John Locke: The Construction of Knowledge in the Perspective of Philosophy

Epistemology is one of three philosophical dichotomies that rises to two main isms to obtain knowledge: rationalism initiated by Rene Descartes (1596-1650) and empiricism initiated by John Lock (1632-1704). As an empiricist, Locke offers the tabula rasa theory to support his argument. Thus, this study aims to describe radically and comprehensively the concept of John Locke's thought from the perspective of epistemological philosophy. This aim is achieved by describing the background and principal works of John Lock on the philosophy of epistemology, including the main ideas, views, and reasoning of his empiricism through tabula rasa theory. The method used in this research is descriptive qualitative in the field of philosophy. Data were collected through a literature study, then analyzed hermeneutically with two methodical elements: verstehen and interpret. First, this research shows that knowledge is principally obtained from sensory experience in which the mind is only passive. Second, the sensory experience is obtained objectively (primary quality) and subjectively (secondary quality). Third, external sensation and internal sensation obtained from sensory experience are built into simple ideas to complex ideas.

Test Quality

General standards in the form of quality criteria can be used in order to assess the quality of an instrument and/or to construct a high-quality test. Three main indicators, the so-called “core quality criteria,” have emerged: objectivity, reliability and validity (e.g. Bühner, 2011; Ebel & Frisbie, 1991; Linn, 2011; Miller, Linn & Grolund, 2009; Rost, 2004). These primary and selected secondary quality criteria (fairness and usability) are examined in more detail in the following using a data set of 349 pre-service teachers for secondary education at several German universities.

“A Rough Unsightly Sketch”

This chapter surveys the manifestations of empiricist antiformalism in some early texts that ground the tradition of eighteenth-century thought on the subjects of taste and beauty, beginning with Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Locke argues for an attenuated version of form, one that eschews any trappings of scholastic or Platonic philosophy. After Locke, form cannot name anything related to substance or essence; Locke endorses its use only as a synonym for figure, that is, shape or pattern, extension in space or duration in time. Drawing on Locke's Essay, both Joseph Addison and Francis Hutcheson theorize beauty as a secondary quality that emanates from an object, distinct from form, which they understand as a primary quality residing in that object.

Spatio-Temporal Characteristics of PM2.5, PM10, and AOD over Canal Head Taocha Station, Henan Province

In this study, spatio-temporal characteristics of particulate matter (PMx; x = 2.5 and 10) mass concentrations and aerosol optical properties were analyzed over the water source area of the South–North Water Diversion Central Line. For this purpose, PM2.5 and PM10 mass concentrations were collected at the Taocha(TC)station from October 2018 to September 2019, and aerosol optical depth (AOD) was obtained from the Cloud-Aerosol LiDAR and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO) satellite from 2007 to 2019. The monthly, seasonal, and daily statistical analyses and related comparisons were conducted in the present study. The results showed that the PM10 concentrations meet China’s ambient air secondary quality standard (100 μg/m3 annual mean), whereas PM2.5 did not meet China’s ambient air secondary quality standard (35 μg/m3 annual mean) at the TC station, no obvious seasonal and diurnal variations are observed, and these particulates are caused by local emissions and outside sources. A significant positive correlation of PM2.5 and PM10 was observed with relative humidity and temperature, whereas no relationship was found with wind direction. The results also showed low (~0.1) AOD in spring, autumn, and winter, whereas slightly higher AOD (~0.3) was observed in summer. This may be caused by straw burning from long-distance transportation. This study may provide new data support for comprehensive ecological measures such as strengthening the ecological environment and water quality protection in the Middle Route Project of the South–North Water Diversion.

Technai: Dogmatism and the Technologies of Doubt

Chapter Seven undertakes to articulate Hume’s scepticism with regard to the third dimension of the Pyrrhonian Fourfold—technê. More particularly, the chapter examines the instruments he deploys against dogmatism, that is his technologies of doubt. The chapter devotes special attention to Hume’s sceptical arguments regarding the epistemic capacities of reason and the senses, especially in regard to the primary/secondary quality distinction and what Hume calls ‘false philosophy.’ The text argues that Hume is an entirely radical sceptic who refuses all epistemic and metaphysical claims, including those related to personal identity, the immateriality of the soul, hidden substances, energies, and powers, including the causal power. The chapter explains what exactly counts for Hume as dogmatism and what is not consistent with scepticism. The chapter explores the import to empiricism of Hume’s Copy Principle.

Words for Sensible Qualities and the Problem of Perceptual Variation

This chapter proposes a picture of reference fixing for color adjectives and adjectives for other sensible qualities, according to which the relevant reference-fixing conventions allow those adjectives to be used with different intended standards in different contexts. It is argued that this explains the fact (used by secondary-quality theorists and eliminativists in “perceptual variation arguments”) that different equally normal people classify the same object by means of prima facie incompatible color adjectives, and that the explanation is perfectly compatible with the properties referred to by uses of these adjectives being primary qualities or objective properties. It is also argued that the picture satisfies a number of desiderata not satisfied by other objectivist theories in the literature.

Primary and Secondary Qualities

This chapter expounds Locke’s theory of primary qualities and secondary qualities and defends a modernized version of it. It argues for the following theses. Although Locke defines secondary qualities as powers in objects to produce in us ideas of color, sound, taste, smell, heat, and cold, he oscillates between equating colors, sounds, etc. with (a) those powers and with (b) the ideas they produce in us. This oscillation stems from Locke’s wanting to say that they are both (a) and (b), despite his basic cleavage between ideas and qualities. Such a hybrid view of them is plausible, especially if we drop the three-term theory of perception often attributed to Locke in favor of a two-term theory, which says that the last term in the perceptual causal chain is the object’s appearing some way to the perceiver, and which distinguishes this “manifest aspect” of a secondary quality from its “dispositional aspect.”

Secondary qualities

Primary qualities are generally defined as those properties that objects have independently of being perceived. Standard examples would include properties of shape, weight, position, electric charge, atomic structure. These properties characterize the way the world is in itself, separately from mind. Secondary qualities, by contrast, are defined as those properties that incorporate sensory responses in their conditions of application, so that the idea of a perceiver is built into their nature. It is more controversial which properties, if any, belong to this category, since not all philosophers agree that the standard alleged examples of secondary qualities – colours, sounds, tastes, smells, feels – are really correctly so classified. Some thinkers hold that objects have only primary qualities. Let us note the significance of the question, concentrating on the case of colour, which is the one most frequently discussed. Objects appear to have both shape and colour in equal measure, but is this really how things are? Depending upon how we answer this question, we get very different pictures of the relation between appearance and reality. If both sorts of property are equally out there, equally objective, then what appears to us in perception is reality itself. When we see a material object we see something that exists independently of our seeing it, and we see the object as it is whether or not there are (or even could be) any perceivers. But if the colour of the object is inherently dependent upon our sensory responses, then the question arises as to whether what we see is really in some way itself mental. If colour is a secondary quality, in other words, do we see things as they really are? What is it that bears colour if colours are in some way mentally constituted? Do we indeed see anything at all, as distinct from introspecting the features of our own subjective states?