In Book II of Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Locke explains and distinguishes the concepts of simple and complex ideas from which all understanding can be derived. Simple ideas are the source of all knowledge, where everything we understand comes from, and these ideas are respectable to the five senses we possess as human beings: sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell. Because these ideas are only known through the senses we can say that they are only known through experience and Locke describes the two forms of experience as sensation, which is when our senses actually experience the world through our bodily senses, and reflection, which is when our minds look inward to the reaction on our minds. Then there are complex ideas which are the combination or unification of several simple ideas to form one idea based on the various concepts we get from simple ideas, or the various senses through which we understand the simple ideas. Complex ideas can also be formed when we compare and or abstract “general ideas” from the various simple ideas that we have.
The concept of simple ideas being the basis for all that we know and the fact that simple ideas are known through experience can make it seem as though Locke is a materialist, in the fact that he focuses only on the experience that the simple ideas place on us. Which is another crucial part of this concept of simple ideas and that is that the mind is passive because it is being acted upon by these simple ideas through which we experience the world. But that is mostly through the sensation aspect of experiencing simple ideas while the reflection aspect requires us to look inward at the reaction or effect that these simple ideas have on us thus allowing us to truly understand these simple ideas. One of the most crucial aspects of all this is to understand that at no time is there a simple idea ever created, all the simple ideas that we experience, whether through sensation or reflection, already exist in the world and what we are understand is the idea but we are not creating it, which is the main reason that this concept of simple idea is a passive one.
Then there is the concept of complex ideas, which are the combination, comparison, or abstraction of simple ideas in order to create a grander general idea that is composed of the various simple ideas involved the thought process. This concept of complex ideas is the active aspect of this theory in which the mind is now acting for itself as opposed to being acted upon by the experience of simple ideas. In the process of creating complex ideas, whether combination, comparison, or abstraction, the mind must consider all the aspects of the simple ideas and the experiences placed upon them and then form a general idea regarding all these aspects, which will inevitably become the complex idea.
As an empiricist, Locke agrees with the notion that all knowledge comes from experience. Such knowledge comes in the form of simple and complex ideas. Granted, complex ideas are merely synthesized concepts from simple ideas and thusly, it is true to say that simple ideas themselves are the root building blocks of all knowledge. Though one synthesizes complex ideas from simple ideas, these two forms of ideas are vastly different. Firstly, simple ideas are passive whereas complex ideas are active. Any simple idea gained through the senses and/or reflections are passive because they are not constructed by the mind. It is silly to think that when I put my hand into a fire that there is actually a moment in which my mind processes my actions before coming up with the response of “OMG I just burned my hand”, i.e. the response of pain. Sensations and reflections suggest ideas to the mind rather than the mind being the fabricator of such ideas. On the other hand, complex ideas are active in the sense that they are constructed by the mind. As Locke notes, “for the materials in both being such as he has no power over…or wholly separate them” (66). Locke argues here that although he has no control over the things in neither the material world (senses) nor in the intellectual world (reflection), he can, however, take the simple ideas from both worlds and unite them as he pleases, i.e. complex ideas. My question here is: at what point does the notion of being incorrect come into play? Surely it is not the case that simply because I unite two simple ideas that the outcome is what truly is the actual intended result. For example, if I were to untie the ideas of 2 and three and somehow manage to obtain 7, at what point in the unification process did I go wrong? Was it perhaps that I did not understand clearly either or both of the simple ideas?
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