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
Besides real existence Locke, unsystematically enough, enumerates three
other sorts of agreement between ideas,--in the perception of which he
makes knowledge consist,--viz., identity or diversity (blue is not yellow),
relation (when equals are added to equals the results are equal), and
coexistence or necessary connexion (gold is fixed). We are best off in
regard to the knowledge of the first of these, "identity or diversity," for
here our intuition extends as far as our ideas, since we recognize every
idea, as soon as it arises, as identical with itself and different from
others. We are worst off in regard to "necessary connexion." We know
something, indeed, concerning the incompatibility or coexistence of certain
properties (_e. g_., that the same object cannot have two different sizes
or colors at the same time; that figure cannot exist apart from extension):
but it is only in regard to a few qualities and powers of bodies that we
are able to discover dependence and necessary connexion by intuitive or
demonstrative thought, while in most cases we are dependent on experience,
which gives us information concerning particular cases only, and affords no
guarantee that things are the same beyond the sphere of our observation and
experiment. Since empirical inquiry furnishes no certain and universal
knowledge, and since the assumption that like bodies will in the same
circumstances have like effects is only a conjecture from analogy, natural
science in the strict sense does not exist. Both mathematics and ethics,
however, belong in the sphere of the demonstrative knowledge of relations.
The principles of ethics are as capable of exact demonstration as those of
arithmetic and geometry, although their underlying ideas are more complex,
more involved, hence more exposed to misunderstanding, and lacking in
visible symbols; though these defects can, and should, in part be made good
by careful and strictly consistent definitions. Such moral principles as
"where there is no property there is no injustice," or "no government
allows absolute liberty," are as certain as any proposition in Euclid.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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