A Beginner's History of Philosophy, Vol. 2: Modern Philosophy

by Herbert Ernest Cushman

(b) The Positive Side—The New Psychology and Epistemology. If inherited ideas have no weight for Locke, he was bound to show the kind of ideas upon which we can rely. The mind enters upon life with no stock of ideas in trade; how do they arise? The logical outcome of Locke’s disclaimer of scholastic psychology obliged him to construct a new psychology and theory of knowledge. He must offer a psychology as a constructive programme for the individualism of the Enlightenment. In his second book Locke states the positive side of his doctrine by saying that the mind is like a white paper without any original markings; that it gets its markings from the impressions made upon it. Thus to deny innate ideas and to affirm that all ideas are empirically aroused, are the negative and positive sides of the same doctrine of individualism. They are two ways of saying that the mind of the individual is free to judge for itself of the truth or falseness of its experiences.

In his denial of the existence of innate ideas, in his use of the formula that “nothing is in the intellect that has not been first in the sense,” or in his employment of the figure of the “white piece of paper,” Locke does not intend to state anything further than that the mindis free. He merely means that the individual starts without trammels and prejudices. He does not mean that the mind is completely passive and at the mercy of its environment, as his French followers interpreted him. Locke is a sensationalist, but he does not belong to that class who believe that our mental states are merely translated sensations, and that the mind itself is merely passive. He believes that the mind does not create its ideas, but that they are presented to it. The mind has original powers upon which it can reflect. The mind can operate with its ideas and make them into compounds. Thus one must read Locke’s Essay to the end to get his double point of view. In the second and third books he frequently discusses the contents of the mind as if the mind were passive, in the manner of modern psychologists. In the fourth book he develops an epistemology on the assumption that the mind is active and free.

Locke’s Psychology. The second and third books of the Essay are a discussion of the empirical sources of our ideas. One notes the Cartesian dualism of mind and matter in the background. All ideas have their source either externally in the impressions upon the bodily senses, or internally in the operations of the mind itself. The sources of ideas are either sensations or reflections, or, as Locke calls them, “outer and inner perceptions.” Locke also calls them “simple ideas,” being the units out of which the complex ideas are constructed. We understand easily enough what Locke means by sensations, but “reflections” is a word peculiar to him, which has not been taken up by philosophy. He means by “reflections” a consciousness of the machinery of the mind. We are, that is to say, consciousof our willing, loving, remembering, etc. As to the order of their appearance in the mind, the sensations are prior to the reflections and are the occasion for the appearance of the reflections. The reflections are not the process of transmitting the sensations, but they are the later and mechanical transmutation of the sensations. It is important to note that throughout Locke’s psychological analysis, he regards the mind as passive, even with respect to the ideas of reflection. The reflections, as faculties of the mind, are dependent on the sensations, and both sensations and reflections make impressions upon a passive mind.

These “simple” ideas come into the crucible of the mind and form “complex” ideas of various sorts. There are three general classes of these complex ideas: substances, modes, and relations. The construction of “complex ideas” out of “simple ideas” and the objects to which the complex ideas refer receive a great variety of illustration at Locke’s hands, but the details of his lengthy discussion need not detain us. He is very painstaking; he shows hard common sense; but he is deficient in logical classification and he often betrays much indecision. His Essay is of encyclopædic character in its derivation of all common notions from “simple ideas.” The laws of association form the chemistry by which he welds the “simple ideas” together.

Thus far Locke is empirical and consistent. However, the dualistic background of the thought of his age makes him deviate from his avowed empiricism. Besides the clear and simple ideas of sensation and reflection Locke introduces the idea of the Self. What is the idea of Self? It is not a sensation nor a reflection. It is not a complex idea, derived from sensations and reflections.“It is an internal, infallible perception that we are.” It is an accompaniment of the processes of thought. It stands beside the ideas, which are empirically derived, as an unexplained remainder. The result of Locke’s psychological analysis is therefore that the inner world of the mind consists of the combination of the simple ideas of sensation and reflection plus the unexplained idea of the Self.

Locke’s Theory of Knowledge. Although Locke says that the purpose of his Essay is to show the limits and extent of human knowledge, he does not reach this until the last book. The first three books form a long introduction to the fourth book and his real theme. Here for the first time he treats the mind as active; and here for the first time in the history of thought the attempt is made to show what questions man can answer with certainty, what with probability, and what are beyond man’s knowledge.

All the difficulties in the assumptions of the Enlightenment come out in Locke’s treatment of his main theme. Locke defines knowledge as the “perception of the agreement or disagreement of our ideas,” and yet he says that knowledge is real only as ideas agree with things. That is to say, Locke had assumed (in Book II of the Essay) the existence of the material substance of things of the outer world, just as he assumed the existence of the spiritual Self-substance of the inner world. What is the nature of the outer material substance? Locke hesitates, and the best he can answer is, “It is the unknown support and cause of the union of several distinct, simple ideas.” Substance, to Locke, is a word for something unknown. But does the mind know nothing about substance? What information do our ideasconvey to us of substance? We have this knowledge: we know the primary or constant, unchangeable qualities of substances, and the secondary or variable qualities of substances. The primary qualities of bodies are the same as their effects in us, such as the extension of bodies, their solidity, movement and rest, duration and position in time. The secondary “are nothing in the objects themselves but powers to produce various sensations in us by their primary qualities.” Secondary qualities are sounds, colors, etc. In this confused statement it would seem that substance stands as merely the nominal support of the primary qualities, and the primary qualities are the cause of the secondary qualities.

Thus the individual stands forth free in the development of his ideas, but he is an individual circumscribed by his dualistic world. He belongs to the world of an unexplained spiritual substance on the one hand, and he is surrounded by a world of an unknown material substance on the other. There are three kinds of knowledge: intuitive, demonstrative, and probable. Locke says that the individual is intuitively certain of his own ideas. The individual has also demonstrative knowledge—he can reason logically and mathematically. But Locke’s real problem does not lie with intuitive and demonstrative knowledge. The question that concerned him was rather, What is the character of our knowledge of the external world? The individual in the Enlightenment lived in a spiritual independence of matter, yet he had a feeling of uncertainty about his hold upon a world of matter so different from himself. It was a world foreign to his spiritual essence. With the deepening of the mind within itself and with its growing independence, the equally independent material worldgrew more difficult and distant. Locke feels this difficulty. How can man know this external world? How can the individual, with all his freedom, bring the external world under his control?

Besides the certainty of intuitive and demonstrative knowledge, there is a third kind according to Locke. This is the probable knowledge of the nature world. We are certain of our sensations, but we are not certain of what our sensations report. The highest degree which our knowledge of the external world can attain is probability, or an inference from many sources. Such knowledge is mere opinion, which supplements certain knowledge and operates in the large field of our daily existence. The spiritual individual stands in a kind of twilight region with the dull wall of the material world of probable existence looming up before him, the outlines of which he can barely discern. On either side of this twilight existence lies the broad daylight of intuitive and demonstrative knowledge, and around it all the absolute darkness of ignorance. Our knowledge is much less than our ignorance because our knowledge is limited to our ideas and their combinations.

Locke’s Practical Philosophy. Locke pursued the via media in his discussion of the practical problems that were at that time of burning importance in English society. He always kept in mind the spiritual man who is circumscribed by his own limitations. Morally, religiously, and politically the individual has to conform to the conditions in which he lives. But morality, religion, and government cannot get their authority from ideas inborn in the mind. All are the outgrowths of experience. The moral law, for example, is a law of nature, although at the same time it is a law of God. It arisesfrom experience, and at the same time it has its root in God. To obey it is to be happy, to disobey it is to be unhappy. The revelation of religion, too, may transcend experience, but it must not contradict experience. In both religion and morality the individual must be the final judge, for he is the arbiter of his own happiness. Individual happiness is of more value than all else. Religious toleration is therefore one of the first principles of government, and between the church and the state there should be no conflict.