History of Modern Philosophy: From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present TimeFalckenberg, Richard
Philosophy
History of Modern Philosophy: From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time
Falckenberg, Richard
Philosophy, Modern -- History
proposition, Leibnitz defends the first by a delicate application of the
concept of unconscious representation and of implicit knowledge, which his
predecessor rejects out of hand.
[Footnote 1: According to Fox Bourne this first book was written after the
others. Geil _(Ueber die Abhängigkeit Lockes von Descartes_, Strassburg,
1887, chap, iii.) has endeavored to prove that, since the arguments
controverted are wanting in Descartes, the attack was not aimed at
Descartes and his school, but at native defenders of innate ideas, as Lord
Herbert of Cherbury and the English Platonists (Cudworth, More, Parker,
Gale). That along with these the Cartesian doctrine was a second and
chief object of attack is shown by Benno Erdmann in his discussion of the
treatises by G. Geil and R. Sommer _(Lockes Verhältnis zu Descartes_,
Berlin, 1887) in the _Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie_, ii, pp.
99-121.]
Locke's positive answer to the question concerning the origin of ideas is
given in his second book. Ideas are not present in the understanding from
the beginning, nor are they originated by the understanding, but received
through sensation. The understanding is like a piece of white paper
on which perception inscribes its characters. All knowledge arises in
experience. This is of two kinds, derived either from the external senses
or the internal sense. The perception of external objects is termed
Sensation, that of internal phenomena (of the states of the mind itself)
Reflection. External and internal perception are the only windows
through which the light of ideas penetrates into the dark chamber of the
understanding. The two are not opened simultaneously, however, but one
after the other; since the perceptions of the sensible qualities of bodies,
unlike that of the operations of the mind itself, do not require an effort
of attention, they are the earlier. The child receives ideas of sensation
before those of reflection; internal perception presupposes external
perception.
In this distinction between sensation and reflection, we may recognize
an after-effect of the Cartesian dualism between matter and spirit.
The antithesis of substances has become a duality in the faculties of
perception. But while Descartes had so far forth ascribed precedence to the
mind in that he held the self-certitude of the ego to be the highest and
clearest of all truths and the soul to be better known than the body, in
Locke the relation of the two was reversed, since he made the perception
of self dependent on the precedent perception of external objects. This
antithesis was made still sharper in later thinking, when Condillac made
full use of the priority of sensation, which in Locke had remained without
much effect; while Berkeley, on the other hand, reduced external perception
to internal perception.
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