Maeve Simon

Lecture Notes of Sir Jove Jim S. Aguas, PhD

Main Philosophers: Continental Rationalism

Rene Descartes

 Descartes made mathematics the model for all science, applying its deductive and
analytical methods to all fields.
 He proposed the methodic doubt as a starting point or initial step in philosophical
investigation that hopes to arrive at the foundation of knowledge
 He resolved to reconstruct all human knowledge on an absolutely certain foundation by
refusing to accept any belief, even the belief in his own existence, until he could prove it
to be necessarily true.
 He found the logical proof of his own existence in the very act of doubting it.
 His famous argument “Cogito, ergo sum” (“I think, therefore I am”) provided him with
the one certain fact or axiom from which he could deduce the existence of God and
basic laws of nature.
 He accepted the traditional religious doctrine of the immortality of the soul and
maintained that mind and body are two distinct substances.
 He proposed the fundamental separation of mind and body, known as dualism, raised
the problem of explaining the way in which two such different substances as mind and
body can affect each other.
Benedict Spinoza

 He constructed a precise a rigorous system of philosophy that offered new solutions to

the mind-body problem, the conflict between religion and science, and the mechanistic
elimination of ethical values from the natural world
 He maintained that entire structure of nature can be deduced from a few basic
definitions and axioms, on the model of Euclidean geometry.
 He claimed that the only ultimate subject of knowledge must be substance itself.
 By demonstrating that God, substance, and nature are identical. He arrived at the
pantheistic conclusion that all things are aspects or mode of God.
 His theory of psychophysical parallelism, explained the apparent interaction of mind and
body by regarding them as two forms of the same substance, which exactly parallel each
other, thus seeming to affect each other but not really doing so.
 Thus exempting mind from the mechanistic laws of nature and providing for freedom of
the will.
 He claimed that rational self-interest coincides with the interest of others, and that the
most satisfactory life is one devoted to scientific study and culminating in the
intellectual love of God.
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Lecture Notes of Sir Jove Jim S. Aguas, PhD

Gottfriend Wilhelm Leibniz

 He viewed the world as an infinite number of infinitely small units of force, called
monads, each of which is a closed world but mirrors all the other monads in its own
system of perceptions.
 He conceived of the monads as spiritual entities, but those with the most confused
perceptions form inanimate objects and those with the clearest perceptions, including
self-consciousness and reason, constitute the souls and minds of humanity.
 God is conceived of as the Monad of Monads, who creates all other monads and
predestines their development.
 The development of monads is in accordance with a pre-established harmony that
results in the appearance of interaction between the monads
Nicolas Malebranche

 He is known for his occasionalism, the doctrine that states God is the only causal agent,
and that creatures merely provide the “occasion” for divine action.
 Occasionalism was an ad hoc response to the purported problem in Descartes of how
substances as distinct in nature as mind and body are can causally interact
 It proposes that it is God who brings it about that our sensation and volitions are
correlated with motions in our body.
 He stressed that we see external objects by means of ideas in God.
 He claimed that everyone agrees that we do not perceive objects external to us by
themselves” since it can hardly be the case that “the soul should leave the body to stroll
about the heavens to see the objects present there”
PHILOSOPHY OF RENE DESCARTES

 Born at La Haye France, on March 31, 1956

 Died at Stockholm, Sweden, on February 11, 1650
 He studied at the Jesut collegeof La Fieche, one of the most famous schools of all time.
 In 1613, went to Paris, where he formed a lasting friendship with Father Mersenne, O. F.
M., ad made the acquaintance of the mathematician Mydorge.
 He enlisted in the armies of Maurice of Nassau, and of the Duke of Bavaria.
 Nov. 10, 1619, due to harsh winter he spent the whole day in intense philosophical
reflection which culminated in three vivid dreams which provided him in his mission in
life:
 To find the key to the mysteries of nature in a new philosophy based on mathematical
reason
 He vowed to make a pilgrimage to Our Lady of Loretto in gratitude of his vision.
 Feeling restless and with good fortune, he traveled to Brittany, Switzerland and Italy,
and then returned to Paris in 1625.
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Lecture Notes of Sir Jove Jim S. Aguas, PhD

 He remained there for two years and met Cardinal Berulle who encouraged him in his
scientific vocation.
 Unable to find peace nor independence his work demanded, he set out in 1629 for
Holland.
 There in the midst of a commercial people he enjoyed the advantage of living as quietly
in the desert.
 From his retreat he produced his important works:
- Discourse on the Method (1637) originally written in French instead of Latin with hope
that it would appeal to the educated public.
- La Geometrie (Geometry). (1637) Descartes’s major work in mathematics.
- Meditations on the First Philosophy (1641)
- Principles of Philosophy (1644)
- Passions of the Soul (1649)
- The World (completed in 1633)
 Le Monde was not published until 1664
 The condemnation of Galileo frightened Descartes who preferred to avoid al collision
with ecclesiastical authority.
 He deferred the publication of this work hoping of eventually bringing it out
 In 1649 upon the invitation of Queen Christina to be her personal tutor, he went to
Sweden.
 Saddled with three meetings a week early in the morning and the frigid cold, he caught
pneumonia and died at Stockholm.
 Descartes was a famous as an original physicist, physiologist and mathematician
 He attempted to restart philosophy in a fresh direction, refusing to accept the
Aristotelian and Scholastic traditions that had dominated philosophical thought
throughout the Medieval period
 He attempted to fully integrate philosophy with the ‘new’ sciences and changed the
relationship between philosophy and theology.
Descartes Objectives
A. Find certainty
He refused to accept the authority of
previous philosophers and the data of
the senses, in the search for a
foundation for philosophy
He trusted only that which is clearly and
distinctly seen to be beyond any doubt
He removed the layers of beliefs and
opinions that clouded his view of the
truth. Until only the simple fact of
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Lecture Notes of Sir Jove Jim S. Aguas, PhD

doubting itself, and the inescapable inference that something exists is doubting.

B. Fulfill the dream for a universal science

This required him to find a unified set of principles from which he could deduce all the
answers to scientific questions.
His general physics is a rational justification for a universal, mathematical/quantitative
understanding of nature.
His concern with skepticism in all its forms was directed at religious and epistemological
skepticism in general.
His philosophical method was also intended to be a method for science.
His first discussion of scientific method is in an unfinished work: Rules for the Direction
of the Mind.
The first 12 of the planned 36 deal with the general aspects of his proposed
methodology, and are considered early versions of principles that were developed in his
later writings.

C. Reconcile the mechanistic view of the world as expounded in the physical science with
human freedom and his religious perspective.
The picture of the world as a giant, deterministic physical machine threatened the
uniqueness and freedom of the soul and leave little room for God.
Method
To find certainty and a unified set of principles for the sciences, he turned to
mathematics: certainty and self-evidence of its reasoning
- the method of mathematics consists of two mental operations: intuition and deduction
- intuition is the recognition of
self-evident truths
- deduction is the necessary
inference from other propositions that are
known with certainty

Rules on Methods

 Descartes learned a variety on

methodological approaches in a variety
of disciplines but they all had limits
 Syllogistic logic inly communicates what we already know
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Lecture Notes of Sir Jove Jim S. Aguas, PhD

 Geometry and algebra are either too abstract in nature for practical application, or too
restricted to the shapes of bodies
 A more condensed and universal list of methodological rules was better than a lengthy
and varied list
1. The first was never to accept anything as true if I did not have evident knowledge of
its truth; that is, carefully to avoid precipitate conclusions and preconceptions, and
to include nothing more in my judgments than what presented itself to my mind so
clearly and distinctly that I had no occasion to doubt it.
2. The second, to divide each of the difficulties I examined into as many parts as
possible and as may be required in order to resolve them better.
3. The third, to direct my thoughts in an orderly manner, by beginning with the
simplest and most easily known objects in order to ascend little by little, step by
step, to knowledge of the most complex, and by supposing some order even among
objects that have no natural order of precedence
4. And the last, throughout to make enumerations so complete, and reviews so
comprehensive, that I could be sure of leaving nothing out.
Moral Codes

 Descartes realized that he needed a provisional set of moral guidelines to carry him
through the transition from abandoning his prejudices to establishing the truth of
things.
 Before commencing to rebuild the house in which we live, that it can be pulled down,
and materials and builders provided, or that we engage in the work ourselves, according
to a plan which we have beforehand carefully drawn out, but as it is likewise necessary
the we be furnished with some other house in which we may live commodiously
during the operations, so that I might not remain irresolute in my actions, while
judgment, and that I might not be prevented from living thenceforward in the greatest
possible felicity, I formed a provisory code of morals.

(1) Obey the laws of his country and adhere to his faith in God
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Lecture Notes of Sir Jove Jim S. Aguas, PhD

(2) To be consisted in following positions, even if they seem doubtful

(3) Change his desires rather than the order of the world

\
Maeve Simon
Lecture Notes of Sir Jove Jim S. Aguas, PhD

(4) To choose the best occupation he could (i.e., that of a philosopher)

Criticism of the Rules

Leibniz says that Descartes’ rules amount to saying ‘take what you need, and do what you
should, and you will get what you want.’

Foundation of Knowledge: the indubitable truth

 Descartes starts his meditation with an innocent remark:
Some years ago I was struck by a large number of falsehoods that I have accepted as
true in my childhood.
 He proposed a radical solution to his problem:
I realized that it was necessary, once in the course of my life, to demolish everything
completely and start again from the foundations.
Maeve Simon
Lecture Notes of Sir Jove Jim S. Aguas, PhD

 Consequently, his search for the foundation of knowledge begins with methodic doubt.
He submits his entire belief system into a test of doubt.
 The purpose is to rid his belief system of all false beliefs and to arrive at the true belief
 This search should arrive at the at a truth so certain and indubitable that the entire
structure of knowledge may be supported on its base.
 The first group of beliefs are those based on sense perception.
 But these could be undermined by sensory illusions or by some forms of dreaming
 The next group of belief are those of arithmetic and geometry. Ex. 2+3=5
 But these could be undermined by a very powerful evil spirit that may give us physical
and mathematical illusions
Foundation of Certainty
Descartes is left with this tragic conviction:
There is not one of the former beliefs about which doubts could not be raised.
- But if he is sure of nothing else, then he is at least certain that he is doubting, so when he tries
to doubt that he is doubting he is proving it.
- If he doubts then he thinks and if he thinks then he must exist!
- From the certainty of his existence, Descartes the existence of all other objects external to the
self.

Metaphysics
The Causal Argument for Gods existence

 We have an idea of that which has an infinite perfection.

 The idea we have of ourselves entails finitude and imperfection
 According to the principle of sufficient reason, there must be as much reality (formally
or eminently) in the cause of any idea as (objectively) In the idea itself.
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Lecture Notes of Sir Jove Jim S. Aguas, PhD

 Therefore, the idea we have of infinite perfection originated from a being with infinite
formal perfection
 It follows that the idea could not have originated in ourselves or our ideas of ourselves
 The origin of the idea could only be the real existence of the infinite being that we call
God.
The ontological argument for God’s existence

 I have the idea of a God that possesses all perfections

 Existence is a kind of perfections
 Existence is a kind of perfection
 If the God I am thinking of lacked existence, he would not be perfect
 Hence if I can have the idea of a perfect God, I must conclude that existence is one of his
essential properties
 If existence is one of his essential properties, he must exist
 God is “a substance that is infinite, eternal, immutable, independent, supremely
intelligent, supremely powerful, and which created both myself and everything else.”
 The idea of God cannot must have far more objective reality than he has formal reality:
God is an infinite substance whereas he is only a finite substance
 Since the idea of God cannot have originated in himself, he concludes that God must be
the cause of this idea and must therefore necessarily exist.
The existence of the physical world.

 Starting with his own ideas, Descartes noticed his ideas of physical objects, the question
now is if there are external objects corresponding to these ideas, what caused these
ideas?
 One reason could be that God caused these ideas of the physical objects and world
within me.
 But if there are no corresponding physical/external objects the God is just deceiving me,
but this is impossible.
Substance and the Mind-Body relation

 Substance is thing that exists in such way as to depend on no other thing for its
existence.
Only God fully fits into this description but created beings also fit into this definition in
limited and analogical way
 The main categories of substances are mental substances and physical substance. This
implies that the mind and body are two separate substances or entities.
 The mind is a separate substance because it does not depend on the body in order to
exist or to be understood. The mind and body are separate because they have different
attributes.
Maeve Simon
Lecture Notes of Sir Jove Jim S. Aguas, PhD

 The mind is capable of conscious acts like doubting, thinking, willing. The mind is not
extended and do not take up space, it is not made of parts and cannot be divided.
 The body is not conscious and is moved by mechanical forces acting on it, the body is
extended and occupy space and can be divided into more elementary components or
particles.

- The interaction of the mind and body in the human person

 Descartes pointed to the small gland located at the base brain, the pineal gland
as the point of interaction between the mind and body.
 The older Descartes grew, the more he busied himself with morals, and his aim
was to end up with treatise on ethics.
 The passions are perceptions generated and nurtured in the soul “through the
medium of the nerves”
 The nerves are bundles of fine threads: these threads contain the animal spirits
which are the subtlest parts of the blood: and they all meet at the pineal gland
which is the seat of the soul.
 By means of this mechanism the thinking subject receives impressions from the
world without, perceives them, and transforms them into passions.
The Self

 The self for Descartes is a conscious and thinking subject. The first object of the mind or
consciousness is itself, then later the body
 Hence thoughts is the first activity of the self
 Thought as a unitary process, takes on different forms;
 It begins with confused ideas or perceptions of the body which require the co-operation
of the body – the feelings of pleasure and pain, sensations imagination, and local
memory
 Then the soul has clear and distinct ideas, which it begets and develops within itself as
immanent activities.
 Under this head come the ideas of substance, duration, number, order extension, figure,
motion, thought, intelligence and will
Bio-note

 Benedict or Baruch Spinoza was born in Amsterdam on November 24, 1632, (same year
when Galileo published his major work Dialogues concerning the Two Chief World
Systems)
 Spinoza was born to Jewish Portuguese parents who were part of a community of Jews
who fled from Spain and Portugal because of laws that require them to convert to the
Christian religion.
 As a child, Spinoza showed great talent and was trained to be a rabbi.
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Lecture Notes of Sir Jove Jim S. Aguas, PhD

 At age 20, he started to study philosophy; a Gentile teacher who taught him
Scholasticism and Cartesian philosophy.
 However, his intellectual vision went beyond the boundaries of Jewish orthodoxy. He
started to doubt the immortality of the soul and the existence of angels.
 This was interpreted by his Jewish community as a heresy.
 In 1656, the Jewish community excommunicated him and announced his official
sentence to damnation.
 Spinoza finally left his Jewish community and Judaism behind; few years later he left
Amsterdam.
 In 1663, his critical exposition of Descartes’s Principles of Philosophy, the only work he
published under his own name in his lifetime, was completed.
 He also started working on what would later be called the Ethics, his philosophical
masterpiece.
 However, when he saw the principles of toleration in Holland being threatened by
reactionary forces, he put his work aside. He completed instead his Theological-Political
Treatise, published anonymously in 1670.
 In 1673 he received but declined a professorship at the University of Heindelberg.
 In November 1676 he met Leibniz.
 Spinoza died in 1677, in the Hague.
Spinoza’s Works

 1663 – The Principles of Descartes’s Philosophy – Spinoza’s first published work, a

systematic presentation of the philosophy of Descartes with his own modifications.
 1670 – Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (A Theological-Political Treatise), a treatment of
popular religion and toleration. Spinoza proposed modern methods for biblical
interpretation, and defended political toleration of alternative religious practices,
especially between Christians and Jews.
 1677- Ethics. Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata – Spinoza’s major work; each of
the five books of the Ethics presents a series of significant propositions, each of which is
deduces from self-evident definitions and axioms. Ethics was published posthumously
along with some of his other works.
 1677 – Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione (On the Improvement of the
Understanding), provides additional guidance on the epistemological consequences of
his metaphysical convictions
 Spinoza is best known for his Ethics, where he presents an ethical vision based on a
monistic metaphysics which Identifies God and Nature.
 God is no longer the transcendent creator of the universe who rules it via providence,
but Nature itself.
 Nature is an infinite, necessary, and fully deterministic system of which humans are a
part
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Lecture Notes of Sir Jove Jim S. Aguas, PhD

 Human happiness is found through a rational understanding of this system and their
place within it.
Geometrical Method

 Because of the rationalists’ passion for absolute certainty they developed a method
which would produce definitive conclusions and they used the instrument they thought
would give such certainty: mathematics.
 Spinoza implemented the geometric method as an ingenious method and applied it to
philosophy to a degree that even surpassed Descartes.
 “The Ethics,” is like a mathematical treatise which provides precise definitions followed
by axioms, propositions, corollaries and leading to proofs.
 Spinoza wrote: “I will therefore, write about human beings as though I were concerned
with lines, planes and solids.”
 Because of his firm conviction that the universe is a unitary whole Spinoza expressed his
philosophy in a geometrical form like that of Euclid’s Elements.
 Each part comprises a set of definitions, axioms, propositions, and other features that
make up the formal apparatus of geometry.
 Spinoza’s arguments are based on certain assumptions:
- to have a conception of anything is to explain it.
- to explain it is to account for its cause
- the cause of something is what brings it to existence and makes it such kind of thing.
- Hence from a given determinate cause an effect necessarily follows and the knowledge
of an effect depends upon and involves the knowledge of the cause.
 Spinoza’s philosophy is an integrated system which combines philosophy or religion,
ethics and metaphysics into an organic whole.
 His notion of God is inextricably wove into his theory of ultimate reality that it becomes
impossible to separate the two and understand one without the other. (Theodicy and
metaphysics)
 In his later years, he subscribed to Descartes’ dualism of body and mind as two separate
substances, but later changed his view and asserted that they were not separate but a
single identity.
The Nature of Substance and its Attributes

 Ultimate reality is composed of a single substance – God; the rest of reality consists
merely of the attributes and modifications of the substance (God).
 Hence reality is God and God is reality (nature).
 Everything that exists in Nature/Universe is one Reality (substance) and there is only
one set of rules governing the whole of the reality.
 A substance is that which is in itself and is conceived through itself.
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Lecture Notes of Sir Jove Jim S. Aguas, PhD

 ID3: By substance I understand what is in itself and is conceived through itself, that is,
that whose concept does not require the concept of another thing, from which it must be
formed. (Book One of the Ethics)
 This definition has two components:
 First, a substance is what exists in itself – it is an ultimate metaphysical subject.
 Other things may exist as features of a substance, substance does not exist as a feature
of anything else.
 Second, a substance is what is conceived through itself. – the idea of a substance does
not involve the idea of any other thing.
 Substance is both ontologically and conceptually independent.
 Substance is self-contained in thought and existence
Attributes of Substance

 Substance consists of infinite attributes, each expresses eternal and infinite essentiality.
 ID4: By attribute I understand what the intellect perceives of a substance, as constituting
its essence. (Book I – Ethics)
 An attribute is not just any property of a substance – it is its very essence.
 So close is the association of an attribute and the substance of which it is an attribute
that for Spinoza there is no real distinction between them.
 Substance – God, has an infinite number of attributes but we are cognizant of only two
mind and matter or thought and extension.
 A mode is what exists in another and is conceived through another.
 ID5: By mode I understand the affections of a substance, or that which is in another
through which it is also conceived. (Book I – Ethics)
 Specifically, it exists as a modification or an affection of a substance and cannot be
conceived apart from it.
 In contrast to substances, modes are ontologically and conceptually dependent.
 Spinoza’s starting point is the Cartesian concept of substance: that which exists by itself
and whish is conceived by itself - which means, that thing whose concept has no need
of the concept of any other thing in order to be formed.
 Spinoza then logically and rationally develops the latent pantheism of this Cartesian
concept to its extreme consequences.
God as the Only Substance or Reality

 An existing substance necessarily exist. No existing substance could have failed to exist.
There is only one substance, namely God, that actually exists and that only this once
substance could have existed.
 Since God is the only possible substance, it is impossible for any other substance besides
God to exist.
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Lecture Notes of Sir Jove Jim S. Aguas, PhD

 Hence, with respect to substances, the actual world with its one substance is the only
possible world.
 Spinoza’s argument for this conclusion has two major stages:
- All possible substances necessarily exist.
- God is the only possible substance.
 By God I understand a being absolutely infinite, that it, a substance consisting of an
infinity of attributes, of which each one expresses an eternal and infinite essence.
 Since God is an infinite substance the number of God’s attributes is unlimited and that
there is no attribute that God does not possess.
 Spinoza viewed God and Nature as two names for the same reality.
 They are single substance (“that which stands beneath” rather than “matter”) that is the
basis of the universe and of which all lesser “entities” are actually modes or
modifications.
 God is unique and embraces all reality.
 It is eternal, outside the limits of time
 Infinite, endowed with infinite attributes or perfections.
 Of this infinity of attributes we know only two, thought and extension.
 This abolished the Cartesian duality of substance (“res extensa” and “res cogitans”),
reducing them to two perfections or attributes of the single substance.
 Consequences:
- reduced the physical and mental worlds as one and the same.
- substance consists of both body and mind, there is no difference between these
aspects.
Proof of God’s Existence

 By positing a pantheistic stance, all that exist is God and God is all that exists, Spinoza
encountered little difficulty in proving God’s existence with finality.
 To the question: Does anything exits? And affirmative answer is expected to prove that
God exists.
 God exists by definition, the existence of God and his essence are one and the same.
God the substance necessarily exists.
 Spinoza offers his proof for God:
 Prop. XI. God, or substance, consisting of infinite essentiality, necessarily exists.
Proof. – If this be denied, conceive, if possible, that God does not exist: then his essence
does not involve existence. But this (by Prop. Vii.) is absurd. Therefore God necessarily
exists. …
 Like Anselm, Spinoza gives his argument in the form of a reduction ad absurdum:
(a) The idea of God is that of substance with infinite attributes, each of which is
eternally and infinitely essential
(b) Suppose that God does not exist
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Lecture Notes of Sir Jove Jim S. Aguas, PhD

(c) Then existence is not part of his essence

(d) However, existence belongs to the nature of a substance
(e) Therefore, God exists
The Modes of God

 There are two sides of Nature. First, there is the active, productive aspect of the
universe – God and his attributes, from which all else follows. This is what Spinoza calls
Natura naturans, “naturing Nature”. Strictly speaking, this is identical with God.
 The other aspect of the universe is that which is produced and sustained by the active
aspect, Natura naturata, “natured Nature”.
 Before going any further, I wish here to explain, what we should understand by nature
viewed as active (natura natarans), and nature viewed as passive (natura naturata). I say
to explain, or rather call attention to it, for I think that, from what has been said, it is
sufficiently clear, that by nature viewed as active we should understand that which is in
itself, and is conceived through itself, or those attributes of substance, which express
eternal and infinite essence, in other words, God, in so far as he is considered as a free
cause.
 By nature viewed as passive I understand all that which follows from the necessity of
the nature of God, or of any of the attributes of God, that is, all the modes of the
attributes of God, in so far as they are considered as things which are in God, and which
without God cannot exist or be conceived. (Part I, Prop. 29)
 From God conceived of as “Natura naturans” necessarily proceed, as the unfoldings of
God’s very nature, man and the world of things, or the modes or of modifications of the
substance of God as “Natura naturata.”
Modes

 There are two types of mode:

o Infinite and Eternal
o Finite and Temporal
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Lecture Notes of Sir Jove Jim S. Aguas, PhD

Infinite and Eternal Modes

 The first consists in what he calls infinite and eternal modes. These are pervasive
features of the universe, each of which follows from the divine nature insofar as it
follows from the absolute nature of one another of God’s attributes.
Finite and temporal modes

 These are simply the singular things that populate the universe. Modes of this type
follow from the divine nature as well, but do so only as each follows from one or
another of God’s attributes insofar as it is modified by a modification that is itself finite
and temporal.
 Examples include individual bodies under the attribute of extension and individual ideas
under the attribute of thought.
 These modes are determinations, temporal and finite aspects of the divine attributes,
namely thought and extension. They can be likened to the whitecaps on the ocean; they
appear for a moment, only to be reabsorbed by the same waters that have produced
them.
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Lecture Notes of Sir Jove Jim S. Aguas, PhD

On The Necessity of Things

 The Intellect, (in function finite, or in function infinite), must comprehend the attributes
of God and the modifications of God, and nothing else. (Part I, Prop. 30)
 The intellect in function as will, desire, love, etc., should be referred to passive nature
and not to active nature. (Part I, Prop. 31)
 Things could not be other than the design or manner that God made them.
 Things could not have been brought into being by God in any manner or in any order
different from that which has in fact obtained. (Part I, Prop. 33)
 Because all things necessarily follow from the nature of God and by the nature of God
are conditioned to exist and act in a particular way.
 If things, therefore, could have been of a different nature, or have been conditioned to
act in a different way, so that the order of nature would have been different, God’s
nature would also have been able to be different from what it now is;
 Therefore that different nature also would have perforce existed, and consequently
there would have been able to be two or more Gods.
 But this is absurd.
 Therefore things could not have been brought into being by God in any other manner,
etc.
 God’s power is identical with his essence. (Part I, Prop. 34)
 Proof. – From the sole necessity of the essence of God it follows that God is the cause o
himself (Prop. xi.) and of all things (Prop. xvi. And Coroll.) Wherefore the power of God,
by which he and all things are and act, is identical with his essence. Q.E.D.
 Whatsoever we conceive to be in the power of God, necessarily exists. (Part I, Prop. 35)
 Proof. – Whatsoever is in God’s power, must (by the last Prop) be comprehended in his
essence in such a manner, that it necessarily follows therefrom, and therefore
necessarily exists. Q.E.D.
 There is no cause from whose nature some effect does not follow. (Part I, Prop 36)
Whatsoever exists expresses God’s nature or essence in a given conditioned manner
God’s power, which is the cause of all things, therefore an effect must necessarily
follow.
Summary

 I have shown (1) that he necessarily exists, (2) that he is one, (3) that he is, and acts
solely by the necessity of his own nature; (4) that he is the free cause of all things, and
how he is so; (5) that all things are in God, and so depend on him, (6) that without him
they could neither exist nor be conceived; lastly, (7) that all things are pre-determined
by God, not through his free will or absolute fiat, but from the very nature of God or
infinite power.
Maeve Simon
Lecture Notes of Sir Jove Jim S. Aguas, PhD

 I have further, where occasion offered, taken care to remove the prejudices, which
might impede the comprehension of my demonstrations. Yet there still remain
misconceptions not a few, which might and may prove very grave hindrances to the
understanding of the concatenation of things, as I have explained it above. I have
therefore thought it worth while to bring these misconceptions before the bar of
reason.
Freedom and Necessity

 In nature there is nothing contingent; all things have been determined from the
necessity of the divine nature to exist and produce an effect in a certain way.
 The supreme law which governs Spinoza’s reality is necessity: ironbound laws bind God
to His attributes, and also determine these attributes in their modes of realization.

God alone is the free cause and God does not act from the freedom of the will.

 God alone is the free in the sense that nothing can impede the necessary and
spontaneous unfolding of His nature and not in the sense that He can choose different
means of self-determination.
 His actions are not compelled or determined by anything external to Him, His actions
are determined by the laws of his own nature.
 So God is not compelled externally bit determined internally.
 Causality in God is a natural and necessary process which excludes all purpose or
finalism.
 This implies that there are two ways to view events in the world:
 First is that there are events that are necessary and constitute the whole of our actual
worlds, second there are events that are impossible and excluded from reality by the
nature of the divine order.
 Analogy: Imagine in computer programming where everything is the logical outcome of
the computer program, it would appear as if the computer is making free and
spontaneous decisions, but everything has been determined by the program.
 Hence everything follow from the eternal decree of God, according to that same
necessity that by its essence, the threes angles of triangle is equal to two right angles.
 All things follow from the eternal decree of God, according to that same necessity by
which it follows from the essence of a triangle that its three angles are equal to two
right angles. (E.2. prop 49.)
 If this necessity is fully understood, we see that everything that happens whether tragic
or joyous is completely inevitable.
 Spinoza believes that we can have an adequate knowledge of God. In part 2. Prop 47, he
writes:
 The human mind has an adequate knowledge of the eternal and infinite essence of God.
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Lecture Notes of Sir Jove Jim S. Aguas, PhD

 But men who do not have clear knowledge of God may have different illusions of God.
 Free will like contingency is an illusion based on an inadequate knowledge of the divine
Nature and of how the whole scheme of things logically proceeds from the divine
nature.
 Men are deceived because they think themselves free and the sole reason for thinking
so is that they are conscious of their own actions and ignorant of the causes by which
those actions are determined. (Part 2. Prop 35)
Kinds of Knowledge (II, prop 40)
1. Sense Experience and Imagination
2. Reason
3. Intuition

 He who has a true idea simultaneously knows that he has a true idea, and cannot doubt
of the truth of the thing perceived. (Prop 43)
 A true idea in us is an idea which adequate in God, in so far as he is displayed through
the nature of the human mind.

- Sense Experience and Imagination

 Knowledge based on the sense

- From particular things represented to our intellect fragmentarily, confusedly and

without order through our senses. I have settled to call such perceptions by the name of
knowledge from the mere suggestions of experience.

 Knowledge based on opinion or imagination

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Lecture Notes of Sir Jove Jim S. Aguas, PhD

- from symbols, e.g., from the fact of having read or heard certain words we remember
things and form certain ideas concerning them, similar to those through which we
imagine things I shall call both these ways of regarding things knowledge of the first
kind, opinion, or imagination.

 Reason
 From the fact that we have notions common to all men, and adequate ideas of the
properties of things; this I call reason and knowledge of the second kind.

 Intuition
 Besides these two kinds of knowledge, there is, as I will hereafter show,a third kind of
knowledge, which we will call intuition. This kind of knowledge proceeds from an
adequate idea of the absolute essence of certain attributes of God to the adequate
knowledge of the essence of things.
 Knowledge of the first kind is the only source of falsity, knowledge of the second and
third kind is necessarily true. (Prop. 41)
 Proof._The first kind of knowledge gives us inadequate and confused ideas, therefore,
this kind of knowledge is the only source of falsity.
 The second and third kinds of knowledge give us ideas which are adequate
 Knowledge of the second and third kinds, not knowledge of the first kind, teaches us to
distinguish the true from the false. (Prop. 42)
 This proposition is self-evident. Because he who knows how to distinguish between true
and false, must have an adequate idea of true false.
Ignorance and the Problem of Evil

 If God is the ultimate substance and everything is identified with him and if God is a
good God then everything is good.
 Hence there should be no evil in the world.
 If all that exists is God, then to postulate the presence of evil is to designate God as evil.
 For Spinoza evil exists only as ignorance. Nature and consequently the world is good,
and evil is that ignorance which hinders an individual from viewing the objective world
in its proper perspective.
 Evil is misunderstanding, a distortion of reality, it is perplexity, confusion, an ignorance
since it is a concept repugnant to and contrary to that of a good and perfect God.
 Error and falsity consist in the privation of knowledge which involves inadequate;
fragmentary or confused ideas.
 If man could understand the world with an omniscient mind like that of God which
understands every fact in its proper relationship to the whole, then he will see
everything as good and evil would be non-existent.
Maeve Simon
Lecture Notes of Sir Jove Jim S. Aguas, PhD

Freedom of the (Human) Will

 Spinoza denies the doctrine of the freedom of the will instead assumes that if anyone
knows what is right then he will automatically do it.
 Will is synonymous with understanding, to understand the right to choose it.
 If we have a clear and adequate understanding of reality then we will always choose
rightly.
 In the mind there is no absolute or free will, but the mind is determined to wish has also
been determined by another cause and so on to infinity.
 Will and understanding are nothing beyond the individual volition and ideas.
 A particular volition and a particular idea are one and the same.
Moral Salvation

 Moral salvation is achieved through the intellectual love of God

 Understanding and embracing the will of God is the same as understanding the laws of
nature and obeying them.
 The mind’s highest good is the knowledge of God and the mind’s highest virtue is to
know God.
 The mind’s highest virtue is to undertand…. The highest that the mind can understand is
God,…. Therefore the highest virtue of the mind is to understand or to know God.
Ethics: The Emotion and the Power of the Intellect

 In part III of the Ethics,Spinoza discusses the nature of emotions.

 All our emotions are responses to objects in the past, present and future.
 They are all based on the illusion that events in the past or present could have gone
differently from the way they did or that the future is not yet determined.
 By emotion I mean the modifications of the body, whereby the active power of the said
body is increased or diminished, aided or constrained, and also the ideas of such
modifications.

- N.B. if we can be the adequate cause of any of these modifications, I then call the
emotion an activity, otherwise I call it a passion, or state wherein the mind is passive.
 Following his geometric method, he gave a detailed classification of the emotions and
deduced their effects.
 Emotions follow a logical order hence their effects are predictable like a physics
experiment.
 Hence a careful scientific analysis will give us a means to have control over them.
The Notion of Conatus
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Lecture Notes of Sir Jove Jim S. Aguas, PhD

 Conatus is the inner force that drive everything for self-preservation; this is the basic
law of nature.
 Conatus is striving
 Everything, in so far as it is in itself, endeavors to persist in its own being. (Part 3 Prop 6)
 To persevere in its own being does not only mean to exist but to fulfill its nature
 Conatus is not limited to human beings alone, it is common to everything is nature. Even
non-living beings strives for the fulfillment of their nature
 In human beings this striving or conatus is called the will when it is related to the mind
alone and appetite when it is related to both mind and body and desire when we are
conscious of his striving
 All our problems stem from the fact that we are all slaves to our passions. When we do
not understand the nature of our passions.
 Having inadequate ideas causes us to be acted on by our passions and we become
victimized by our emotions
 We become passive; hence passion is not something that we do but something that
happen to us.
Power of Mind over the Passions

 In Part V Spinoza demonstrated that the power of the intellect can overcome this
bondage.
 Our mind both acts and is acted on.
 In so far as it has adequate ideas it is acted on.
 When we acquire clear and distinct ideas about them, then the intellect has power over
our passions, and passions lose their grip on us.
 To have serenity and emotional liberation we have to:
 1) recognize that everything that happens is necessary and
 2) embrace this with understanding and acceptance
 Confidence is pleasure arising from the idea of something past or future, wherefrom all
cause of doubt has been removed.
 Despair is pain arising from the idea of something past or future, wherefrom all cause of
doubt has been removed.
 Joy is pleasure accompanied by the idea of something past, which has had an issue
beyond our hope.
 Disappointment is pain accompanied by the idea of something past, which has had an
issue contrary to our hope.
 Pity is pain accompanied by the idea of evil, which has befallen someone else whom we
conceive to be like ourselves explanation. Between pity and sympathy (misericordia)
there seems to be no difference, unless perhaps that the former is used in reference to
a particular action, and the latter in reference to a disposition.
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Lecture Notes of Sir Jove Jim S. Aguas, PhD

 Regret is the desire or appetite to possess something, kept alive by the remembrance of
the said thing, and at the same time constrained by the remembrance of other things
which exclude the existence of it.
 Emulation is the desire of something, engendered in us by our conception that others
have the same desire.
 Thankfulness or Gratitude is the desire or zeal springing from love, whereby we
endeavor to benefit him, who with similar feelings of love has conferred a benefit on us.
Cf. III. Xxxix. Note and xl.
 Benevolence is the desire of benefiting one whom we pity. Cf. III. Xxvii. Note.
 Anger is the desire whereby through hatred we are induced to injure one whom we hate
 Consternation is attributed to one, whose desire avoiding evil Is checked by amazement
at the evil which he fears.
 Courtesy or deference (Humanists seu modestia), is the desire of acting in a way that
should please
 Men, and refraining from that which should displease them.
 Ambition is the immoderate desire of power.
 Luxury is excessive desire, or even love of living sumptuously.
 Intemperance is the excessive desire and love drinking
 Avarice is the excessive desire and love of riches.
 Lust is desire and love in the matter of sexual intercourse.
 Revenge is the desire whereby we are induced, through mutual hatred, to injure one
who, with similar feelings, has injured us.
 Timidity is the desire to avoid a greater evil, which we dread, by undergoing a lesser evil.
 Daring is the desire, whereby a man is set on to do something dangerous which is equals
fear to attempt.
 Cowardice is attributed to one, whose desire is checked by the fear of some danger
which his equals danger to encounter.
 Sympathy (misericordia) is love, in so far as it induces a man to feel pleasure at
another’s good fortune and pain at another’s evil fortune
 Self-approvalis pleasure arising from a man’s contemplation of himself and his own
power of action .
 Humility is pain arising from a man’s contemplation of his own weakness of body or
mind.
 Repentance is pain accompanied by the idea of some action, which we believe we have
performed by the free decision of our mind
 Pride is thinking too highly of one’s self by reason of pain
 Honour (Gloria) is pleasure accompanied by the idea of some action of our own, which
we believe to be praised by others.
 Shame is pain accompanied by the idea of some action of our own, which we believe to
be blamed by others.
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Lecture Notes of Sir Jove Jim S. Aguas, PhD

 Approval is love towards one who has done good to another.

 Indignation is hatred towards one who has done evil to another.
 Partiality is thinking too highly of anyone because of the love we bear him.
 Envy is hatred, in so far as it induces a man to be pained by another’s good fortune, and
to rejoice in another’s evil fortune.
 Envy is generally opposed to sympathy, which, by doing some violence to the meaning
of the word, may therefore be thus defined.
 Love is pleasure, accompanied by the idea of an external cause
 Hatred is pain, accompanied by the idea of an external cause
 Inclination is pleasure, accompanied by the idea of something which is accidentally the
cause of pain
 Devotion is love towards one whom we admire
 Derision is pleasure arising from our conceiving the presence of a quality , which we
despise, in an object we hate.
 Hope is an inconstant pleasure, arising from the idea of something part or future,
whereof we to a certain extent doubt the issue.
 Fear is an inconstant pain arising from the idea, of something part or future, whereof we
to certain extent doubt the issue.
 Desire is the actual essence of man, in so far as it is conceived, as determined to a
particular activity by some given modification of itself.
 Pleasure is the transition of a man from a less to a greater perfection
 Pain is the transition of a man from a greater to a less perfection
 Wonder is the conception (imagination) of anything, wherein the mind comes to a
stand, because the particular concept in question has no connection with other
concepts.
 Contempt is the conception of anything which touches the mind so little, that its
presence leads them mind to imagine those qualities which are not in it rather than such
as are in it. The definitions of veneration and scorn I here pass over, for I am not aware
that any emotions are named after them.
Maeve Simon
Lecture Notes of Sir Jove Jim S. Aguas, PhD

Empiricism: An Introduction

 Empiricism is a school of thought that stresses that experience rather than reason is the
source of knowledge, and in this sense it is opposed to rationalism.
 It rejects Intuition/Deduction and Innate Knowledge.
 Knowledge is a posteriori and is dependent upon sense experience. Sense experience is
our only source of ideas.
 The general thesis of empiricism, however, has different interpretations and
modifications; philosophers who have been labeled as empiricists differ in their views
and positions.
 While Aristotle and St. Thomas are considered empiricists, their positions are different
from Locke and Hume and other 17th century empiricists.
 The word empiricism is derived from the Greek emperia, the Latin translation of which is
experientia, from which the English experience, was derived.
 For Aristotle experience is the unorganized product of sense perception and memory.
Memory is required so that what is perceived may be retained in mind.
 When we say that we learned something from experience, we mean we have come to
know of it by the use of our senses or sense perception.
 We have experience when we are sufficiently aware of what we have discovered in this
way.
 Sense experience or perception is different from the notion of “lived experience” of the
phenomenologists and existentialists.
 We can also connect experience to sensations, feelings and so on, are experiences and in
which to perceive something involves having sense experiences.
 These experiences which just happen to us suggest experience is passive.
 However, it is undeniable that experience is a source of knowledge.
 The main question is whether knowledge depends ultimately on the use of the senses
and on what is discovered through them.
 The common sense view is that the senses do provide us with knowledge of some sort,
and most people, when philosophizing, adopt this kind of empiricist view.
 However, some have generalized such position into the thesis that all knowledge comes
from experience; its extreme form claims that no source other than experience provides
knowledge at all.
 Knowledge is dependent on experience and we cannot have ideas or concepts that are
not derived from experience.
 It maintains that all concepts are a posteriori, whether or not the truths which can
asserted by means of these concepts are themselves a posteriori.
 However, there are certain truths that we know without resorting immediately to
experience for their validation because their truth may depend solely on the logical
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Lecture Notes of Sir Jove Jim S. Aguas, PhD

relations between the ideas involved, although the ideas may themselves be derived
from experience for knowledge are ultimately derived from experience.
 If all our ideas are so derived, then knowledge of any sort must be dependent on some
experience in some way.
John Locke
Life and Works

 John Locke was born in 1632 at Wrington, Somersetshire, England

 He was raised in a liberal Puritan family and early in his life has learned the virtues of
temperance, simplicity, and aversion to display.
 In 1647 he enrolled at Westminster School in London, where he studied the classics,
Hebrew, and Arabic; he also earned the distinct honor of being named a King’s Scholar,
a privilege accorded to only select number of boys and paved the way for Locke to
attend the prestigious Christ Church, Oxford in 1652.
 He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in l656 and two years later returned to Christ
Church for a Master of Arts, which led in just a few short years to Locke taking on
tutorial work at the college.
 After his father’s death in 1661 he was left with a small inheritance and some
independence.
 He studied philosophy and the natural sciences at Oxford, and received a degree in
medicine in 1674 that would allow him to practice medicine.
 In 1668 Locke was elected a fellow of the Royal Society and worked with such noted
scientists and thinkers as Robert Boyle, Thomas Willis, Robert Hooke and Richard Lower.
 Early in his medical studies, Locke met Lord Ashley, who was to become Earl of
Shaftsbury. The two grew close and Shaftsbury eventually persuaded Locke to move to
London and become his personal physician in 1666.
 Locke became acquainted with many men who had a profound influence upon his life.
From Robert Boyle, Locke learned about new sciences and the experimental and
empirical methods.
 Although he studied medicine never practices it publicly and was not permitted to take
medical degree, which would have permitted to teach it.
 When Locke moved to London to be personal physician of Lord Ashley, Earl of
Shaftsbury, he found himself involved in the political affairs of the time. But as a fellow
in the Royal Society he continued to be in touch with learning.
 Because of health reason Locke went on a prolonged visit to France in 1675 where he
made friends and came into contact with the foremost minds of his day
 In 1679 Locke returned to an England torn by intense political conflicts. Because of his
association with Shaftesbury he was put under surveillance and fearing persecution he
fled to Holland.
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Lecture Notes of Sir Jove Jim S. Aguas, PhD

 During his stay in Holland, Locke again acquired a wide circle of distinguished friends
and wrote extensively. But these activities did not prevent him from being deeply
engaged in politics.
 He was involved in the plot to set William of Orange on the throne if England. The
Glorious Revolution succeeded in 1688, and in 1689 Locke returned to England,
escorting the princess of Orange , who later became Queen Mary.
 In 1689 and 1690 Locke’s two most important works, An Essay Concerning
Understanding and Two Treatises of Government, were published.
 Locke died on October 28, 1704. He did not marry and had no children.
 Locke became the representative of the English culture of his time. With a mind open
the most varied problems, Locke was a philosopher, a doctor of medicine, and educator,
a politician and a man of action.
 Just like many of his contemporary thinkers he was not happy with the study of the
Scholastic philosophy. He studied and managed to learn many new areas of thought. As
a master, Locke lectured on Latin and Greek
 After a diplomatic mission to Cleves – (part of present day Germany) he returned to
Oxford. Upon his return he turned seriously to philosophy and Descartes was the first
philosopher whom Locke enjoyed reading and the first to show him an alternative to
Scholasticism.
Locke’s principal works, in chronological order,are:

 Essay concerning human understanding (his masterpiece)

 Treatises on government
 Thoughts on education
Philosophical Influence & General Ideas

 The two most important philosophical influences of Locke were Rene Descartes and
Pierre Gassendi.
 From Descartes he learned much that is incorporated in Essay, and in Gassendi and the
Gassendists he found support to challenge the doctrine of innate ideas and the radical
rationalistic realism of Descartes.
 Through Gassendi he became convinced that knowledge begins in sensation and that
intellect, or reason, and is essential to the attainment of truth and knowledge.
 Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes were the first to provide a theory of knowledge
based on empirical experience at least during the modern period. However, they were
not truly conscious of the phenomenalistic consequences of their theory of knowledge ,
they both considered sensational phenomenal presentations and also as
representations of reality.
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Lecture Notes of Sir Jove Jim S. Aguas, PhD

 Locke on the other hand considered sensations merely as subjective presentations, in

effect he gave us a theory of knowledge of subjective data devoid of any relation with
external objects.
 Hence Locke is the first to give us a logic for Empiricism, that is, for sensations
considered as phenomena of knowledge.
 The empiricism of Locke excluded any consistent metaphysics of objective reality. Locke,
However, overlooking everything he has established in his solution to the problem of
knowledge, gave us a metaphysics which is not greatly different from the traditional
Scholastic teaching.
 He even appeals to the familiar principles of Scholasticism, showing how difficult it is for
man to withdraw from the philosophy of being.
 Locke subscribes the natural law concept as an expression of the idea that there were
certain moral truths that applied to all people, regardless of the particular place where
they lived or the agreements they had made.
 Natural law is also distinct from the divine law that the latter, in the Christian tradition,
generally refers to those laws that God had directly revealed through prophets and
other inspired writers.
 Natural law can be discovered by reason alone and applied to all people.
 The divine law can be discovered only through God’s special revelation and applies only
to those whom it is revealed and who God specifically indicates are to be bound
 For Locke the divine law and natural law are consistent and can overlap in content, but
they are not extensive
 Thus there is no problem for Locke if the Bible commands a moral code that is stricter
than the one can be derived from natural law.
 However, a real problem may arise if the Bible teaches what is contrary to natural law.
In practice, Locke avoided this problem by consistently appealing to natural law as one
of the criteria when deciding the proper interpretation of Biblical passages.
Epistemology: Origin of Knowledge

 Like Descartes, Locke wanted to establish knowledge on solid foundation and in order to
do this he needed first to examine the groundwork of human understanding and see if it
could support the inquiry at the higher levels of human cognition like the question on
God and ethics.
 His task then is to inquire into the original sources of certainty and extent of human
knowledge, together with the grounds and degrees of beliefs, opinion and assent.
 But unlike Descartes he was more modest in his expectation and dealt more with the
mundane and practical data of sense experience instead of indulging in any fanciful
flights of speculation
 He could have wish for the full light of the sun by which he could do his work but he was
satisfied with the limited candle light of the human intellect.
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Lecture Notes of Sir Jove Jim S. Aguas, PhD

 Locke explains his project in several places. Perhaps the most important of his goals is to
determine the limits of human understanding.
 In order to accomplish this task or project Locke proposed to use the “historical plain
method”
 By historical means the conviction that the genealogy of our ideas must be traced back
until we reach their original sources and by plain he means a common sense approach
that avoids speculation and theoretical stuffs.
 In the four books of the Essay Locke considers the sources and nature of human
knowledge
 Book I argues that we have no innate knowledge. (In this he resembles Berkeley and
Hume, and differs from Descartes and Leibniz). So, at birth, the human mind is a sort of
blank slate on which experience writes.
 In Book II of the Essay, Locke gives his positive account of how we acquire the materials
of knowledge.
 In Book III deals with the nature of language, its connections with ideas and its role in
knowledge
 Book IV, the culmination of the previous reflections, explains the nature and limits of
knowledge, probability, and the relation of reason and faith.
Critique of Innate Ideas

 The first step in his project to clear away the debate of unintelligible terms and useless
systems of thoughts and then make a fresh start in the construction of a new
understanding of human cognition. The debris is obviously the innate ideas
 The role of Book I of the Essay is to make the case that being innate is not a way in
which the understanding is furnished with principles and ideas.
 Descartes had admitted that some ideas are innate in the intellect. Locke dedicated the
first book of his Essay Concerning Understanding to a refutation of Descartes’ innatism
 Locke treats innateness as an empirical hypothesis and argues that there is no good
evidence to support it.
 Locke describes innate ideas as “some primary notions… Characters as it were stamped
upon the Mind of Man, which the Soul receives in its very first Being; and brings into the
world with it.”
 In pursuing this enquiry, Locke rejects the claim that there are speculative innate
principles, practical innate moral principles or that we have innate ideas of God, identity
or impossibility.
 He rejects arguments from universal assent and attacks dispositional accounts of innate
principles.
 If there is a universal knowledge about certain universal principles it is because our
human experience in uniform not because they are innate
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Lecture Notes of Sir Jove Jim S. Aguas, PhD

 If we had innate ideas, says Locke, we would be conscious of having them. But it is an
undeniable fact that children, savages, the unlearned, are not conscious of having innate
ideas; they acquire knowledge during the course of a lifetime. It is impossible that
anyone should have knowledge of something of which he is not conscious.
 Hence, in considering what would count as evidence from universal assent to such
propositions as “What is, is” or “It is that children and idiots should be aware of such
truths if they were innate but that they “have not least apprehension or thought of
them.”
 Why should children and idiots be aware of and be able to articulate such propositions?
 Locke says: “It seems to me a near Contradiction to say that there are truths imprinted
on the Soul, which it perceives or understands not; imprinting if it signify anything, being
nothing else but the making certain Truths to be perceived.”
 Furthermore, experience teaches that certain moral principles and the notion of God,
far from being innate, vary with different people and at different times.
 Hence there exists no innate idea; our intellect, at the first moment of its being, is a
tabula rasa, a clean sheet of paper on which nothing has yet written.
 All impressions come from experience
 Locke’s ideas are not to be confused with Aristotelian ideas, but are to be taken in the
sense of representations, or better, of presentations.
Materials of Knowledge

 In Book II Locke claims that ideas are the materials of knowledge and all ideas come
from experience.
 The term ‘idea,’ Locke tells us “… stands for whatsoever is the Object of the
Understanding, when a man thinks.”
 Locke distinguishes a variety of different kinds of ideas in Book II
 Locke holds that the mind is a tabula rasa blank sheet until experience in the form of
sensation and reflection provide the basic materials – simple ideas – out of which most
of our more complex knowledge is constructed
Two Kinds of Experience: Sensation and Reflection

 Locke holds that the mind is a tabula rasa or blank sheet until the experience in the form
of sensation and reflection provide the basic materials – simple ideas – out of which
most of our more complex knowledge is constructed
 While the mind may be a blank slate in regard to content, it is plain that Locke thinks we
are born with a variety of faculties to receive and abilities to manipulate or process the
content once we acquire it.
 Sensation – tells us about things and processes in the external world
 Reflection – tells us about the operations of our own minds
Maeve Simon
Lecture Notes of Sir Jove Jim S. Aguas, PhD

 Reflection is a sort of internal sense that makes us conscious of the mental processes we
are engaged in
 External experience, called sensation, gives us ideas of supposed external objects, such
as color, sound, extension, motion, etc. Locke says “supposed objects.” Since their
existence has not been proved. (In a theory of knowledge limited to the experience of
mental content, such as that of Locke, it is utterly impossible to prove the actual
existence of these supposed objects.)
 Internal experience, called reflection, makes us understand the operation of the spirit
on the objects of sensation, such as knowing, doubting, believing and so forth.
 Some ideas we get only from sensation, some only from reflection and some from both.
Primary and Secondary qualities:

 In regard to the ideas furnished by sensation, it is necessary to distinguish the primary

qualities (solidity, extension, figure, number, motion, etc.), which are objective, from
the secondary qualities (color, sounds, etc.), which are subjective in their effect and
objective in their cause.
 The primary qualities in here in the object that they are faithful representation of how
an object appear in the external world
 The secondary qualities are powers for producing various sensations in us
 For Locke, sensation and reflection are classified as simple and complex, according to
whether they are irreducible elements, such as witness, rotundity, or reducible to more
simple elements
 We cannot create simple ideas, we can only get them from experience. In thisrespect
the mind is passive
 Once the mind has a store of simple ideas, it can combine them into complex ideas of a
variety of kinds. In this respect the mind is active
 The idea of an apple is complex because it is a combination of the simple ideas of color,
rotundity, taste and so forth.
 The spirit is passive as regards simple ideas; no one can have the idea of sound, for
example, if it is not furnished to him.
 On the contrary, the spirit is active concerning complex ideas because it ca reduce them
to simple elements and can construct new complex ideas from these elements
 Thus, Locke subscribes to a version of the empiricist axiom that there is nothing In th
intellect that was not previously in the senses – where the senses are broadened to
include reflection
Locke distinguishes three classes of complex ideas:
 Ideas of substance, representing a constant or stable collection of simple ideas related
to a mysterious substratum which is their unifying center
Maeve Simon
Lecture Notes of Sir Jove Jim S. Aguas, PhD

 Ideas of mode, resulting from the combination by the intellect of several ideas, in such a
manner as to form not a thing itself but a property or mode of an existing thing – for
example, a triangle, gratitude
 Ideas of relationship, arising from the comparison of one idea with another, such as
temporal and spatial relationships, or the relationship of cause
 In addition to complex ideas, there are also general ideas, which result from the
isolation of a simple idea from a complex one – for example, whiteness – and from the
universalization of the idea in so far as it represents the characteristics common to
several similar sensations.
 General ideas hence are abstract ideas, and are useful for signifying a collection of
common sensations (nominalism)
 Hence the mind can engage in three different types of action in putting simple ideas
together
 The first of these kinds of action is to combine them into complex ideas
 Complex ideas are two kinds, ideas of substances and ideas of modes. Substances are
independent existences.
 Beings that count as substances include God, angels, humans, animals, plants and a
variety of constructed things.
 Mode, are dependent existences. These include mathematical and moral ideas and all
the conventional language of religion, politics and culture.
 The second action which the mind performs is the bringing of two ideas, whether simple
or complex, by one another so as to take a view of them at once, without uniting them,
this gives us our ideas of relations.
 The third act of the mind is the production of our general ideas by abstraction from
particulars, leaving out the particular circumstances of time and place, which would
limit the application of an idea to a particular individual.
Value of Knowledge

 Having thus analyzed and described the various contents of consciousness, man has to
determine what he knows through these ideas – that is, what is their logical and
metaphysical value.
 Logical value is the perception of the agreement or disagreement of ideas, which is what
Locke meant by knowledge.
 Locke defined knowledge as the perception of the connection and agreement or
disagreement or repugnancy of any of our ideas.
 In obtaining knowledge, we observe how our ideas fit or do not fit together. A true
proposition is one in which the ideas are properly related.
 There are three degrees of varieties of knowledge available to the human mind:
 Intuitive
 Demonstrative
Maeve Simon
Lecture Notes of Sir Jove Jim S. Aguas, PhD

 Sensitive
 The perception of agreement and disagreement, according to Locke, can be either
intuitive or demonstrative
 In intuition the connection between ideas as immediately seen, as in example “Two plud
two equals four,” or “A triangle is not a square.” Or white is not black.
 This sort of knowledge leaves no room for hesitation or doubt or examination but the
mind is presently filled with the bright light of it
 This knowledge is absolutely certain and provides the foundation for all other
knowledge
 In demonstrative knowledge the mind must have recourse to intermediate ides in order
to perceive the relationship of agreement or disagreement
 The connection between ideas is established by forming a chain of logical steps as in
mathematical proof. Truths of this kind are obtained through demonstration.
 Demonstrative knowledge may not be as certain as intuitive knowledge but it can
provide us certainty if we are careful in forming each link in the logical chain
 The third degree is sensitive knowledge. Apart from our own existence and God’s, all
our judgment concerning the existence and nature of objects in the external world, fall
under this category
 Being empirical the knowledge of external objects is inferior in value to intuitive truths.
Thus, to know the existence of external objects man must have recourse to the
intermediate idea of the passivity of thought – for it is the external objects that are
acting upon his mind and producing in it external sensations
Metaphysical Value of Ideas

 Analysis and the exposition of the relationship between different ideas lead to logical
truths, that is, to truths which are valid only in the field of consciousness
 In order to affirm the existence of external things we need demonstration, since things
are not known immediately
 Locke admitted this fact explicitly:
 “It is evident the mind knows not things immediately, but only by intervention of the
ideas it has of them.”
 Locke believed that he could break the ring of subjectivism in which he had isolated
himself, and demonstrate the existence of the three beings that constitute the object of
traditional metaphysics: namely, our own being, the external world and God.
Metaphysics
 Locke did not write a book on metaphysics, however from his epistemology we can know his
metaphysical thoughts.
 His epistemology provides us with a theory on how we know or how we arrive at the ideas that we
have.
Maeve Simon
Lecture Notes of Sir Jove Jim S. Aguas, PhD

 We know the ideas of “roundness” “sweetness” “redness” and from the collection of these
experiences or impressions we label something as “apple”
 Locke did not write a book on metaphysics, however from his epistemology we can know his
metaphysical thoughts.
 His epistemology provides us with a theory on how we know or how we arrive at the ideas that we
have. We know the ideas of “roundness” “sweetness” “redness” and from the collection of these
experiences or impressions we label something as “apple”
 But we cannot have an experience of substance, hence we cannot have a knowledge of substance.
Locke was committed to a rigorous empiricism but at the same time he is committed to common
sense that he cannot deny that there is something behind the impressions.
 Hence he described substance as something he knew not what, it is the supposed, but unknown
support of those qualities that we find existing.
 Spiritual substances are also explained just like material substances. We can only have an internal
experience of their qualities, for example, through reflection we experience mental activities like
doubting.
 But we do not have an experience of the spiritual substance, so it is something there behind the
experience, but we do not know what it really is.
 Although we cannot have an experience of God, we can put together our inner finite experiences
and construct our complex ideas of God. Through this is established our knowledge of God, but not
His existence.

Ethics
 In ethics Locke separates himself from Empiricism and comes close to Rationalism. There are no
innate moral ideas; the criterion of moral actions is a man’s well-being, for experience teaches
that man tends to pleasure and flees from pain.
 Up to this point, Locke stands on utilitarian grounds and remains within the boundaries of
English tradition. But this utilitarianism is not regulated by the savage rights of nature, as
Thomas Hobbes taught
 Locke hold that rights can be determined from the relations that exist between an infinitely
intelligent being (God) and a rational but dependent being.
 The moral norms are hence rational, and are identified with the divine right and then with
natural right.
 Moral laws must have a due sanction (rewards and punishment) which is imposed on the will in
such a manner as to restrain man from diverging from the tendency that leads to his own well-
being
 With one’s own pleasure as the foundation of morality, it is impossible to speak of free will.
 Locke says that there is no liberty of choice between two different goods; the greater good
imposes itself per se upon the will
 There exists liberty of execution, however, in so far as the will is able not to deliberate, or not to
operate having deliberated.

Politics
Maeve Simon
Lecture Notes of Sir Jove Jim S. Aguas, PhD

 Locke stresses that men are by nature are free and equal and that they were given by God
natural rights. He was against the divine right theory which assigned rights to a monarch to rule
over men.
 He argues that the natural rights, such as the right to life, liberty, and property, have a
foundation independent of the laws of any particular society and therefore cannot be taken
away by the state or the government

The State of Nature

 Locke, like Hobbes, Distinguishes a state of nature (natural state) and the transition from this
state of society through a contract
 The state of nature was a situation before the invention or establishment of civil government or
state in which people are independent and free
 It was a state of total equality in the sense that no one has jurisdiction over any other
 He opposes Hobbes by holding that in the state of nature man did not live in a wild condition, in
which right was force.
 Men even at this time were rational and had the notion of the fundamental rights of life, of
liberty, property, etc.
 But the natural law also prescribes certain duties on each one
 A duty to preserve one’s self
 A duty to preserve others when self-preservation does not conflict
 A duty not to take away the life of another, and
 A duty not to act in a way that “tends to destroy” others

 Since even without the civil laws, everyone has God-given natural rights, this shows that for
Locke the natural rights are prior to any civil authority and therefore no government can take
them away.
 A primary law of nature is that no one must harm another in life, liberty or possession.
 Natural resources (air, water, land, trees, etc.) are common property but when they are mixed
with one’s labor then they become one’s property

The Social Contract

 While life in the state of nature is tolerable it is far from convenient. Although man can survive
without a society men are naturally inclined toward it and a government and civil laws would
make human life much better
 A written and agreed on laws is a need to resolve certain controversies among individuals.
 There should be an officially appointed impartial judge who could apply the laws in a manner
that is equitable
 A government is needed to enforce the law in behalf of the powerless.
 To better guarantee such rights , man has to enter through means of a contract, into society,
and must concede some of his natural rights to the sovereign, together with the power to
defend them
 Hence by way of a social contract the civil state was established and a government was created
in order to safeguard the common interest and good
Maeve Simon
Lecture Notes of Sir Jove Jim S. Aguas, PhD

The Government
 The power of the government cannot extend beyond the requirement of the common good
 The government is a convenience not a necessity and therefore the people who remain to be
sovereign can dictate the terms of the contract
 Instead of surrendering their all their rights and power to the government the people delegate it
for the mutual preservation of their lives, liberties and properties.
 The government is the creation of the people and therefore it is a servant of the people
 The government must be divided into separate branches each serving as a limit on the power of
the other units:
 The executive,
 The legislative and
 Federative

 The federative supervises the relation between the government and other nations
 From man’s natural condition to the state of society, there is hence a progression; but no
innovation is involved
 The sovereign who fails in his obligation to defend the rights of his subjects is no longer justified
in his sovereignty and may be dismissed by his subjects by way of revolution
 Tyranny is as worse as anarchy; a revolution is not an anarchy. When the leader becomes a
tyrant he breaks the social contract and looses his authority to reporesent the interests and will
of the people.