Locke's Resemblance Theses

Datos Bibliográficos

ID10698110
AutoresMichael Jacovides (0000-0001-5440-9782, autor de correspondencia)
Año1999
Volumen108
Número4
Páginas461
Fecha de publicación1999-10-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe Philosophical Review (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0031-8108 • E-ISSN: 1558-1470
EditorialJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/2998285
OpenAlexW2313314455
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas7
Referencias citadas6

Locke asserts that Ideas of primary Qualities of Bodies, are Resemblances of them, and their Patterns do really exist in the Bodies themselves; But the Ideas, produced in us by these Secondary Qualities, have no resemblance of them at all. On an unsophisticated way of taking his words, he means that ideas of primary qualities are like the qualities they represent and ideas of secondary qualities are unlike the qualities they represent.2 I will show that if we take his assertions in this unsophisticated way, our reward will be a straightforward and satisfying interpretation of the central arguments of his chapter on primary and secondary qualities. With these arguments, Locke attempts to justify his assertions about resemblance. Some may be skeptical, thinking that the assertions, interpreted literally, are either too absurd or too obvious to have reasons supporting them. I take this skepticism to rest on deep foundations of charity, so half of the paper will be devoted to undermining these foundations by giving a sympathetic and historical exposition of Locke's positive thesis that primary qualities resemble the ideas that represent them. I criticize rival interpretations of Lockean resemblance, say what it means to believe that ideas resemble qualities, explain the plausibility of the belief in Locke's environment

Analytic philosophy · Contemporary philosophy · Epistemology · General interest · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Historical Philosophy and Science · Philosophy · Seventeenth-Century Political and Philosophical Thought