Mind: method of ideas

Locke think that our mind is obstracts, denominates, compares, and exercises it's operations about simple ideas.


I think he's right about that, becuase who's to know if there is such a thing called "truth" in the world. The only thing we know is that we use our sensation and reflection in our mind to judge. "what one know to be truth, might not be true to everyone"

mind: existence and unity

According to locke: "When ideas are in our minds, we consider them as actually being there, as well as we consider things to be actually without us: which is, that they exist, or have existence: and what ever we can consider ass one thing, whether a real being or idea, suggests to the understanding the idea of unity."

I kind of agree with Locke, because if there is an idea in our mind then it must exist, but if u don't see it right now, doesn't mean that it doesn't exist!

Is only when the mind receives he impressions!

According to Locke the answer is "yes"

He said that "everyone will know better by reflecting on what he does himself, when he sees, hears, fees,& etc, or thinks, than by any discourse of mine."

He think that what ever that passes in the mind, cannot be missed, but if the person didn't not reflect on the word then the word cannot make him have any notion of it.

The mind can neither make nor destroy them!

The simple ideas are suggested and funuished to the mind with sensation and reflection. Once the simple idea is stored , it has the power to repeat, compare, and unite them to infinite variety and can also make new complem ideas. So Locke is saying that once the simple idea is stored in our mind, their is no way to invent or frame one new simple idea in the mind, nor any force of the understanding to destroy those that are there.

The steps by which the mind attains several truths

Locke said that mind fist let in a particular idea, grow familiar to that idea, lodged it in the memory and name them. But he doesn't think that knowledge in the mind is not innate, but acquired, which are imprinted by external things. He purpose the idea of an infant having earliest to do, which make the most frequent impressions on their senses.


he said that, "For a child knows a certainly, before it can speak, the difference between the ideas of sweet and bitter, as it knows afterwards, when it comes to speak, that wormwood and suga-plums are not the same thing."

Gods truth...

Does god really exist. from what I've been reading of Locke and Descartes they both seem to denounce god. one does it by saying that if god exists why does he not reveal the truth to his disciples and the other mentions that god can be an abstract idea made up by people who shared the same smaller idea. and they got together and made up the story. so the questions still stands is there an all powerful being??

Truth...in ideas

Ideas referred to anything may be true or false...pg307

Locke is suggesting that since we make our own truths that we tend to judge it to be true or false because we perceive it to be true or false according to our judgment. Say god is one of the things that men believe in he will be true and will exist only because we want to make it exist , but not because he really does. this in an obscure way denounces god. he also mentions that if two men share the same idea without communicating to each other then it must be true. however Descartes always said never to trust another mans judgment because we all think differently. so who is right???

the truth can be made up.

Made Voluntarily...pg 108

throughout this section Locke mentions how ideas are made of smaller simpler ideas put together and can only reach what the mind can allow it to reach. Basically going back to Descartes thought that truth is in us but since our minds have a limit of thought we can't access it. Locke is saying that our minds have limits as well however, the truth is made up by us from simpler thoughts. and these thoughts are improved again and again. again going back to Descartes when he would say that he took his ideas and just improved on them because our first ideas would not make sense. so i believe that Locke is telling us that because we are free to improve on our old ideas we can make up our own truths, which in turn allows man kind to not have a truth.

truth...

useful to know the extent of our comprehension.


in this passage Locke tries to explain how far our minds power can reach. at what point do we understand things and until what point do we lose knowledge of what is being thought of. so he thinks that our minds have a limit. and therefore we can not comprehend truth because our minds cant reach that level of intellect or in this case that level of thought. we can not understand truth. in a way he seems to be sending Descartes's work into a garbage can . because of our minds cant reach that point of understanding then how can we see the truth??

Locke's: Truth innate in ouur mind and soul

'not on tbe mind naturally imprinted, because not known to children, idiots, ..."


in this passage, Locke had commented that it is contradicting to him that truth can be imprinted on the soul, if there is such thing as the truth being innate in our human mind than there won't be perceiption in certain things. He said that if the truth us imprinted in humand mind and is babies and idiots have souls, minds, they must not be perceived by false opinion. But everyone knows that we all get perceived by certain things. So According to Locke the innate of truth don't exist in our mind or soul.

Descartes i think is to much of a unique thinker even for this time. his work is very confusing to everyone because he tends to contradict himself. but what i wonder is who decided to make Descartes work so important. how can anyone really make sense of his work if the meaning of ideas changes because of peoples individualism?

Locke's: body and mind!

In class, we discuss how locke think that our body and our mind is not innate with each other. I disagree with it, because a new born baby do not know what a 3 sided triangle is when it sees one. We are all babies at one point of our lives, all of us learn from our senses, which we use our body to help us. sure we can figure out problems in our head without the help of our body, but with out our body's sensory fuction, we won't even know what is it in the beginning!

Is he agreeing with people judgments ?Decartes you are CONFUSING!!!!!

( I cannot say whether i have been successful in this , and i do not at all want to prejudice the judgements of anyone in speaking for myself about my writings ; but i shall be very happy if they are examined, and, in order to have more of an apportunity to do this, i am imploring all who have any objections to make against them to take the trouble to send them to my publisher and be advised about them by him)
He also says that he will reply back , because readers will judge the truth all the more easily. What does he mean with this? Is he trying to tell us that he does not want criticism but honesty to him? I know as a reader we look at it in different perspectives. In these sentence i guess his fair enought to say that sometimes what he rights does not make any sense. I have a question doesnt a judgements means honesty?. Sometimes people judges us for our own good and than we become better. I am probably wrong and confused again.

I Dont know What to believe anymore!!!!

In meditation Decartes is talking about believing in god , but in a way he does not think it exists. He believes what is not ordinary, nothing real , but something real he think is not possible. In one of the writting he says ( As if i did not recall having been decieved on other occasions even by similar thoughts in my dream! As i consider these matters more carefully, i see so plainly that there are no definitive sign by which to distinguish being awake from being sleep. As a result, i am becoming quite dizzy, and this dizziness nearly convinces me that i am sleep. ) How can someone feel that the dizziness means the person is sleeping? Confusing right? Imagine reading what he says? Right now i might even confuse you, but i guess i am just trying to make a point that Decartes is one confusing person!!!

Meditation: my doubt

One way to deal with not writing the wrong information down in Decartes book is to not write anything that he doubt on. Decarte purpose to reject anything that he finds with doubt. But I was wondering how he's going to do that because not everything is without doubt


"..........i should withhold my assent no less carefully from opinions that are not completely certain and indubitable than I would from those that are patently false..............it will suffice for the rejection of all of these opinions, if I find in each of them some reason for doubt."

according to our senses

"For in the beginning it is better to make use only of those observations which present themselves of their own accord to our senses and which we could not ignore, provided we reflect, however so little, on them,rather thanto search for unusual and contrived experiments."

According to Decarte, it is more simple to make observation according to things that are there according to our senses, than finding and experimenting something that is completely new! and the experiments might deceive you because you are uncertain of their environments.

back to descartes

... iam extremely prone to err and that i almost never rely on the first thoughts that come to me, still the experience i have of the objections that can be made against me prevents me from expecting any profit from them. for i have already often put to the test the judgment of those i took to be my friends, as well as of some other whom i took to be indifferent, and even of those too whose maliciousness and envy i knew would try hard enough to discover what affection would hide from my friends.
Descartes i believe in some previous parts mentions how he does not trust anyones else's ideas but his own and yet here he is trying to perform a controlled experiment. trying to figure out a scientific method by which to arrive at truth of being. however he also mentions that not everyone thinks alike and the idea that he may develop might be distorted in someone else's mind. in other words not everyone is going to see things the same way.