1.
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WE divide substance first into REAL ESSENCE and
NOMINAL ESSENCE.
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The REAL ESSENCE of a substance is unknowable
because our mind’s activities cannot penetrate it (The mind is a self-enclosed
immaterial entity capable of no knowledge of anything but itself and its own
ideas).
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All the ideas we have of the essence of a
substance are not ideas about its REAL ESSENCE but only of its NOMINAL ESSENCE.
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For, since
the powers or qualities that are observable by us are not the real essence of
that substance, but depend on it, and flow from it, any collection whatsoever
of those qualities cannot be the real essence of that thing. 2.31.13
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REAL ESSENCE and NOMINAL ESSENCE are easily
confused. When we talk about “the essence of something”, we mean only its
NOMINAL ESSENCE.
-
REAL ESSENCE remains forever unknown: we cannot
think about it; we cannot talk about it; because, by definition, we can only
think and talk about our ideas of substance, not about substance itself.
2.
Our ideas about the NOMINAL ESSENCE of a substance fall into
two kinds:
i)
ideas about the PRIMARY QUALITIES of the essence
of an object,
ii)
ideas about the SECONDARY QUALITIES of the
essence of an object.
3.
-
PRIMARY QUALITIES include ideas such as solidity,
extension, termination of solidity and extension, figure, number, rest, motion
etc.
- PRIMARY
QUALITIES are ideas about the properties of a thing independent of any
observer. Even if no one sees the object, it contains those qualities.
-
Solidity and extension and the
termination of it, figure, with motion and rest, whereof we have the ideas,
would be really in the world as they are, whether there were any sensible being
to perceive them or no, 2.31.2
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PRIMARY QUALITIES are ideas of an object which
are independent of perception.
-
PRIMARY QUALITIES are not subject to change.
Dividing an object in half does not disturb the PRIMARY QUALITIES. (size is not
a primary quality, it is an idea of relation: size relative to what?)
-
PRIMARY QUALITIES are ideas which we imagine to
resemble real properties in real objects.
4.
-
SECONDARY QUALITIES include ideas such as
colour, taste, shape etc.
-
SECONDARY QUALITIES are ideas about our
perception of a thing.
-
SECONDARY QUALITIES are ideas based on the ideas
of the PRIMARY QUALITIES
-
The interaction of the ideas of the PRIMARY
QUALITIES of an object produce ideas of the SECONDARY QUALITIES of an object.
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If sugar
produce in us the ideas which we call whiteness and sweetness, we are sure
there is a power in sugar to produce those ideas in our minds, or else they
could not have been produced by it. 2.31.2
-
SECONDARY QUALITIES do not reside in the object,
but only in the mind of the perceiver.
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SECONDARY QUALITIES are subject to change.
Pounding an almond changes its colour and taste.
5.
-
Both PRIMARY QUALITIES and SECONDARY QUALITIES
are SIMPLE IDEAS because they are not constructed by the mind out of mental
material, but rather arise in the mind through the action of a power residing
in the object to produce the idea in the mind.
-
It alters
not the nature of our simple ideas whether we think that the idea of blue be in
the violet itself, or in our mind only, and only the power of producing it by
the texture of its parts, reflecting the particles of light after a certain
manner, to be in the violet itself. 2.32.14
-
Because the mind does not construct them, it is
reasonable to suppose that they must therefore be produced by a power coming
from the object .
6.
-
SOME commentators interpret this thus:
-
QUALITIES refers both to qualities that reside
in the object itself AND our ideas about those qualities.
-
This reading is based on Book 2 Chapter 8.8,
where Locke seems to imply that qualities are real properties residing in the
object that have the power to produce ideas of those qualities in the mind.
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Whatsoever the mind perceives in itself, or
is the immediate object of perception, thought, or understanding, that I call
idea; and the power to produce any idea in our mind, I call quality of the
subject wherein that power is.
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But this is to overlook Locke’s insistence that
the mind cannot know anything outside itself.
-
But this is to overlook Locke’s insistence on
the distinction between real and nominal essence.
- But
this is to overlook’s Locke’s insistence that any discussion of substance is
not a discussion about substance per se,
but only about our ideas of substance.
- The essence of each sort of substance is our
abstract idea to which the name is annexed.3.6.2
- So is Locke
talking about substance or about our ideas of substance?
- In what way is
Locke an empiricist if we cannot know the real essence of something, if our
understanding of substances is limited to the ideas we have of those
substances, not the substances themselves?
7.
- There are two
ways in which Locke can be regarded as an empiricist, his skepticism about the
possibility of understanding the real world notwithstanding.
- First, his
empiricism is not directed towards the world of substance and particulars.
- His empiricism is
directed towards the mind, its contents, its operations and the extent and
limitations of its knowledge about the world and knowledge about itself.
- It is the mind
that is the object of observation.
- It’s in this
sense that he is an empiricist.
- Newton’s
empiricism is directed towards the world, as is Boyle’s. Locke’s is directed
towards the mind.
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Second, Locke’s insistence that each man can
observe the processes he describes for himself in his mind is empiricist.
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His emphasis on practical experience rather than
taking things on trust from an already established authority is empiricist.
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The best
way to come to truth being to examine things as really they are, and not
conclude they are as we fancy of ourselves or have been taught by others to
imagine. 2.11.15
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