In the opening of the Epistle to the Reader, Locke describes how a conversation shared amongst him and his friends sparked an intense and laborious debate and subsequent impasse, on certain philosophical principles. Locke, noticing that the conversation was limited by boundaries of human knowledge, decided to lay out a philosophical framework of understanding that functioned within those boundaries. The complex nature of the metaphysical quest for universal knowledge does not lead to a suitable and functional understanding of knowledge. The design of his framework beginning in Book I immediately reduces some of the heavily debated points covered by other philosophers, to that of speculation. Locke’s method focuses on where conscious ideas come from, what ideas are and their certainty and extent, and the nature and grounds of faith and opinion. Physical considerations of the mind, how essence body and spirit come to have sensation in our organs, ideas in our understanding, and the dependence of ideas on matter, are NOT matters of primary focus in Locke’s platform. What IS of focus, directly counters views that metaphysical philosophers such as Descartes had pertaining to the trusting (or lack thereof) of corporeal senses. Locke places a heavy emphasis of the use of senses as that which establishes knowledge through sensation experience and reflection.
How much we know the extent of our comprehension can be very useful, even considering the limitations of our knowledge capacity. I like the sailor example that Locke uses when tackling the limitations of knowledge- a sailor may never know or fathom the deepness of the ocean, but is capable of using a line of known length to assist in the traversal of unknown waters to his benefit. By experiencing through the senses, our mind processes and operates. We think and reflect to produce ideas, which in turn lead to greater knowledge. Without these experiences to sense and reflect on, we remain in an infant or ‘tabula rasa’ like philosophical state of knowledge. The senses produce repeatable simple ideas which can complex to form an infinite variety of complex ideas. Because the mind can neither make nor destroy these simple ideas, if we do not have the ability to sense something, we do not have the ability to create ideas and in turn extensive knowledge on it. In reflecting on all of this, I tried to come up with some type of sense that I do not recall ever experiencing- namely that the experience of telepathy. Locke would probably conjecture that we are not able to have knowledge of the transferring of thought, if we have never experienced a simple telepathic process sensation to produce the simple ideas. With the pretty sexy stuff running around in the 7 billion minds that inhabit our planet, maybe that’s not so much of a bad thing.
do you think it's the case that, as you said, "We think and reflect to produce ideas," or is it that we use our senses to observe ideas that already existed external to us. What I mean is a question the origin of ideas. Do they come from our thought, and so are created by us? Or did the idea of a circle always exist, and we simply perceive it? I think that's an important distinction to make, and certainly one that Locke was focused on in his sensational account of knowledge.
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nice pun in your title.
Greetings Oscar. From Locke's Book II Chapter III,there are different ways in which an idea can come into our mind: 1) through one sense, 2) through multiple senses, 3) through reflection only, and through the combination of sense and reflection. In Book II Chapter I section 4, Locke tells us that "when the soul comes to reflect on, and consider, do furnish the understanding with another set of ideas, which could not be had from things without: and such are, perception, thinking, doubting, believing, reasoning, knowing, willing, and all the different actions of our own minds". My take on this is that in addition to the simple ideas that enter our minds, the act of mental reflection allows the presentation of internal composite ideas, obtained solely through reflection. To take your circle example for instance, you may have initally viewed a circle through your senses such as viewing a coin with your eyes. With further experience and reflection, you may also complex that through the cognitive process of reflection, with principles or cognitive ideas of what center, radius, diameter, circumference, area, points, pi, and line segments are. These ideas can enhance or fortify your sensory knowledge of what a circle is.
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