Locke,Leibniz, language and Hans Aarsleff

This paper was written at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, where I was supported by Izaac Walton Killam Fellowship (Canada Council) supplemented by funds from the Henry Luce Foundation (I.A.S.). I thank Martha Bolton and Jonathan Bennett for correcting some mistakes in an earlier draft, and Natalie Davis for the example of Glückl.     

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.     

洛克论有限政府

洛克从自然状态出发,运用自然权利和社会契约理论,论证了政府权力来源于人民的委托,政府的目的就是保护人民的生命、自由和财产,并提出了法治、分权和人民的革命权等一系列限制政府权力的原则。洛克的有限政府思想在今天依然具有深刻的理论和实践价值。     

Locke on Land and Labor

Philosophical Studies -     

Locke on the Idea of Substratum

Locke's treatment of substratum is notoriously difficult. Accordingto one commentator, 'nothing else in the writings of any philosopher matches the doubleness of attitude of the passages about substratum in Locke's Essay' (Bennett 1987, 197). The aim of the present paper is to render consistent Locke's seemingly divergent strands on the subject. My efforts are organized around three levels of apparent duplicity. At each level, I argue that the doubleness of attitude in Locke's treatment is merely apparent. I argue further that Locke means to ground an empiricist-friendly idea of substratum in the customary experience of simple ideas that 'go constantly together.'     

Locke and Leibniz on Religious Faith

In the Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Locke maintains that ‘Reason must be our last Judge and Guide in every Thing,’ including matters of religious faith, and this commitment to the primacy of reason is not abandoned in his later religious writings. This essay argues that with regard to the relation between reason and religious faith, Locke is primarily concerned not with evidence, but with consistency, meaning, and how human beings ought to respond to their inclinations, including their inclinations to believe. Leibniz, on the other hand, stakes out an alternative conception of the relationship between faith and reason that assigns to faith the role of a primary truth. For Leibniz, some religious propositions can be believed immediately and without an additional examination and evaluation by reason. The essay maintains that the differences between the two regarding faith and reason are tied to a broader disagreement about how much of the human understanding is due, in Locke's words, to ‘Labour, Attention and Industry’.