What is Locke's Theory of Representation?

On a currently popular reading of Locke, an idea represents its cause, or what God intended to be its cause. Against Martha Bolton and my former self (among others), I argue that Locke cannot hold such a view, since it sins against his epistemology and theory of abstraction. I argue that Locke is committed to a resemblance theory of representation, with the result that ideas of secondary qualities are not representations.     

Locke on Persons and Other Kinds of Substances

Locke's commentators are divided about whether Locke thinks that the idea of a person is a substance idea or a mode idea. I use Locke's theory of kinds to argue for an intermediate interpretation on which the idea of a person is a substance idea that contains a mode idea. As a result, while proponents of the substance interpretation correctly claim that ‘person’ designates a kind of substance, proponents of the mode interpretation are nonetheless correct in insisting that mode ideas play an important role in Locke's account of persons and personal identity.     

Hume,a Scottish Locke? Comments on Terence Penelhum's Hume

Where Terence Penelhum sees a deep continuity between John Locke's theory of ideas and David Hume's theory of perceptions, I argue that the two philosophers disagree over some fundamental issues in the philosophy of mind. While Locke treats ideas as imagistic objects that we recognize as such by a special kind of inner consciousness, Hume thinks that we do not normally recognize the imagistic content of our perceptions, and instead unselfconsciously take ourselves to sense a shared public world. My disagreement with Penelhum over Hume's debt to Locke helps to explain our disagreement over the nature of Hume's scepticism.     

Virtual reflection: Antoine Arnauld on Descartes' concept of conscientia

ABSTRACT

Although Descartes has often been portrayed as the father of the modern concept of mind, his approach to consciousness is notoriously problematic. What makes it particularly hard to assess his role in the development of the theories of consciousness is the difficulty of clarifying the kind of consciousness he might have in mind when using the associated Latin terms (conscius, cogitatio, conscium esse, etc.). In this article, I analyse Antoine Arnauld’s early interpretation of the passages in Descartes that refer to the issue of consciousness. I argue for two separate but interconnected claims. Firstly, I show that when Arnauld sets out to make a case for Descartes’ concept of cogitatio, he reads the central passages in light of some scholastic theories of cognition, in particular, the concept of ‘reflexio virtualis’ which, far from being a Cartesian invention, comes from the late scholastic discourse. Secondly, I argue that by talking about virtual reflection Arnauld provides an interpretation of Descartes’ views in terms of the intrinsic structure of the first-order thought – a reading which is still plausible, even by our contemporary standards.     

Locke on Individuation and the Corpuscular Basis of Kinds1

In this paper, I examine the crucial relationship between Locke’s theory of individuation and his theory of kinds. Locke holds that two material objects—e.g., a mass of matter and an oak tree—can be in the same place at the same time, provided that they are ‘of different kinds’. According to Locke, kinds are nominal essences, that is, general abstract ideas based on objective similarities between particular individuals. I argue that Locke’s view on coinciding material objects is incompatible with his view on kinds. In order for two material objects to be in the same place at the same time, they must differ with respect to at least one nominal essence. However, Locke thinks that it is impossible that x and y have the same real essence but differ with respect to any nominal essence; and coinciding material objects have the same real essence. Therefore, Locke cannot hold what he in fact holds, namely that distinct material objects can be in the same place at the same time.     

Direct Realism, Intentionality, and the Objective Being of Ideas

My aim is to arrive at a better understanding of the distinction between direct realism and representationalism by offering a critical analysis of Steven Nadler's account in Arnauld and the Cartesian Philosophy of Ideas. I argue contrary to Nadler that Descartes and Arnauld are representationalists, and I also argue that Aquinas is a representationalist.     

Locke on testimony

ABSTRACT

There is good reason to regard John Locke’s treatment of testimony as perhaps the most important of the early modern period. It is sophisticated, well developed, pioneering, and seems to have given shape to the later debate that would occur between Hume and Reid. I attempt to do three things in this essay. First, I argue that Hume’s landmark treatment of testimony is an appropriation of that developed by Locke. Second, I suggest that understanding Locke’s view of testimony is of critical importance to Locke’s broader epistemology. Finally, I claim that Locke’s reflection on testimony is valuable in its own right in that it is not confined to isolating the conditions under which testimonial beliefs are warranted or justified. Locke’s interest is, rather, in a variety of doxastic states, or degrees of assent, that testimony may serve to ground.     

Locke and the Primary Signification of Words: An Approach to Word Meaning

Locke's claim that the primary signification of (most) words is an idea, or complex of ideas, has received different interpretations. I support the majority view that Locke's notion of primary signification can be construed in terms of linguistic meaning. But this reading has been seen as making Locke's account vulnerable to various criticisms, of which I consider two. First, it appears to make the account vulnerable to the charge that an idea cannot play the role that a word meaning should play. I argue that the role Locke actually gives to signified ideas is not susceptible to this criticism. Second, it appears to make Locke guilty of at least some degree of semantic idealism. I argue that Locke is not guilty of this and that he makes a proper distinction between the non-referential relation that holds between a word and its primary signification and the referential relation that holds between a word and things the word is used to speak about.     

Essence and Possibility in the Leibniz‐Arnauld Correspondence

In the 1680s, Gottfried Leibniz and Antoine Arnauld engaged in a philosophically rich correspondence. One issue they discuss is modal metaphysics – questions concerning necessity, possibility, and essence. While Arnauld's contributions to the correspondence are considered generally astute, his contributions on this issue have not always received a warm treatment. I argue that Arnauld's criticisms of Leibniz are sophisticated and that Arnauld offers his own Cartesian account in its place. In particular, I argue that Arnauld offers an account of possibility that is actualist (only actual things exist), modal actualist (modality is irreducible) and essence‐based (essences ground de re counterfactuals).     

Arnauld's Verbal Distinction between Ideas and Perceptions

In his dispute with Malebranche about the nature of ideas, Arnauld endorses a form of direct realism. This appears to conflict with views put forward by Arnauld and his collaborators in the Port-Royal Grammar and Logic where ideas are treated as objects in the mind. This tension can be resolved by a careful examination of Arnauld's remarks on the semantics of ‘perception’ and ‘idea’ in light of the Port-Royal theory of language. This examination leads to the conclusion that Arnauld's ideas really are objects in the mind, and not perceptual acts as many commentators hold. What Arnauld denies is that these mental objects are really distinct from the external objects they represent. Instead, Arnauld holds that, by the act of conception, the external objects themselves—not copies—come to be present in the mind and are therefore called ‘ideas’.     

LIBERTY,NECESSITY AND CHANCE: HOBBES'S GENERAL THEORY OF EVENTS

Locke characterizes sensitive knowledge as knowledge of the existence of external objects present to the senses, and in terms of an ‘assurance’ that falls short of the certainty of intuition and demonstration. But it is unclear how this fits with his general definition of knowledge, as the perception of the agreement or disagreement of ideas, and it is unclear how that assurance can amount to knowledge, rather than amounting to mere probability (which he contrasts with knowledge). Some contend that Locke does not regard sensitive knowledge as genuine knowledge, but only honourifically calls it knowledge. In contrast, I argue that Locke holds that sensitive knowledge is knowledge, though he takes the conditions for it to be very different from the conditions for intuitive and demonstrative knowledge. It is not the assurance alone which Locke thinks qualifies sensitive knowledge as such: it is also the fact that the assurance arises from the actual employment of the senses upon external objects, and the fact that the senses do not generally deceive us, which he thinks qualifies sensitive knowledge as genuine knowledge. That there is a (tacit) form of externalism in Locke's account of sensitive knowledge is the main thesis of this paper.     

Lockean Empathy

This paper offers an epistemic defense of empathy, drawing on John Locke's theory of ideas. Locke held that ideas of shape, unlike ideas of color, had a distinctive value: resembling qualities in their objects. I argue that the same is true of empathy, as when someone is pained by someone's pain. This means that empathy has the same epistemic value or objectivity that Locke and other early modern philosophers assigned to veridical perceptions of shape. For this to hold, pain and pleasure must be a primary quality of the mind, just as shape is a primary quality of bodies. Though Locke did not make that claim, I argue that pain and pleasure satisfy his criteria for primary qualities. I consider several objections to the analogy between empathy and shape‐perception and show how Locke's theory has resources for answering them. In addition, the claim that empathetic ideas are object‐matching sidesteps Berkeley's influential objection to Locke's theory of resemblance. I conclude by briefly considering the prospects for a similar defense of empathy in contemporary terms.     

Reference and Natural Kind Termas: The Real Essence of Locke's View

J. L. Mackie's famous claim that Locke 'anticipates' Kripke's Causal Theory of Reference (CTR) rests, I suggest, upon a pair of important misunderstandings. Contra Mackie, as well as the more recent accounts of Paul Guyer and Michael Ayers, Lockean Real Essences consist of those features of an entity from which all of its experienceable properties can be logically deduced; thus a substantival Real Essence consists of features of a Real Constitution plus logically necessary objective connections between them and features of some particular Nominal Essence. Furthermore, what Locke actually anticipates is the most significant contemporary challenge to the CTR: the qua -problem.     

Pretense, Existence, and Fictional Objects

There has recently been considerable interest in accounts of fiction which treat fictional characters as abstract objects. In this paper I argue against this view. More precisely I argue that such accounts are unable to accommodate our intuitions that fictional negative existentials such as "Raskolnikov doesn't exist" are true. I offer a general argument to this effect and then consider, but reject, some of the accounts of fictional negative existentials offered by abstract object theorists. I then note that some of the sort of data invoked by the abstract object theorist in fact cuts against her position. I conclude that we should not regard fictional characters as abstract objects but rather should adopt a make-believe theoretic account of fictional characters along the lines of those developed by Ken Walton and others.     

Existential Import in Cartesian Semantics

The paper explores the existential import of universal affirmative in Descartes, Arnauld and Malebranche. Descartes holds, inconsistently, that eternal truths are true even if the subject term is empty but that a proposition with a false idea as subject is false. Malebranche extends Descartes’ truth-conditions for eternal truths, which lack existential import, to all knowledge, allowing only for non-propositional knowledge of contingent existence. Malebranche's rather implausible Neoplatonic semantics is detailed as consisting of three key semantic relations: illumination by which God's ideas cause mental terms, creation by which God's ideas cause material substances by a kind of ‘ontic privation’, and sensation in which brain events occasion states of mental awareness. In contrast, Arnauld distinguishes two types of propositions – necessary and contingent – with distinct truth-conditions, one with and one without existential import. Arnauld's more modern semantics is laid out as a theory of reference that substitutes earlier causal accounts with one that adapts the medieval notion of objective being. His version anticipates modern notions of intentional content and appeals in its ontology only to substances and their modes.     

Explaining embodied emotions – with and without representations

Embodied accounts have offered a theoretical framework in which emotions are understood to be patterned embodied responses that are about core relational themes. Some authors argue that this intentionality should be understood in terms of some kind of non-conceptual representation format, while others suggest a radical enactivist framework that takes emotions to be intentional but not representational. In this paper I will argue that the abstract nature of the core relational themes emotions are about and the interrelatedness of emotions with each other and with other mental states speak in favor of emotions being representations.     

Grounding Concepts: The Problem of Composition

In a recent book C.S. Jenkins proposes a theory of arithmetical knowledge which reconciles realism about arithmetic with the a priori character of our knowledge of it. Her basic idea is that arithmetical concepts are grounded in experience and it is through experience that they are connected to reality. I argue that the account fails because Jenkins’s central concept, the concept for grounding, is inadequate. Grounding as she defines it does not suffice for realism, and by revising the definition we would abandon the idea that grounding is experiential. Her account falls prey to a problem of which Locke, whom she regards as a source of inspiration was aware and which he avoided by choosing anti-realism about mathematics.     

Metaphilosophy in the Systems of Metatheories

This article discusses the essence and form of various types of metatheory, paying special attention to metaphilosophy. It suggests the idea of the metatheoretical model—a completely new approach in philosophical discussion—and considers this concept with regard to the Platonic model and the Rhodian model. These models permit two different systems of metatheoretical construction. The paradigms of modern science allow the formation of metatheories that help further the development of logical, mathematical, and similar sciences. The Rhodian model allows the discovery of methods that are helpful in building certain types of theory, as well as suggesting and examining theories that have special metatheoretical features and revealing their common features and differences with regard to other theories. The article discusses the complicated problem of the interrelation between philosophy and metaphilosophy and shows that metaphilosophy is also philosophy, not in the sense that metaphilosophy is a special part of philosophy but rather in the sense that metaphilosophy is a special kind of functioning of philosophy itself.     

On grounding superadded properties in Locke

ABSTRACT

Scholars have employed three interpretive strategies to explain how Locke understands the metaphysical relationship between a superadded property and the material body to which it is affixed. The first is the mechanist strategy advanced by Michael Ayers and Edwin McCann. It argues that the mechanical affections of a given body are causally responsible for the operation of superadded powers. The second is the extrinsic strategy found in Mathew Stuart. It argues that Locke, who rejects mechanism, does not intend to ground superadded properties in the mechanical affections of material bodies. The third is the essentialist strategy developed by Lisa Downing. It argues that Locke, who does not adhere to mechanism, nevertheless intends to ground superadded properties in the real constitutions of their bearers. However, according to Downing, what grounds superadded properties are the nonmechanical affections of material bodies. My aim in this paper is to expand and strengthen the case for the extrinsic reading. I argue that what is recommended by Locke's writings on this topic is a thoroughly extrinsic interpretation according to which superaddition pertains exclusively to those properties for which no possible arrangement of mechanical or nonmechanical affections is causally sufficient.