of association or customary conjunction of ideas, which Locke had added
a chapter to a later edition of his _Essay_ explicitly to reject as an
explanatory formula. Condillac goes a step farther, and sees no
necessity for the superstructure at all, with its need of explanation
valid or invalid. Drawing upon Gassendi for his psychological atomism
and upon Hobbes for a thoroughgoing nominalism, he reproduces, as the
logical conclusion from Locke's premises, the position of Antisthenes.
The last word is that "une science bien traitée n'est qu'une langue
bien faite."[108]
Locke's logic comprises, amid much else, a theory of general terms[109]
and of definition, a view of syllogism[110] and a declaration as to the
possibility of inference from particular to particular,[111] a
distinction between propositions which are certain but trifling, and
those which add to our knowledge though uncertain, and a doctrine of
mathematical certainty.[112] As to the first, "words become general by
being made the signs of general ideas, and ideas become general by
separating from them" all "that may determine them to this or that
particular existence. By this way of abstraction they are made capable
of representing more individuals than one." This doctrine has found no
acceptance. Not from the point of view for which idea means image.
Berkeley, though at length the _notions_ of spirits, acts and
relations[113] give him pause, prefers the formula which Hume expresses
in the phrase that "some ideas are particular in their nature but
general in their representation,"[114] and the after-history of
"abstraction" is a discussion of the conditions under which one idea
"stands for" a group. Not from those for whom general ideas mean
schematic concepts, not imageable. The critic from this side has little
difficulty in showing that abstraction of the kind alleged still leave
the residuum particular _this_ redness, e.g. not _redness_. It is,
however, of the sorts constituted by the representation which his
abstraction makes possible that definition is given, either by
enumeration of the simple ideas combined in the significance of the
sortal name, or "to save the labour of enumerating," and "for quickness
and despatch sake," by giving the next wider general name and the
proximate difference. We define essences of course in a sense, but the
essences of which men talk are abstractions, "creatures of the
understanding." Man determines the sorts or nominal essences, nature the
similitudes. The fundamentally enumerative character of the process is
clearly not cancelled by the recognition that it is possible to
abbreviate it by means of technique. So long as the relation of the
nominal to the real essence has no other background than Locke's
doctrine of perception, the conclusion that what Kant afterwards calls
analytical judgments a priori and synthetic judgments a posteriori
exhaust the field follows inevitably, with its corollary, which Locke
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account