Compare And Contrast Leibniz And John Locke

1. a. Locke denies innate principles, as there are no principles to which all mankind give a universal assent. He begins his denial of innate principles by stating that “Universal consent proves nothing innate” (pg. 319, 3.). With this statement he claims that even if there were universal principles that all mankind agreed with, this would still not prove these principles innate if there could be any way to show how those in agreement came to consent to these ideas. But, for Locke, there are no universal principles in the first place. For even in the statement that Locke uses as an example, “whatever is, is” (pg. 319, 4), cannot be said to be innate; for there are many who do not have these principles imprinted on their mind (idiots, children,
etc.).
b.
Both Locke and Leibniz agree that experience is essential in developing understanding, though they differ in their assessment of how experience shapes an individual. Their difference in views is best explained in the marble example Leibniz provides in his critique of Locke. While Locke holds that a person is born with a sort of blank slate in which the senses help acquire truths and “furnish the yet empty cabinet” (pg. 321, 15.) that is the mind, Leibniz believes that there is some innate dispositions within the mind (veins on the marble tablet) that become more prominent when developed through experience. Leibniz continues to say that his view is no different than Locke’s, in that the source of knowledge is rooted in the sense and reflection; but Leibniz does not believe that the soul is not completely dependent on external reality and so there are no tablets that do not have a “certain amount of variety in themselves” (425) that cause natural unique potentialities within the
individual.
c. According to Locke, all ideas come from experience; sensation being the primary source. Knowledge comes after one processes the ideas through the internal sense of reflection. All ideas are then derived from either sensation or reflection. Sensation can roughly be defined as the ideas gathered wholly dependent upon senses and derived by them to understanding: Reflection is said to be the internal operations of the mind, having nothing to do with external objects. First “external objects furnish the mind with the ideas of sensible qualities” (sensation) and then the “mind furnishes the understanding with ideas of its own operations” (reflection) (pg. 323, 5.).
d. For Locke, the difference between ideas and qualities is simple: “Ideas in the mind, qualities in bodies” (pg. 332, 7.). Ideas are what the mind perceives in itself or from any other immediate object of perception and qualities are the powers of the object to produce these ideas. In his snowball example, the perceptions, in us, of white, cold and round would be the ideas that are formulated from the power of the snowball’s qualities to produce those ideas.
e. Locke holds that all bodies have two qualities; primary, those things that are inseparable from the body of the object, and secondary, or the various sensations that are produced by the primary qualities. Primary qualities are associated with simple ideas, such as: “solidity, extension, figure, motion or rest, and number”- all of which really exist in the bodies themselves, whether perceived or not (pg. 333, 9.). Secondary qualities are associated with the sensible attributes of an object; namely its color, sounds, and taste. One of the biggest distinctions is that the ideas produced by primary qualities of bodies are resemblances of them and their patterns, while ideas produced by secondary qualities hold no resemblance of the body at all. For the example of fire, the flame can produce the sensations of warmth and pain, but it is wrong for one to say that the fire holds the secondary qualities of warmth and pain in its body.
2. a. Hume’s Copy Principle states that “all our ideas or more feeble perceptions are copies of our impressions or more lively ones” (539). This principle is straightforward in that it expresses that we do not create any ideas, we simply use prior impressions to form these ideas. He gives the example of the “golden mountain” to clarify this (539). If we try to imagine a golden mountain, we are joining our ideas of gold and mountain; which separately we are formally acquainted with.
b.
The first argument Hume uses to prove his Copy Principle is derived from the idea of God. Hume explains that God, “as meaning an infinitely intelligent, wise, and good being” is constructed from the reflections of our own human mind; that all ideas of God are copied from a lively perception that corresponds to the limitless attribute of God. The second argument asserts that conceptions are produced only when one has had a feeling or sensation that is introduced to them beforehand; “a blind man can form no notion of colors, a deaf man of sounds” (540). This also explains differences in conceptions, as others may possess many senses which we have never been introduced to, through the only manner which an idea can have access to the mind; feeling and
sensation.
c. The Missing Shade of Blue violation that Hume presents states: if there were a person to have become “perfectly acquainted with colors of all kinds, except for one particular shade of blue”, and all the other shades of that color, “except that single one”, were placed before him, would it be possible for him to supply this particular shade of blue “from his own imagination” (540)? In my opinion, the missing shade of blue is not a violation of the Copy Principle because no person can truly produce the correct shade of blue needed to fill the deficiency created by the missing shade in the sequence. Unless one has seen and had experience with the missing shade in the sequence, there is no way to create the missing color.
d. For Descartes, God exists necessarily as an innate Idea, and because Descartes claims that he does not have the power to cause God’s existence, God exists as a separate being. His argument for God’s existence is deeply rooted in his idea that an idea has equal formal and objective reality. God’s essence, as a perfect being, in formal reality, requires his existence in objective reality, the representation of the formal reality. Hume denies innate ideas, claiming that there are none as such. The origin of the idea of God, for Hume, is rooted in the human created image of god; as a projection of the limitless qualities of “goodness and wisdom” (539). This does not mean god necessarily exists because the ideas of an almighty being are in us, like Descartes would argue, but instead that the idea of God is only in us because we created this idea through impressions of what attributes a perfect being would hold.
e. According to Hume, if there is any suspicion that a philosophical term is employed without a mean we are to ask “From what impression is that supposed idea derived?” (540). If there is no impression that can be assigned to the term, we can confirm suspicion and declare the term nonsensical.