CREATIVE INTELLIGENCE & Other Works on the Human Thought Process. Джон Дьюи

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      Chapter IV.

       Locke and Leibniz.—Innate Ideas.

       Table of Contents

      The reader, impatient of what may have seemed an over-long introduction, has perhaps been asking when he was to be brought to the subject under consideration,—the relations of Leibniz to Locke. But it has been impossible to come to this question until we had formed for ourselves an outline of the philosophical position of Leibniz. Nowhere in the “Nouveaux Essais” does Leibniz give a connected and detailed exposition of his philosophy, either as to his standpoint, his fundamental principles, or his method.

      Some preliminary view of his position is therefore a necessity. The demand for this preliminary exposition becomes more urgent as we recognize that Leibniz’s remarks upon Locke are not a critique of Locke from the standpoint of the latter, but are the application of his own philosophical conclusions. Criticism from within, an examination of a system of thought with relation to the consistency and coherency of its results, the connection between these results and the method professedly employed, investigation which depends not at all upon the position of the critic, but occupies itself with the internal relations of the system under discussion,—such criticism is a product of the present century. What we find in the “Nouveaux Essais” is a comparison of the ideas of Locke with those of Leibniz himself, a testing of the former by the latter as a standard, their acceptance when they conform, their rejection when they are opposed, their completion when they are in partial harmony.

      The value of this sort of criticism is likely to be small and evanescent. If the system used as a standard is meagre and narrow, if it is without comprehensiveness and flexibility, it does not repay after-examination. The fact that the “Nouveaux Essais” of Leibniz have escaped the oblivion of the philosophical criticism of his day is proof, if proof still be needed, of the reasoned basis, the width of grasp, the fertility of suggestion which characterize the thought of Leibniz. But the fact that the criticism is, after all, external and not internal has made necessary the foregoing extended account of his method and general results.

      On the other hand, what of Locke? How about him who is the recipient of the criticism? I assume that no extended account of his ideas is here necessary, and conceive myself to be justified in this assumption by the fact that we are already better acquainted with Locke. This acquaintance, indeed, is not confined to those who have expressly studied Locke. His thought is an inheritance into which every English-speaking person at least is born. Only he who does not think escapes this inheritance. Locke did the work which he had to do so thoroughly that every Englishman who will philosophize must either build upon Locke’s foundations, or, with conscious purpose, clear the ground before building for himself. And it would be difficult to say that the acceptance of Locke’s views would influence one’s thought more than their rejection. This must not, of course, be taken too literally. It may be that one who is a lineal descendant of Locke in the spiritual generations of thought would not state a single important truth as Locke stated it, or that those who seek their method and results elsewhere have not repudiated the thought of Locke as expressly belonging to him.

      But the fundamental principles of empiricism: its conception of intelligence as an individual possession; its idea of reality as something over against and distinct from mind; its explanation of knowledge as a process of action and reaction between these separate things; its account of our inability to know things as they really are,—these principles are congenital with our thinking. They are so natural that we either accept them as axiomatic, and accuse those who reject them of metaphysical subtlety, or, staggered perchance by some of their results, give them up with an effort. But it is an effort, and a severe one; and there is none of us who can tell when some remnant of the conception of intelligence as purely particular and finite will catch him tripping. On the other hand, we realize much better than those who have behind them a Leibniz and a Kant, rather than a Locke and a Hume, the meaning and the thorough-going necessity of the universality of intelligence. Idealism must be in some ways arbitrary and superficial to him who has not had a pretty complete course of empiricism.

      Leibniz seems to have been impressed with the Essay on the Human Understanding at its first appearance. As early as 1696 we find him writing a few pages of comment upon the book. Compared with his later critique, these early “reflections” seem colorless, and give the impression that Leibniz desired to minimize his differences from Locke rather than to set them forth in relief. Comparatively slight as were his expressions of dissent, they appear to have stung Locke when they reached him. Meantime Locke’s book was translated into French, and made its way to a wider circle of readers. This seems to have suggested to Leibniz the advisability of pursuing his comments somewhat further; and in the summer of 1703 he produced the work which now occupies us. A letter which Leibniz wrote at about this time is worth quoting at large for the light which it throws upon the man, as well as for suggesting the chief points in which he differed from Locke. Leibniz writes:—

      “I have forgotten to tell you that my comments upon the work of Locke are nearly done. As he has spoken in a chapter of his second book about freedom, he has given me an opportunity to discuss that; and I hope that I may have done it in such a way as will please you. Above all, I have laid it upon myself to save the immateriality of the soul, which Locke leaves doubtful. I justify also the existence of innate ideas, and show that the soul produces their perception out of itself. Axioms, too, I approve, while Locke has a low opinion of them. In contradiction to him, I show that the individuality of man, through which he preserves his identity, consists in the duration of the simple or immaterial substance which animates him; that the soul is never without representations; that there is neither a vacuum nor atoms; that matter, or the passive principle, cannot be conscious, excepting as God unites with it a conscious substance. We disagree, indeed, in numerous other points, for I find that he rates too low the noble philosophy of the Platonic school (as Descartes did in part), and substitutes opinions which degrade us, and which may become hurtful to morals, though I am persuaded that Locke’s intention was thoroughly good. I have made these comments in leisure hours, when I have been journeying or visiting, and could not occupy myself with investigations requiring great pains. The work has continued to grow under my hands, for in almost every chapter, and to a greater extent than I had thought possible, I have found matter for remark. You will be astonished when I tell you that I have worked upon this as upon something which requires no great pains. But the fact is, that I long ago established the general principles of philosophic subjects in my mind in a demonstrative way, or pretty nearly so, and that they do not require much new consideration from me.”

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