PHIL 3022001
SPRING 2018
RESPONSES #8
1. What does Locke say that our ideas of substances ARE? What are the three sorts of ideas from which they are made? What of the idea of substance in general? Our ideas of substances are: (1) the idea of a specific type of substance (pencil), (2) the idea of a specific individual (my favorite pencil), and (3) the abstract idea of either of a type in general, or of an individual in general. The three sorts of ideas are: (1) the ideas of the primary qualities of things, which are discovered by sensations and are really part of the things; (2) the sensible secondary qualities, which depends on the primary qualities of things, are the power the things have to produce several ideas in us by our sensations
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The idea of substance is capable of producing simple ideas in us, it is like the material substance which is essentially solid of which all material things are made of.
2. What are the degrees of our knowledge? Explain them. Intuitive knowledge: the ability for the mind to perceive the agreement or disagreement of two ideas immediately by themselves without proving or examining any other idea. This is the most common and the clearest kind of human knowledge, and it is also the foundation of all the other true knowledge. Each thinking being has an intuitive knowledge of its own existence. Demonstrative knowledge: that the mind cannot perceive the agreement or disagreement of the demonstrative knowledge immediately because the mind cannot bring its ideas together. So, in order to discover their agreement or disagreement, the mind will do reasoning (by the intervention of other ideas). We have clear ideas at each step of reasoning and we are also able to perceive the agreement between each step, but we still lose some of the assurance during the process of reasoning. An example is