Propositions and Judgments in Locke and Arnauld: A Monstrous and Unholy Union?

Marušić, Jennifer Smalligan

doi:10.1353/hph.2014.0029

Cited by 15 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…25 Suppose, for example, that I am "comparing" some curtains with my representation of the color white, and I come to the conclusion that the curtains are not white. While my ultimate judgment may be characterized as a "separation" of the idea of the curtains and the idea of white, still I must first have brought the representations together mentally in order to conduct the 24 For an exposition and defense at length of early modern activist approaches to the intellect, see Marušić (2014). 25 As Kant writes on the nature of the comparison (R 4634, 17: 616; cf.…”

Section: Propositional Acts and The Capacity To Judgementioning

confidence: 99%

Perceptual Content and the Unity of Perception

Bruijn¹

2022

The Southern J of Philosophy

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In recent work, Scott Soames (2010, 2013, 2015, 2019) and Peter Hanks (2011, 2013, 2015) have developed a theory of propositions on which these are constituted by complexes of intellectual acts. In this article, I adapt this type of theory to provide an account of perceptual content. After introducing terminology in section 1, I detail the approach proffered by Soames and Hanks in section 2, focusing on Hanks’s version. In section 3, I introduce a problem that these theories face, namely, how to account for the unity among the relevant intellectual acts. Section 4 provides an answer to this problem of unity, while section 5 explicates the relation to Soames and Hanks. In section 6, I extend the model to a theory of the unity of experiential consciousness. Finally, in section 7, I apply the preceding considerations to debates about the nature of perceptual representation. The upshot will be that experiential unity is not simply a phenomenal feature of consciousness, but central to an account of the role perceptual representation plays in perceptual cognition.

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Section: Propositional Acts and The Capacity To Judgementioning

confidence: 99%

Perceptual Content and the Unity of Perception

Bruijn¹

2022

The Southern J of Philosophy

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“…25 See, e.g., Ott 2002;Schaar 2008;Marušić 2014. Although the earlier editions of the Port-Royal Logic-like the earlier drafts of Locke's Essay-do not include any section dedicated specifically to the theory of language, the scattered discussions would have been sufficient to provide a source for Locke's philosophy of language whether or not he had seen the fifth edition.…”

Section: Locke's Philosophy Of Ideasmentioning

confidence: 99%

Locke, Arnauld, and abstract ideas

Pearce

2018

British Journal for the History of Philosophy

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A great deal of the criticism directed at John Locke's theory of abstract ideas, including George Berkeley's famous critique (PHK, Intro § §7-21), 1 assumes that a Lockean abstract idea is a special kind of idea which by its very nature either represents many diverse particulars or represents separately things that cannot exist in separation (see PHK, Intro §10). 2 I will call this the intrinsic theory of abstraction, since it holds that abstract ideas differ intrinsically from concrete (i.e., non-abstract) ideas.The claim that Locke held the intrinsic theory has been challenged by scholars such as Kenneth Winkler and Michael Ayers who regard it as uncharitable to Locke in light of the obvious problems faced by this theory of abstraction. Winkler and Ayers argue that Locke held instead that to have an abstract idea is to attend selectively to some portion of the content of a particular idea. On this view, to have an abstract idea is not to have a special kind of idea but to have an ordinary idea in a special way. I will call this the extrinsic theory of abstraction, since it holds that ideas are not intrinsically abstract but rather are abstract in virtue of the manner in which they are had (perceived). According to Ayers, this interpretation is contextually plausible since Locke was greatly influenced by Antoine Arnauld, and Arnauld endorsed the extrinsic theory of abstraction.I argue, on the contrary, that both Arnauld and Locke endorse the intrinsic theory. I begin, in §1, with a more careful definition of the difference between the intrinsic and extrinsic theories of abstraction. In §2 I show that, despite Arnauld's talk about selective attention, Arnauld holds the intrinsic theory. In §3, I show that a consistent interpretation of Locke's remarks on abstract ideas can be developed on the assumption that Locke did indeed follow Arnauld in this. Thus, contrary to Winkler and Ayers, both textual and contextual evidence favors the attribution of the intrinsic theory to Locke. In §4, I address the argument from interpretive charity against the attribution of the intrinsic theory to * Forthcoming in British Journal for the History of Philosophy.

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“…I should note that I am following Ayers (1991), Owen (2007), and Marušić (2014) in seeing Locke as having a 'one-act' view of knowledge and judgment. See Ott (2004) for the contrary view that first we form a proposition, and then we affirm it in a second act.…”

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Locke’s Knowledge of Ideas: Propositional or By Acquaintance?

Weinberg

2021

Journal of Modern Philosophy

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Locke seems to have conflicting commitments: we know individual ideas and all knowledge is propositional. This paper shows the conflict to be only apparent. Looking at Locke's philosophy of language in relation to the Port Royal logic, I argue, first, that Locke allows that we have non-ideational mental content that is signified only at the linguistic level. Second, I argue that this non-ideational content plays a role in what we know when we know an idea. As a result, we can see our knowledge of an idea as a form of knowledge by acquaintance: there is a direct epistemic relation between a mental object (an individual idea) and a knowing subject. But owing to Locke's logic, that knowledge has a tacit propositional structure expressing the truth of the idea, which gains full signification only linguistically.

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Propositions and Judgments in Locke and Arnauld: A Monstrous and Unholy Union?

Cited by 15 publications

References 12 publications

Perceptual Content and the Unity of Perception

Perceptual Content and the Unity of Perception

Locke, Arnauld, and abstract ideas

Locke’s Knowledge of Ideas: Propositional or By Acquaintance?

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