A NEW ESSAY
concerning the
ORIGIN OF IDEAS
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A NEW ESSAY
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concerning the
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ORIGIN OF IDEAS
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SECTION THREE
False Theories Assigning an Insufficient Cause of Ideas
Contents
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Locke |
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Locke's System |
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In attempting to explain the idea of substance, Locke encounters the difficulty without recognising it |
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Our spirit cannot do without the idea of substance |
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Why the idea of substance cannot originate from sensations alone |
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How the difficulty of assigning the origin of the idea of substance is the same as the difficulty I proposed under a different form |
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Conclusion about the shortcoming of Locke's system |
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Condillac |
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D'Alembert raises objections to Locke's system |
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Condillac's criticism of Locke |
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Condillac's system |
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Inaccuracy of Condillac's analysis |
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Intellectual attention is not the same as sensitivity |
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Memory and sensitivity are not the same |
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Attention is different from memory |
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Judgment must not be confused with simple attention |
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Condillac does not see the problem and comes to grief: he explains how ideas are formed by assuming that we possesses some ready-formed ideas which he uses to deduce all others |
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Every representative apprehension is universal: as a result, Condillac, involved in ever greater difficulty, finds no solution |
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Continuation |
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Conclusion about the inherent defect of Condillac's system |
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Reid |
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Origins of the Scottish school |
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Reid's theory on the distinction between faculties |
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How Reid felt the difficulty I have presented |
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Reid's difficulty with Locke's system was foreseen by Locke himself |
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Reid's objection to Locke's system |
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Reid places judgment before ideas |
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As a result, Reid shows that the first operation of human understanding is synthesis and not, as Locke claimed, analysis |
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The system put forward by Reid is unsatisfactory |
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The failing common to Dr. Reid and his opponents |
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Reid's solid arguments against that of his opponents |
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Conclusion |
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Dugald Stewart |
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Various aspects of the difficulty |
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Stewart bases his theory on a passage from Smith |
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First flaw in the passage from Smith's work: he does not distinguish the different species of nouns referring to groups of individuals |
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Second flaw: Smith does not distinguish between nouns referring to groups of individuals and nouns referring to abstract qualities |
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Third flaw: Smith confuses nouns referring to groups of individuals with common nouns referring to general features |
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Fourth flaw: Smith does not know the true distinction between common and proper nouns |
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Fifth flaw: Smith does not realise why nouns are called common and proper |
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Sixth flaw: Smith does not notice that the first names given to things were common |
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Seventh flaw: Smith is unaware that it is easier to know what is common in things than what is proper |
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Eighth flaw: Smith does not realise how common names become proper |
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Ninth flaw: Smith's paragraph in which he attempts to explain abstract ideas is totally inadequate |
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Tenth flaw: Smith carefully conceals his difficulty in explaining the origin of abstract ideas |
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The form taken by the difficulty I have pointed to in Smith's and Stewart's arguments |
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Nominalism does not meet this difficulty |
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The cause of Stewart's blunder |
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The petitio principii in Stewart's theory |
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Another of Stewart's mistakes |
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Further mistakes by Stewart, and further examples of the inadequacy of his system in solving the difficulty raised |
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Stewart's nominalism derives from Reid's principles |
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In explaining how likeness between objects is conceived, we have the same difficulty under a different aspect |
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The same difficulty is found in explaining the classification of individuals |
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Stewart's uncertain expressions |
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Stewart confuses two distinct questions |
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Stewart ignores the teachings of ancient philosophers which he criticises relative to the formation of genera and species |
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Stewart does not understand the question debated by Realists, Conceptualists and Nominalists |
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Stewart confuses the question of the need for language with that of the existence of universal ideas |
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Another petitio principii: Stewart's attempt to explain how the intellect conceives the ideas of genera and species starts by assuming the formation of these ideas |
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Another petitio principii: Stewart assumes that general ideas are something in the very argument he uses to prove that they are merely names |
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Signs alone cannot explain universals |
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Another fallacy in Stewart's argument |
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Conclusion: Scottish philosophy, aware of its own inability to overcome the difficulty, tried in vain to eliminate it from philosophy |
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Steps taken by philosophy through the works of the philosophers we have studied |