For only 10 pages, my mind feels exhausted. I've decided to approach Locke by picking out a few things I think he is conveying and thinking further on them.
"Hence, it comes to pass that men's names of very compound ideas, such as for the most part are moral words, have seldom in two different men the same precise signification; since one man's complex idea seldom agrees with another's, and often differs from his own - from that which he had yesterday, or will have tomorrow." (Locke, 818)
It calls to my mind the phrase "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" for some reason; that's what jumped into my head when I read that passage. Probably because we all find different things beautiful - and the same goes for ideas. I may be trying to make a point in one direction, and someone listening to it or reading it may get something else out of it entirely. That got me started thinking about authorial intent, especially in poetry. What you're trying to convey may not be read the same way. And then, while I was reading and thinking about the truths we find in fiction and poetry, etc, I find this:
"Fifthly, he that imagined to himself substances such as never have been, and filled his head with ideas which have not any correspondence with the real nature of things, to which he gives settled and defined names, may fill his discourse, and perhaps another man's head, with the fantastical imagination of his own brain, but will be far from advancing thereby one jot in real and true knowledge." (Locke, 826)
Whoa. I'm really not cool with that, Locke. And maybe it's because I took that passage a little too seriously, but all I could think about was how much I learned from the novels I read as a kid, and the ones I read now - and not just ones that are grounded in the reality of our own world. I think I acquired some real, true knowledge from those along the way. So I guess, that begs the question, what is Locke's simple definition of 'real and true knowledge'?
I feel like Locke is trying to say that real and true knowledge can only be found through experimentation, cause and effect; through science basically. That's why moral words are so hard to explain and change so much from person to person, because they aren't necessarily grounded in real, tangible experience... sort of.
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree that the second quote you provided is really jarring (it feels like he is saying that imagination is useless and is a cause for misrepresentation and error) I don't think he means it to that extent. Because certainly, a lot of things in experimentation and in scientific thinking is discovered and "thought through" with hypotheticals and metaphors, so it can't all be thrown out. Can it?
I think Locke is also talking about the power of words. How a single word can mean one thing, or many things, or have a clear label or disjointed label.
ReplyDeleteI found his example of talking about gold to be very clever. We all seem to understand the definition, and if we don't, there is a universality to the ignorance of the word. However, when we use a word like morality, that becomes such a fuzzy place because what exactly does it mean? Does that meaning change? The definition is not as clear as we might like it to be. And even if we aren't sure of the whole meaning we all have a vague ideal of what morality is...
In reference to your second quote, I think Locke would agree that imagination is important. He makes a distinction between 'civil' and 'philosophical' meanings of words, as in the gold example. He might have said imagination doesn't matter on a civil communicative level, but I think imagination is certainly needed on his philosophical level.
ReplyDeleteThe example that popped into my head is George Orwell's 1984. The book is fiction, a complete figment of his imagination. But the ideas within the book are considered pivotal, which is why the book is so widely read. It's a way to convey higher meaning through something made up. And I think Locke would be okay with that.