The Enlightenment (eBook)

John Hibben (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2017 | 1. Auflage
222 Seiten
Merkaba Press (Verlag)
978-0-00-002527-2 (ISBN)

Infos

THE age of the Enlightenment has a peculiar interest and value for the student of the history of philosophy. The philosophical output of this period is unusually rich and significant, embracing as it does the classical writings of Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Leibniz, Rousseau and Kant, and therefore may well be studied for the material which these separate contributions severally contain. But, more than this, the eighteenth-century philosophy is a period in which a great movement of thought is exhibited, and that, too, on a large and conspicuous stage. England, France, Germany form its settings. It begins with Locke and is completed in Kant. And whatever significance Kant may possess for the philosophical world to-day attaches also to this period, for this period served to open the way for the critical philosophy of the great master which is its appropriate culmination.

 

Moreover, the practical influences of the philosophical discussions of this age are of such extent and importance as to engage the attention of the ordinary reader of history, as well as that of the more special worker in the field of philosophy. In England religious controversy, political theory, and moral standards were profoundly affected by the philosophical tendencies of the day; in France the social and political doctrines became involved with the philosophical, and they were not without a dominating influence upon the popular mind, not only throughout the period preceding the French Revolution, but also during the years of its progress as well; in Germany the same tendencies manifested themselves in theological controversy on the one hand, and in the quickening of poetical insight and interpretation on the other, so that poets became philosophers, and philosophers became poets. The movement of philosophical thought in this age, moreover, is typical of great movements of thought generally, and in this aspect is both illuminating and suggestive as a representative historical study. The tendencies which here prevail, the characteristic differences in point of view, as well as the complementary relation of opposed opinions, are all repeated again and again in the various political, social, religious, moral, and philosophical controversies which emerge through every significant period in the history of thought.

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LOCKE'S INNER AND OUTER WORLD

 

 

 

 

The beginnings of the philosophical movement which is to be the subject of our study we find in Locke (1632- 1704). In the Essay Concerning Human Understanding Locke proposes to construct the world of knowledge by exhibiting its natural evolution from the original elements of experience as they appear in their simplest expression, to the most complex and abstruse ideas which the mind is capable of entertaining. He regards the process throughout as a continuous one, and also as self-explanatory. Upon this undertaking Locke enters with a most admirable spirit, being led to his inquiry through a sincere and impartial love of the truth; and actuated, moreover, by the desire to discover that truth by his own reason, freed from the trammels of authority and tradition. Some idea of the peculiar importance of Locke's contribution to the history of philosophical thought may be gathered from a remark of A. Riehl: "The Essay Concerning Human Understanding marks not merely a new epoch in philosophy, but rather a new philosophy itself." In the midst of a busy life, with its exacting demands and increasing burdens of responsibility, Locke found some quiet moments in which to question the workings of his own mind, and thereby discover, to some extent at least, the true nature of its mysterious functions.

 

The idea of this excursion into the undiscovered regions of the inner life of thought was suggested to him, in the first instance, by a chance discussion which arose among a group of his friends. The account which he himself gives of the origin of the Essay is of such interest that I venture to quote it at length: "Were it fit to trouble thee with the history of this Essay, I should tell thee that five or six friends meeting at my chamber (at the home of Lord Ashley (Shaftesbury), in Exeter House, London), and discoursing on a subject very remote from this, found themselves quickly at a stand by the difficulties that rose on every side. After we had awhile puzzled ourselves, without coming any nearer a resolution of those doubts which perplexed us, it came into my thoughts that we took a wrong course; and that before we set ourselves upon inquiries of that nature it was necessary to examine our own abilities, and see what objects our understandings were or were not fitted to deal with. This I proposed to the company, who all readily assented; and thereupon it was agreed that this should be our first inquiry. Some hasty and undigested thoughts on a subject I had never before considered, which I set down against our next meeting, gave the first entrance in this discourse; which, having been thus begun by chance, was continued by entreaty; written by incoherent parcels; and after long intervals of neglect, resumed again, as my humour or occasions permitted; and at last, in a retirement (in Holland) where an attendance on my health gave me leisure, it was brought into that order thou now seest it."

 

"To examine our own abilities, and see what objects our understandings were or were not fitted to deal with," is a task similar to that which Kant set for himself in the Critique of Pure Reason. In this respect Locke is the forerunner of Kant, but only in the sense that it was vouchsafed to him merely to behold the land from afar which, however, he was not able himself to possess. The Essay is a plea for the recognition of intellectual freedom, in much the same manner as his Epistola de Tolerentia is a plea for religious liberty, and his Treatises on Government, for political liberty. In the attempt, however, to free the mind from the domination of innate ideas, and to provide a clean page upon which to write the record of its own activity, he overlooked the significant truth that the mind cannot be made independent of itself, but must be determined by the necessities of its own nature. This is the point which Locke failed to grasp, and which, therefore, marks the fundamental defect of his otherwise masterly inquiry. For intellectual freedom can never be a freedom from the inner constraint of the processes of thought themselves, which like the pressure of the atmosphere are after all no obstacle to free movement, but the rather make such free movement possible. But criticism must not precede exposition. Therefore let us turn our attention to a more particular examination of the method and point of view of the Essay.

 

Locke's method is essentially psychological; it is an attempt to trace the natural history of our ideas to their simplest beginnings in consciousness. And all speculations which reach beyond the scope of this method of inquiry Locke rigorously excludes. As to the purpose, and the corresponding limitations of the field of his investigations, Locke clearly states his position as follows: "It shall suffice to my present purpose to consider the discerning faculties of a man, as they are employed about the objects which they have to do with. And I shall imagine I have not wholly misemployed myself in the thoughts I shall have on this occasion if, in this historical plain method, I can give any account of the ways whereby our understandings come to attain those notions of things we have, and can set down any measures of the certainty of our knowledge. . . . If, by this inquiry into the nature of the understanding, I can discover the powers thereof; how far they reach; to what things they are in any degree proportionate; and where they fail us, I suppose it may be of use to prevail with the busy mind of man to be more cautious in meddling with things exceeding its comprehension; to stop when it is at the utmost extent of its tether; and to sit down in a quiet ignorance of those things which, upon examination, are found to be beyond the reach of our capacities. We should not then, perhaps, be so forward, out of an affectation of an universal knowledge, to raise questions, and perplex ourselves and others with disputes about things to which our understandings are not suited, and of which we cannot frame in our minds any clear or distinct impressions, or whereof (as it has perhaps too often happened) we have not any notions at all. . . . How far short soever men's knowledge may come of an universal or perfect comprehension of whatsoever is, it yet secures their great concernments, that they have light enough to lead them to the knowledge of their Maker, and the sight of their own duties."

 

I have quoted these passages in order to show in Locke's own words his general conception of the undertaking before him, and as an illustration also of certain characteristic features of the philosophy of the Enlightenment in its empirical phase, namely, the insistence upon inquiry within the range of concrete facts, the demand that the various ideas corresponding to these facts must be distinct and clear, the silencing of all questions concerning matters too deep or too obscure for the human mind to comprehend, and the complete satisfaction in being able to frame at least a practical philosophy of life. The pragmatic point of view is evident throughout the Essay, as when Locke, for instance, insists later in the Introduction that "our business here is not to know all things, but those which concern our conduct. If we can find out those measures whereby a rational creature, put in that state in which man is in this world, may and ought to govern his opinions, and actions depending thereon, we need not be troubled that some other things escape our knowledge."

 

The sources of all knowledge Locke finds in sensation and reflection. The first book of the Essay is devoted to his preliminary and fundamental contention that there are no innate ideas either speculative or practical. He then proceeds to show that the mind is like a dark room, wholly shut off from the light save through a single opening. Through this the light streams from a central source resident in the senses. Through this process of illumination there is a complete representation of things as they lie without the mind. They thus picture themselves upon the screen of consciousness. There is, therefore, an inner world of ideas, and an outer world of things which correspond to them. The inner world of consciousness is illumined by the light which enters from without. Locke's figure of a dark cabinet with an opening to admit the light from the external world reminds one of Plato's illustration of the cave, wherein the various forms outlined on the wall of the cavern are merely the shadow symbols of the real substances which they all too inadequately portray.

 

The one inlet through which the light enters from the outer world, according to Locke, is that of sensation. The senses furnish the elemental materials of all our knowledge, so that a man begins to have ideas when he first has any sensation.

 

In addition to sensation, which constitutes the external sense, there is an internal sense, that of reflection, which is to be regarded as the source of ideas also. By reflection Locke means "the perception of the operations of our own mind within us as it is employed about the ideas it has got; which operations, when the soul comes to reflect on, and consider, do furnish the understanding with another set of ideas which could not be had from things without. And such are perception, thinking, doubting, believing, reasoning, knowing, willing and all the different actings of our own mind."

 

Reflection, therefore, is a term which is used by Locke to signify our consciousness of the nature of the active machinery of the mind. It is a consciousness, however, of processes merely, and not of their content. The actual content of knowledge is furnished by the senses, to which all of our ideas can be eventually traced. The operations of the mind, of which reflection...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 8.8.2017
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften
• ISBN-10: 0-00-002527-5 / 0000025275
• ISBN-13: 978-0-00-002527-2 / 9780000025272