scholarly journals John Locke on Inference and Fallacy, A Re-Appraisal

2014 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 364
Author(s):  
Mark Garrett Longaker
Keyword(s):  
John Locke ◽  
Informal Logic ◽  
Standard Approach ◽  
Valid Inference ◽  
Universal Audience ◽  
The Real ◽  
Logical Approach ◽  
Dialectical Approach ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
Philosophical Writings

John Locke, long associated with the “standard” approach to fallacies and the “logical” approach to valid inference, had both logical and dialectical reasons for favoring certain proofs and denigrating others. While the logical approach to argumentation stands forth in Locke’s philosophical writings (such as the Essay Concerning Human Understanding), a dialectical approach can be found in his contributions to public controversies regarding religion and toleration. Understanding Locke’s dialectical approach to argumentation not only makes his work more relevant to the contemporary discipline of informal logic, but this understanding also prompts a reconsideration of Locke’s rhetorical purpose. He approached argumentation dialectically (and logically) because he wanted to appeal to a universal audience of free rational subjects, people not unlike the real historical audience whom Locke addressed: radical Whigs, latitudinarian Anglicans, early-Enlightenment philosophes.

JOHN LOCKE ON THE CARE OF THE NEWBORN INFANT (1684)

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1979 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-237
Author(s):  
T. E. C.
Keyword(s):  
Olive Oil ◽  
Newborn Infant ◽  
John Locke ◽  
Red Wine ◽  
Weak Condition ◽  
Newborn Baby ◽  
Almond Oil ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
Essay Concerning Human Understanding ◽  
Medical Interest

John Locke (1632-1704), physician and philosopher, is best known for his Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690). His reputation as a philosopher has overshadowed the extent of his medical interests. Locke's journals between 1678 and 1698 contain thousands of items of medical interest. An entry in his journal for September 1684 contained the following recommendations for the care of the newborn infant.1 1. Soon after birth the baby can be given 1 or 2 spoonfuls of syrup of violets with almond oil, to loosen the bowels and keep it from convulsive colic. Or else distilled olive oil can be mixed with sugar. 2. If the newborn baby is in a weak condition you can blow on it the smell of chewed onions and cloves; smear its nostrils and lips with Cinnamon water; press warm slices of meat on its head and anus; wrap in bandages soaked in red wine and place in a bath composed of water or beer and fresh butter. If the baby is lively give a little after a mixture of 1 spoonful of distilled almond oil and syrup of Cowslip flowers and ½ spoonful of wine tempered with sugar, so that it can purge itself properly. 3. As soon as it begins to feed on pap, give it for the first few days a little powder of Marchion. 4. If it is weak apply to the region of the heart a cloth coaked with warm Embryon. The best ways to stimulate its strength are baths, putting warm wine on its head, placing hot meat on its chest, smearing its nose and lips with cinnamon water, putting onions near its nostrils, etc.

Locke—Religion—Equality

2005 ◽  
Vol 67 (3) ◽  
pp. 419-431 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael P. Zuckert
Keyword(s):  
Proper Understanding ◽  
The Past ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
Essay Concerning Human Understanding ◽  
Philosophical Writings

Jeremy Waldron's much noted book, God, Locke, and Equality, has put the topic of “God and Equality in Locke” at the center of many perhaps most, discussions of Locke these days. I am going to raise some critical objections to Waldron's interpretations, but all the more reason to begin by noting the very many things about this book that I admire.First, he rejects the insistence by many of the most outspoken Locke scholars that a proper understanding of Locke—or any philosopher of the past—must be purely historical—that it must have nothing to do with us or our concerns, questions, or problems. Professor Waldron cuts through this claim as mere arbitrary assertion.Second, many Locke scholars, often some of the same ones, insist that Locke's political writings must be understood in isolation from his philosophic writings, especially from his Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Locke's editor, Peter Laslett, set the tone long ago when he pronounced judgment: “Locke did not write as a philosopher, applying to politics the implications of his views of reality as a whole.” Rather, according to Laslett, Locke appealed to or drew off of preexisting “modes of discourse.” This approach makes it very difficult to understand Locke as an integral personality, much less as a coherent author or as a thinker to be taken seriously. Waldron thus reopens the lines of communication between Locke's political and his philosophical writings and makes Locke a significant thinker, not just a corpse for the historians.

Jonathan Edwards and “The Way of Ideas”

1966 ◽  
Vol 59 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claude A. Smith
Keyword(s):  
John Locke ◽  
Jonathan Edwards ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
History Of ◽  
Essay Concerning Human Understanding ◽  
The Way

That Jonathan Edwards was greatly influenced by the writings of John Locke scarcely needs asserting. Edwards himself regarded his reading of the Essay Concerning Human Understanding as the major intellectual event of his youth. His major writings and private notebooks abound with comments and reflections on matters discussed by Locke. What is fascinating concerning the history of Edwardsean scholarship, however, is that the decisive significance of Locke, for Edwards, has been elucidated only very recently, in the writings of the renowned Puritan scholar, the late Perry Miller.

Molyneux problem

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Glenney
Keyword(s):  
Cataract Surgery ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
John Locke ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Sensory Substitution ◽  
Sensory Experiences ◽  
Spatial Features ◽  
Cube Corner ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
The Look

The Molyneux problem asks whether a newly sighted person might immediately identify shapes previously known only to touch, like cubes and spheres, by sight alone. Over three centuries ago, the designer, William Molyneux, a Fellow of the Royal Society living in Ireland, conveyed the problem in a series of letters to John Locke. Locke soon published the problem and Molyneux’s own ‘not’ answer, in the second edition of his famous work, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Molyneux reasoned that the newly sighted person would fail for having no way to know that the newly seen shapes were like the felt shapes; the feel of the cube corner would not at all be like the look of the cube corner. Many philosophers have agreed with Molyneux’s ‘not’, arguing either that each sense produces concepts unique to it or that new sensory experiences, like those of newly sighted people, are too primitive for identifying three-dimensional shapes. Additionally, early experiments on subjects who have had cataracts surgically removed seem to confirm Molyneux’s supposition, as the newly sighted do not immediately identify shapes known to them by touch. More recent empirical experiments on cataract surgery subjects, newborns, and with technological innovations like sensory substitution devices, suggest support for a ‘yes’ answer to the question, inspiring philosophical and psychological accounts of perception that explain how the newly sighted might succeed in recognizing three-dimensional spatial features by sight.

A Gift from John Locke to Jean Le Clerc

Locke Studies ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 201-203
Author(s):  
Jacob Van Sluis
Keyword(s):  
John Locke ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
Essay Concerning Human Understanding

I work as a subject librarian in Tresoar, the provincial library of the Dutch province of Friesland, in Leeuwarden. I would like to report a curious experience of serendipity that is related to John Locke. Recently, while giving a tour in my library, I randomly grabbed an old book from the shelves. The back of the folio promised me a work by John Locke, and indeed, the book was a rare copy of the second edition of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, printed in 1694. But what really surprised me was an inscription on the first end-leaf. The inscription is unsigned, but none the less it was immediately clear to me: this was written by Locke himself!

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document