This essay will primarily discuss Locke's notion of ideas and more importantly their relationship with objects. I will attempt to show that some fundamental aspects of his philosophy, which he deems to conserve, force him to a representational cognitive theory; however, any interpretation of said theory seems to underpin another fundamental aspect of his philosophy.
Ideas and their relationship with objects Locke's philosophy are of utmost importance as upon this his philosophy rests. As he states ‘my Purpose [is] to enquire into the Original, Certainty, and Extent of humane Knowledge; together, with the Grounds and Degrees of Belief, Opinion, and Assent’. As we shall see Lockean ideas are the material of the entirety of human knowledge and the certainty of such knowledge is a veridical relationship of ideas.
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Consequently, we need to understand Locke's conception of an idea. Locke defines idea in the limits of human understanding as ‘whatsoever the Mind perceives in itself or is the immediate object of Perception, Thought, or Understanding, that I call Idea. Iidea encompasses all that comes to one's mind, whether it be a species, phantasm, etc. From his definitions, we obtain the essential features of an idea. First ideas are purely mental realities. They only exist within the mind of man and so are numerically different from the extra mental object. Secondly, they are the immediate perception of the mind. Mental actions have ideas as their objects, in other words there a mental action cannot occur without an idea and an idea cannot be without a mental action. Locke does hold that ideas do not need to refer to anything outside the mind. For example, one can remember the idea of the night without there being a night present experimentally. However all knowledge, for Locke, is based on experience and so even though in some cases nominal substance may not exist.
With this conception of an idea, there is an apparent objection. If all that Man's mind has direct access to are these mind-dependent realities then he is trapped in a prison of his own ideas. He has no experience of the outside. The empiricism supported by Locke falls and even more importantly, in Locke's time, Man worshiping God turns to Man worshiping his own ideas. Moreover, if we can give some kind of external content to ideas, can we propose a one-to-one type relationship between ideas and objects to give some certainty and justification of the outside world?
Before putting forth possible answers to this problem, if there are any, we need to consider certain types of ideas in Locke's thought. Following Locke, in a corpuscularian manner, we will consider two categorizations he makes of Ideas. The first, and most fundamental categorization is that of simple and complex ideas. Locke also puts forth what kind of ideas man can experience. The simple and complex dichotomy given encompasses all types of ideas one can possibly have. What concerns us for our purposes in this essay is simple ideas as in his atomistic way, Locke defined complex ideas as a composition or relationship between simple ideas. Moreover, simple ideas are further categorized further we shall consider simple ideas of sensation and simple ideas of primary qualities. A simple idea is defined as ‘being ... in itself uncompounded, contains in it nothing but one uniform Appearance, or Conception in the Mind, and is not distinguishable into different Ideas’. The main reasoning for such a categorization is due to Locke's support of empiricism that all knowledge is grounded in experience. Simple ideas are passively received in so far as the outside things act upon the mind via the senses. In such a process there is no will to interfere or change this operation or even create alike in one's mind. More importantly for Locke, such ideas, in so far as they represent, are ‘real’ and ‘adequate’ and ‘true’. Such attributes of ideas are in relation to what they represent, which shall be considered later in the essay.
Before doing so we need to consider another fundamental distinction of Locke's philosophy with respect to external objects. Like those before him, Locke posited a difference between primary and secondary qualities. The former has been described as those properties intrinsic to the object whether or not it is perceived or not. For example the shape of an object. In contrast, secondary qualities are powers to produce within us some ideas. Such distinction presupposes some kind of representation theory of perception as this dichotomy puts forth a relationship between ideas in the mind being produced by external material objects. Furthermore, this dichotomy states that the effects produced within us represent real entities in the external world only when in relation to primary qualities. This is all in concordance with his belief in the best mechanistic science.
This part of the taxonomy of Lockean ideas given serves as a basis for the veridical relationship for Locke. The two types of ideas lead to certain inferences of some kind of cognitive theory. Simple ideas it seems have an inherent link to the outside world being the epitome of representation while primary qualities are those things that are truly in objects rather than minds. Therefore if we were to find the strongest defense of knowledge of the outside world in Locke's account it would contain these two notions.
Let us consider the real, true, and adequacy of simple ideas. Locke defines ideas as being real if they have a Foundation in Nature,- [that] have a Conformity with the real Being, and Existence of Things, or with their Archetypes'. Adequate ideas are those which perfectly represent those Archetypes, which the Mind supposes them to be taken from,- which it intends them to stand for, and to which it refers them, '. And lastly, an idea is true if the implicit judgment accompanying it - the judgment that the idea corresponds to its object - is true. In relation to simple ideas if it is real are consequently adequate and true due to the nature of simple ideas. This conformity of something real, which is sometimes called real knowledge by Locke, is deemed to be so as its function is a sign or mark of the powers of that object. They are the constant effects that produce an idea within us. It would seem a simple idea to give Locke some kind of external content. However, the relationship between it and ideas can take many forms.
One of the most important and nuanced interpretations given is of a casual nature. One possibility, given by Ayers, is that a simple idea in the mind is caused by a specific occasion. In that instance, the object has caused a certain idea in the subject. Another problem is that such a type of correspondence does not fulfill the role that simple ideas serve in Locke's enterprise. It is strikingly against the pragmatic nature of ideas to allow the man to create a fruitful life as to be able to distinguish between things for his use. This also does not do much for the skeptical problem. Although we can explain some content it does not give a necessary nor sufficient account of a one-to-one relationship. To combat this Ayers and others have also posited an externalism of knowledge. Meaning the representation of ideas only comes into play when they are paired with a judgment. For example, if one were to see a square object from afar which caused the idea of a circle, when the judgment that that effect is caused by such an object is given, for the subject the idea is real. This interpretation has a problem. Such a propositional reading lacks the ability to keep clear of innatism, which is contradictory to Locke's enterprise, as to create a reference to an object one has to have innate ideas of an object.
If the relationship between idea and object is to be fixed to defend the skeptical challenge, the causal relation has to create an isomorphism between idea and object. One possibility is that an idea type is always caused by that particular object type. For example, the simple primary quality of an object will cause a simple idea, and similarly simple secondary qualities. In relation to secondary qualities, although Locke states they do not resemble anything of the body, that does not mean they have no representational power. In this interpretation, both primary and secondary qualities are powers that constantly produce a specific idea in the mind. And it is through such a correspondence simple ideas are real and thus true. However, such an interpretation does not take into account perceptual error. If one were to see, like before, a square object from afar that produced the idea of a circle this correspondence would fall. If we take perceptual error as foundational to Locke's philosophy, as his works indicate, to accommodate it we need to modify our casual relation. One possibility is to add the caveat of normal conditions. This may seem to solve the problem but many problems arise with it. Firstly such an idea has no textual basis. Philosophically, even if there was a basis, this would imply that real ideas are found when such normal conditions are met, however, this is in tension with the claim that simple ideas are all real. In our example shape is a simple primary idea and so either the passivity of simple ideas which root its realness falls as something has intervened between object and subject and thus simple ideas are also not adequate or there is no such thing as a perceptual error.
The interpretations so far given have consisted of somewhat causal grounds between object and idea however another variation is a teleological one; that we take representation to mean what God ordained to cause an idea. The problems presented before can now be dissolved in a good god who creates man to prosper in this life. This role that God plays can also be equated to any type of causation paradigm one conjures up. In either opinion, the idea is fixed by an extrinsic factor. With this in mind let us consider Locke's definition of knowledge; the perception of the connexion and agreement, or disagreement and repugnancy, of ... ideas. If knowledge is as such how does one get to these extrinsic factors of ideas? To know what something represents one has to know God's intention or the object that caused it. In another one cannot have knowledge on such a reading as he does not have access to the way something represents.
One objection to the veil of ideas problem produced by Locke's framework is that commentators have taken the traditional explanation of ideas. As explained before ideas are proposed to be mental objects which create a barrier to the external world. Yolton has argued that this is an ontological stance of what an idea is and thus the cause of this skeptical nature of Locke's ideas. He proposes that ideas are not to be read as objects but rather as acts of cognition. Yolton equates ideas with perception and as the latter is an act, ideas similarly are acts. Considering all of this, Yolton denies any barrier or veil for ideas. Although the textual evidence for an active reading of ideas is not more probable than an object reading this ontological distinction of ideas does not affect the epistemological problem. Yolton is advocating for a direct realism theory of perception where sensitive knowledge is the act of perceiving an agreement between the idea and the thing itself, not another idea. Put another way to have an idea of an object and being aware of that object are the same thing. However, this awareness posited by such commentators does not free Locke from the problem but has the same pitfalls as an object reading. Consider the following
T'is evident, that the Mind knows not Things immediately, but only by the intervention of the Ideas it has of them. Our Knowledge, therefore, is really only so far as there is a conformity between our Ideas and the reality of Things. But what shall be here the Criterion? How shall the Mind, when it perceives nothing but its own Ideas, know that they agree with the Things themselves? (IV.iv.3)
It is apparent that this awareness of the external object is the awareness of a sensory idea not a direct relationship to the object itself. As stated before sensory experience for Locke gives some knowledge of an external world where an external object has some relationship with the sensory idea but that it is as far as it goes. It does not give direct awareness to the causes themselves but rather that the idea is an effect of some cause. The veil is not between ideas and causes but between ideas and their specific causes. It is this mediating nature of ideas that creates the barrier between man and the world.
By way of conclusion, I wish to give some historical comments in explaining the aforementioned Lockean conundrum. Those before Descartes did not distinguish between events of inner space and outer space. Descartes however carves out an inner space where everything was to pass through. This allowed Locke to conceive of an idea unlike those before him. With this idea, Locke proposes man is a tabula rasa impressed only by the world. The way such an impression takes place was for Locke, knowledge, and here is where his confusion arose. Philosophers like Locke thought of knowledge as the relationship between persons and objects rather than knowledge as the relationship between persons and propositions. Although Aristotle made the same mistake it seemed he had an alternative. The impression for him where identical to the object itself whereas Locke to these impressions as representations. He could not have something to consider these representations as to postulate such a faculty would have intruded a ghost into the quasi-machine whose operation he hoped to describe This tension between the inner and outer realm, accompanied by scholastic remnants and newfound scientific aspirations, resulted to, as we have seen, Locke arriving at inconsistencies in both realms.
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