Locke: Philosophy of Mind

Lockean views of personal identity maintain that we are essentially persons who persist diachronically by virtue of being psychologically continuous with our former selves. In this article, I present a novel objection to this variant of psychological accounts, which is based on neurophysiological characteristics of the brain. While the mental states that constitute said psychological continuity reside in the cerebral hemispheres, so that for the former to persist only the upper brain must remain intact, being conscious additionally requires that a (...) structure originating in the brainstem—the ascending reticular activating system—be functional. Hence, there can be situations in which even small brainstem lesions render individuals irreversibly comatose and thus forever preclude access to their mental states, while the neural correlates of the states themselves are retained. In these situations, Lockeans are forced to regard as fulfilled their criterion of diachronic persistence since psychological continuity, as they construe it, is not disrupted. Deeming an entity that is never again going to have any mental experiences to be a person, however, is an untenable position for a psychological account to adopt. In their current form, Lockean views of personal identity are therefore incompatible with human neurophysiology. (shrink)

How does Locke contribute to the development of 18th-century projects for a science of the mind, even though he seems to reject or at least bracket off such an idea himself? Contrary to later understandings of empiricism, Locke goes out of his way to state that his project to investigate and articulate the ‘logic of ideas’ is not a scientific project: “I shall not at present meddle with the Physical consideration of the Mind” (Essay, I.i.2). Locke further specifies that this (...) means his analysis of mental processes will not engage with knowledge of the brain (e.g. in terms of corpuscles and animal spirits), even though he had been the student of Thomas Willis. Now, Kant seemed to make an elementary mistake, given such a clear statement on Locke’s part, when he claimed that Locke’s project was a “physiology of the understanding” (in the Preface to the A edition of the first Critique). One can ask of course what this physiology of the understanding was, and if it existed, in or out of the Lockean intellectual world (as I have sought to investigate in a 2016 paper). This leads me to inquire into the outcome of his empiricism for a scientific treatment of the mind, including in the sense of a ‘naturalization’ of the mind (with implications also for our understanding of empiricism: Anstey’s influential distinction between experimental and speculative philosophy does not seem useful here). Because if Kant made this charge, there were also many 18th-century thinkers who positively treated Locke as their great forerunner in psychology and related fields: Charles Bonnet and Joseph Priestley among them, just as some prominent physicians such as Cabanis claimed to be ‘finishing the job’ that Locke had started in, e.g. their materialist theories of the passions. What one might term ‘the Locke Problem’ here is: how can one reconcile empiricism and claims about cerebral processes, while seeking to remain a Lockean? Differently put, what is the process of naturalization, a naturalization of? (shrink)

Locke is famous for defining madness as an intellectual disorder in the realm of ideas. Numerous commentators take this to be his main and only contribution to the history of psychiatry. However, a detailed exegetical review of all the relevant textual evidence suggests that this intellectualist interpretation of Locke’s account of madness is both misleading and incomplete. Affective states of various sorts play an important role in that account and are in fact primordial in the determination of human conduct generally. (...) Locke’s legacy in this domain must therefore be revised and the intellectualist bias that dominates discussions of his views must be redressed. (shrink)

Derek Parfit played a crucial role in the XX century philosophical debate. His masterpiece, Reasons and Persons, has been highly influential both in moral philosophy, and personal identity. It is hard to overlook the fact that Parfit’s ideas gave the main contribution to the contemporary philosophy of persons. He reformulates a debate stuck in the classical contraposition between psychological and physical criteria of personal identity, by introducing his most famous idea: identity doesn’t matter in survival. This thesis, and its moral (...) implications, has been a challenge for everyone tackling the issues related to persons and normative moral philosophy. (shrink)

John Locke’ famous Essay is often regarded as a work in epistemology, determining the limits and scope of knowledge. By contrast, this chapter aims to revive the Enlightenment view of Locke as an experimental philosopher and natural historian who developed an experimental natural philosophy of human understanding. Through an analysis of Locke’s experimental ‘ethos’, and in particular his emphasis on autoptic experience, Hamou argues that Locke’s approach to natural philosophy in the Essay is both a subtle critique of the optimism (...) of some of the fellows of the early Royal Society and the key to explaining his own reluctance to pursue physical inquiries of the mind. (shrink)

This discussion note aims to address the two points which Lizza raises regarding my critique of his paper “Defining Death: Beyond Biology,” namely that I mistakenly attribute a Lockean view to his ‘higher brain death’ position and that, with respect to the ‘brain death’ controversy, both the notions of the organism as a whole and somatic integration are unclear and vague. First, it is known from the writings of constitutionalist scholars that the constitution view of human persons, a theory which (...) Lizza also holds, has its roots in John Locke’s thought. Second, contrary to Lizza’s claims, the notions of the organism as a whole and somatic integration are both more than adequately described in the biomedical and biophilosophical literature. (shrink)

Kant describes logic as “the science that exhaustively presents and strictly proves nothing but the formal rules of all thinking”. (Bviii-ix) But what is the source of our cognition of such rules (“logical cognition” for short)? He makes no concerted effort to address this question. It will nonetheless become clear that the question is a philosophically significant one for him, to which he can see three possible answers: those representations are innate, derived from experience, or originally acquired a priori. Although (...) he gives no explicit argument for the third answer, he seems committed to it—especially given his views on the source of pure concepts of the understanding and on the nature of logic. It takes careful preparatory work to gather all the essential materials for motivating and reconstructing Kant’s “original acquisition” account of logical cognition. I shall proceed in two sections. In section 1, I analyze Kant’s argument that pure concepts of the understanding (or intellectual concepts)—as one kind of pure cognition—must be acquired originally and a priori. My analysis partly concerns his varied attitudes toward Crusius’s and Leibniz’s versions of the nativist account of such concepts. I give special attention to how Kant characterizes the nativist account and his own “original acquisition” account in terms of “preformation” and “epigenesis”. My goal is, firstly, to tease out the sense in which Kant grants that there must be an innate ground (or preformation) for the derivation of pure concepts and, secondly, to introduce—and pave the way for answering—the question about the source of logical cognition. In section 2, in light of Kant’s reference to Locke and Leibniz as the greatest reformers of philosophy (including logic) in their times (Log, AA 9: 32), I examine the Lockean and Leibnizian approaches to logic, respectively. Both approaches are “physiological” by Kant’s standard and are directly opposed to his own strictly critical method. I explain how this methodological move shapes Kant’s view that representations of logical rules must be originally acquired a priori. This acquisition involves a kind of radical epigenesis of pure reason: unlike the acquisition of pure concepts, it presupposes no further innate ground (or preformation). This view will have important consequences for issues such as the ground of the normativity of logical rules and the boundaries of their rightful use. (shrink)

This dissertation is a defense of a deflationary interpretation of Lockean ideas. The orthodox view is that Locke uses the term ‘idea’ to designate a collection of things that share some philosophically significant characteristic in common. While there is much debate over what this unifying characteristic might be, it is largely agreed upon that there is one, and only one, such characteristic. This is the assumption that I deny. I argue that Locke uses ‘idea’ as an umbrella term to cover (...) several different types of mental items. In Chapter 1, I look at six non-deflationary interpretations of Locke’s theory of ideas and show that while a few of these readings can account for some Lockean ideas, none of these readings can account for all of them. In Chapters 2 and 3, I argue for my deflationist view. I proceed by outlining the various parameters Locke uses to distinguish ideas into several distinct categories. The source, means of acquisition, content and the way in which ideas are related to their targets are all factors that create these divisions. The most basic division I draw is between actual sensations and stored ideas. I argue that reading sensations as appearances, i.e external objects as they appear to an observer, not only better accords with the text, but also circumvents notorious veil of perception worries. This reading is controversial insofar as I read Locke as subscribing to a form of direct realism rather than the strong form of indirect realism that is usually attributed to him. I then divide stored ideas into ectypes, , archetypes, and fantastical ideas. Simple ideas and real ideas of substances are ectypes, ideas of modes and relations are archetypes and fantastical ideas are ideas of substances that we create that have no conformity to the real existence of things. Ectypes and fantastical ideas are images, whereas ideas of modes and relations are definitions or signs. While my reading of Locke is more complex than the standard non-deflationary views, it is preferable for several reasons. First, it accounts for all categories of Lockean ideas. Secondly, it is consistent with the text, whereas traditional readings are forced to explain away text that doesn’t support their non-deflationary views. And lastly, it avoids skeptical concerns concerning the veil of perception. The more simplistic readings that have pervaded the Lockean literature simply do not do justice to the complexities of Locke’s theory of ideas. Adviser: Albert Casullo. (shrink)

This article discusses Galen Strawson's Locke on Personal Identity: Consciousness and Concernment, and Udo Thiel's The Early Modern Subject.

José Celestino Mutis y Bosio es considerado uno de los sabios más significativos que llegaron desde la península ibérica a la Nueva Granada en la Colonia. Se dedicó a la medicina, a la difusión de las ciencias útiles, a la ilustración, al estudio de la flora y la fauna del país, labor que se vio reflejada en su trabajo como docente. Impulsó las ideas educativas ilustradas, que pretendían superar el atraso educativo y cultural que vivían los habitantes de la Nueva (...) Granada por un sistema educativo basado en la escolástica, que no permitió el desarrollo de las ciencias. Las ideas educativas ilustradas de Mutis propusieron el estudio de las matemáticas, la química, la medicina en el mundo académico colonial. Ideas que se denotan en los trabajos de la Expedición Botánica. (shrink)

Empiricism, the philosophical theory that all our ideas and knowledge are derived from experience, has in recent years been the target of radical and persuasive objections. In the seventeenth century, and for long after, rationalism seemed the only alternative to empiricism, but, like Kant, many contemporary philosophers have been convinced that empiricism and rationalism are equally unacceptable, and that both positions, and the conflict between them, are the result of trying to answer confused, misleading, and perhaps senseless questions. Of all (...) the traditional theories in particular, none, I suppose, has looked to modern philosophers less capable of being revived than the rationalist doctrine of innate ideas: the doctrine that some at least of our ideas and knowledge of things are not derived from outside the mind, through experience, but are present from birth in the mind itself and thus represent the mind's own contribution to our understanding of reality. What Strawson has called ‘those old and picturesque debates regarding the origin of our ideas’ seemed to have become museum pieces, charming, as antiques can be, but with little relevance to current issues. These complacent attitudes, if that is what they are, have been rudely disturbed by Chomsky and his colleagues. Chomsky has suggested ‘that contemporary research supports a theory of psychological a priori principles that bears a striking resemblance to the classical doctrine of innate ideas’. In the prevailing situation, the novelty of this suggestion is twofold. It is not only that the theory of innate ideas may be true after all, but also that the support alleged for the ancient doctrine has a distinctively modern look. The research that Chomsky claims supports the doctrine is research in the empirical science of linguistics. The implication is that empiricism is refutable empirically, and more generally that a philosophical dispute such as the dispute between empiricism and rationalism, once it is made clear, can be settled by science. (shrink)

This article examines the history of ideas during the early modern period. René Descartes extended the term idea to include sensation, imagination, and memory and located ideas in the human intellect. Not all philosophers agreed with him, and among the most prominent resistors were Baruch Spinoza and Nicolas Malebranche. Spinoza viewed ideas as modes of God insofar as God possesses the attribute of thought. Malebranche too insisted on retaining the pre-Cartesian opinion that ideas exist in God and not in human (...) minds. (shrink)

Based on an empirical study of the British think tank Demos, the article deliberates on the nature of current political ideas. The key argument is that such a deliberation must take into account not only ideas of production but also ideas of mediation. The article argues that the ability to disseminate, brand, and market political ideas in the public sphere through the mass media is a crucial part of the activities of modern idea producers such as think tanks. Ideas are (...) normally conceptualized as statements. As an analytical tool, the article makes a distinction between the two components of a statement. The two components are utterance (or impartation) and proposition (or semantic unit more generally). By so doing, it is possible to focus on (1) the necessity for think tanks to be an `impartational node' in communicative networks and (2) the importance of attributing certain meanings and values to the political ideas (to brand ideas). From this theoretical outset, the article then describes the logic or nature of the mediation, marketing and branding of political ideas. (shrink)

John Locke speaks of personal identity and survival of consciousness after death. A criterion of personal identity through time is given. Such a criterion specifies, insofar as that is possible, the necessary and sufficient conditions for the survival of persons. John Locke holds that personal identity is a matter of psychological continuity. He considered personal identity (or the self) to be founded on consciousness (viz. memory), and not on the substance of either the soul or the body.

Traditionally, the question of how a person can be a unity throughout his life was answered by referring to the objective realm: the cartesian soul guaranteed our personal unity. But for Locke, the soul was considered irrelevant to the real question of personal identity, which was: how can I know that I am the same person throughout my life? For Locke that question was not answerable from an objective point of view, but only by a 'person', which for Locke meant (...) as much as 'consciousness' or the first-person perspective. For Locke, I am the same 'person', as long as I have the same consciousness. But how exactly should we understand this 'person'? No longer tied to the objective realm, does this mean that the term 'person' is totally autonomous? This is indeed what Locke's account sometimes seems to suggest. Inspired by these suggestions, people like Hume and eventually Parfit followed these very same lines of thought. By showing that these accounts in the end always entangle themselves in a version of Butler's circularity-objection, I will demonstrate that 'person' can never stand on its own but is always tied and interwoven, not with the objective realm, but with the third-person perspective - or what Locke calls 'man'. Finally I will give two reasons why Locke thought it was important to disconnect 'person' and 'man'. (shrink)

Empiricism, the philosophical theory that all our ideas and knowledge are derived from experience, has in recent years been the target of radical and persuasive objections. In the seventeenth century, and for long after, rationalism seemed the only alternative to empiricism, but, like Kant, many contemporary philosophers have been convinced that empiricism and rationalism are equally unacceptable, and that both positions, and the conflict between them, are the result of trying to answer confused, misleading, and perhaps senseless questions. Of all (...) the traditional theories in particular, none, I suppose, has looked to modern philosophers less capable of being revived than the rationalist doctrine of innate ideas: the doctrine that some at least of our ideas and knowledge of things are not derived from outside the mind, through experience, but are present from birth in the mind itself and thus represent the mind's own contribution to our understanding of reality. What Strawson has called ‘those old and picturesque debates regarding the origin of our ideas’ seemed to have become museum pieces, charming, as antiques can be, but with little relevance to current issues. These complacent attitudes, if that is what they are, have been rudely disturbed by Chomsky and his colleagues. Chomsky has suggested ‘that contemporary research supports a theory of psychological a priori principles that bears a striking resemblance to the classical doctrine of innate ideas’. In the prevailing situation, the novelty of this suggestion is twofold. It is not only that the theory of innate ideas may be true after all, but also that the support alleged for the ancient doctrine has a distinctively modern look. The research that Chomsky claims supports the doctrine is research in the empirical science of linguistics. The implication is that empiricism is refutable empirically, and more generally that a philosophical dispute such as the dispute between empiricism and rationalism, once it is made clear, can be settled by science. (shrink)

La primera comprensión husserliana de la evidencia en cuanto “vivencia de la verdad”, se ve reformulada en las Investigaciones lógicas con la consideración de la vivencia como mención –que implica una gradualidad de la dación y del cumplimiento– por la que es dada una objetividad. La reducción fenomenológica y los análisis noético-noemáticos que de ella resultan en Ideas I , manifiestan la remisión necesaria de toda conciencia modificada a la que da originariamente como fundamento primitivo de su legitimidad. Esta originariedad (...) del cumplimiento se ve determinada por una clase y estilo de evidencia propios de cada región de objetos. (shrink)

This paper first expounds the Aristotelian conception of universals. Afterwards, it determines (a) that in the metaphysics of the Stagirite there is place for divine Ideas as archetypes, and (b) which are the relations that exist between things and Ideas. It concludes, in the light of the above, with a reconsideration of the Aristotelian critique of Plato’s theory of anamnesis.