chiefly responsible.

But at any rate, Locke's is an example of the thesis that language items get their meaning in virtue of standing for mental items.

This is a representational theory of meaning. It says that a word stands for something else, in this case an 'idea'.

The representational account he propounded in the Tractatus gives way to the use theory in the Investigations.

There is also the idea in Wittgenstein that language items can only aquire meaning for the individual if they are guided in their employment of them by other language users. The claim that an individual can attach a word to one of the ideas they have is inconsistent with Wittgenstein's point, which he defends by what is known as the 'Private Language' argument.

2. H.P. Grice argues that a language item gets its meaning ultimately from the intention speakers have in uttering it.

3. Foucault said the Modern era was inaugurated by the splitting off of words from the world.

His observation is that medieval thought does not have a 'representational account' of 'the meaning of words'. Rather, what they called 'terms' convey into a person the essence (= form) of whatever is being thought about.