Created 01:06:06
A study by Sian Dooley
In this Essay I am going to consider how important John Locke saw the faculty of reason, and whether his views helped in distinguishing how mad people were understood in the Enlightenment. In order to do this I will discuss how Locke views reason concerning human understanding, before highlighting how this may have anything to do with madness. I will then draw upon any similarities there are between Locke’s ‘madman’ and how he considered animal understanding.
John Locke maintained that reason was extremely significant for human beings,
claiming that in this respect human beings were far superior to the rest of
the animal kingdom. Reason, he says, in chapter 17 of his Essay, “is
the faculty whereby man is supposed to be distinguished from beasts, and wherein
it is evident he much surpasses them.” Essay, Book IV Chapter XVII.
In his discussion Locke explores why human beings have reason. Why, he asks,
is reason an important faculty to possess when one already experiences “outward
sense and inward perception”. That is, isn’t sense experience sufficient
to provide human beings with all they need to know about their environment?
His answer, I think, is that reason is required for the “enlargement
of our knowledge and in assisting the ‘regulating’ of our assent”.
(Essay, Book II, Chapter II)
Locke clarifies this claim by explaining that in his view reason plays a key
role in enabling us to acquire knowledge, reason enables us to ‘see’ relationships
between our ideas. For example, assume a person has the ideas of a triangle,
and also the idea of straight line. Locke thinks by scrutinising these two
ideas (and any other possible ones) a person can arrive at the following piece
of knowledge: that triangles are made up of straight lines, in fact three straight
lines. His view is that knowledge is always like this- a matter of relationships
between ideas, which have been ‘found’ through our reasoning. He
uses the example of a triangle in his essay in order to show that simple ideas
that are consistent with each other may be built in to a complex, in this case,
a complex mathematical issue; “Thus the mind, being willing to know the
agreement or disagreement in bigness between the three angles of a triangle
and two right ones cannot by an immediate view and comparing them do it, because
the three angles of a triangle cannot be brought at once and be compared with
any one or two angles; and so of this the mind has no immediate, no intuitive
knowledge. In this case the mind is fain to find out some other angles to which
the three angles of a triangle have an equality, and finding those equal to
two right ones, comes to know their equality to two right ones” (Essay,
Book IV, Chapter II) I will now consider his views on simple and complex ideas,
and hat he meant by this.
In order to understand Locke’s emphasis on the importance of reasoning,
I think it is important for me to ask what Locke thought ‘ideas’ were.
Ideas, Locke thinks, are of two kinds; simple and complex. “The better
to understand the nature, manner, and extent of our knowledge, one thing is
carefully to be observed concerning the ideas we have; and that is, that some
of them are simple and some complex.” (Essay, Book II, chapter II)
Locke believed that the most basic elements of our knowledge are that which
he calls simple ideas. “…there is nothing can be plainer to a
man than the clear and distinct perception he has of those simple ideas; which,
being each in itself uncompounded, contains in it nothing but one uniform appearance,
or conception in the mind, and is not distinguishable into different ideas.” (Essay,
Book II, chapter II)
He further explains that because all knowledge is a matter of seeing the relationships
between ideas, the complex ideas are two, or more simple ideas linked together. “The
mind being, as I have declared, furnished with a great number of the simple
ideas, conveyed in by the senses… or by reflection on its own operations,
takes notice also that a certain number of these simple ideas go constantly
together; which being presumed to belong to one thing…” (Essay,
Book II, Chapter XXIII)
Locke offers some examples of what he considers a simple idea to be; the taste
of sugar or the coldness of a piece of ice. “The coldness and hardness
which a man feels in a piece of ice being as distinct ideas in the mind as
the smell and whiteness of a lily; or as the taste of sugar…” (Essay,
Book II chaper II)
Simple ideas, for Locke, are presented to us only in sensation and reflection,
and he denies that there are any innate ideas- no ideas that one is simply
born with. All of our ideas are based on our experiences, either through our
senses, or through reflection on what goes on in our minds-outward sense and
inward reflection. Let any one examine his own thoughts….and then let
him tell me whether all the original ideas he has there are any other than
the objects of his senses, or of the operations of his mind…” (Essay,
Book II, Chapter I)
Having understood what Locke thinks of ‘ideas’, it is now possible
to explore the notion further; of reason being able to see relationships between
ideas.
Locke believes the mind has the power to store up the simple ideas it has
experienced, with the possibility that it may repeat them and combine them
with others. So by trying to witness any agreements or disagreements between
ideas, the mind leads us to knowledge, or at least judgements about probable
connections.
In his essay, Locke believes that we may consider reason in four degrees. He
explained that the first was the way in which we use it to discover ideas.
The second degree is the process of laying all of the ideas in a clear order.
The third degree is the action of ‘perceiving any connections’ and
the fourth; to deduct a logical conclusion.
So, Locke thinks reason operates by discerning relationships between two or
more ideas. But he also thinks that reason guides us in forming complex ideas. “…these
complex ideas of several single substances, as of man, horse, gold, violet,
apple…” (Esay, Book II, Chapter XXIV)
Locke believes that complex ideas can not come to us though experience, and
that it is, in fact, only simple ideas which come through ‘outward sense
and inward perception’. The way we interpret our simple ideas; the conjoining
of them, leads us, or guides us to our complex ideas.
It is now necessary to question whether this faculty of reason is reliable
in inspecting our ideas, and providing us with correct ‘knowledge’.
In his essay, Book IV, Chapter XVIII Locke claims that reason can sometimes
fail us. He also explains that in the case where we have no ideas, reason is
unable to assist in finding ‘knowledge’, because it has no ideas
to inspect. This then leads me to the question of whether ‘to be mad’ is
to be lacking this faculty termed reason?
Locke explains, “that our ideas are often ‘imperfect’ our
reason is sometimes puzzled by the obscurity of these ideas.” (Book IV,
Chapter XVIII) So, a man who may not possess perfect ideas concerning matter
may have a gap in his knowledge. Locke explains that a person can not have
wrong conceptions over numbers, as they are clear, and distinct ideas. But
it is possible to have, say, the ideas of a chair, wrong, which would lead
to faulty reasoning, and failure to acquire knowledge.
But what of a person who is unable to ‘reason’ at all? Would Locke label them ‘mad’?
Locke’s theories proved to be an important standpoint on the relationship between madness and reasoning, and some modern philosophers have stated Locke’s ideas actually set a pattern for 18th century views on the importance of reason. He explored what he thought it meant to be mad, and discovered that lacking reason is not in fact what causes madness, but actually a ‘persistent inability ‘to associate ideas correctly.
Locke does, however, admit to a belief that there is a degree of madness in
everyone, in his ‘Essay Concerning Human Understanding’, where
he explores the notion that emotions can sometimes cause us to falsely associate
ideas. However this, he claims, does not make a person mad, it is the inability
to let ones reason associate ideas and relate them, accordingly to our experiences.
It would perhaps be important, for the purpose of addressing the connection
between madness and reason, according to Locke, to explore what it is to loose
ones reasoning altogether, according to him, as this may highlight his thoughts
on madness. Locke made an important distinction in Book II where he explains
the difference between, as he terms them, ‘idiots’ and ‘madmen’.
It appears, through reading Locke’s essay, that he regards idiots as
those who have no ideas, as he maintains that those among us who do lack ideas,
can have little, or nothing to think on. He goes on to say that those who are
unable to distinguish or compare ideas will not be able to use language, ‘or
judge, or reason’. Locke offers that idiots are not concerned with their
foregoing faculties, and summaries his difference between idiots and madmen; “that
madmen put wrong ideas together, and so make wrong propositions, but argue
and reason right from them; but idiots make very few or no propositions, and
reason scarce at all.” (Book2, Chapter XI, section12 and 13)
So I think Locke means that a mad man is somebody who’s reason makes
mistakes about agreements between ideas, or who associates them incorrectly.
This leads me to question how, according to Locke, reason can go wrong, causing
a man to be labelled ‘mad’.
For Locke, reason was the sole key to personhood, or human nature. The term person, Locke understood to mean a being who was capable of “conforming to the laws of humanity or the laws of nature”. (Medicine and Morals in the Enlightenment, pg159) In Locke’s ‘Second Treaties’, he can be quoted expressing the view that for a man to “live by another rule, than that of reason and common equity, which is the measure God has set to the actions of men was to break the ties that bound him to his fellow creatures”. (‘Two Treaties of Government’, cited in ‘Medicine and Morals in the Enlightenment’, pg159)
Interestingly, Locke was an empiricist, who perceived the world in terms of
experiences, he therefore rejects any room for innate ideas, and places experiences
of sensations or reflections firmly as the basis of human understanding. He
said that the way we gain knowledge, through association of ideas, can lead
us to a knowledge of the existence of God. Locke believes that we have the
idea of existence and the idea of God. He believes that our reason can discern
an agreement between the two ideas, in order for his to argue that our reason
tells us that God exists. How then, would Locke regard the atheist? The loss
of reason was the loss of mans likeness to his maker, according to Locke, and
many of his contemporise. But what of the individual who claimed to not possess
this certain knowledge that God equals some kind of great being, who necessarily
exists. Using Locke’s analogy of a madman, it is a being who has ideas,
acquired through experience, but configures them incorrectly. Take for example,
Locke’s madman, who imagines he is a king. This mad man understands that
part of being a king is to be male, and to appreciate obedience, and politeness.
He may, then, wrongly, assume himself to be a king, if he does acquire the
above understanding. So what of the atheist? I do not believe that Locke would
be justified calling the atheist an idiot, following his own analogy, as he
can not deny that the man is using this faculty called reason, and putting
ideas, or empirical evidences, together to reach conclusions. It is possible
to use a practical example here to illustrate my point, that being, a man who
has witnessed bad things happening in the world, such as a natural disaster,
may not be able to comprehend how an omnipotent, omni-benevolent God can exist.
In this case, Locke may be led to claim the atheist a madman, who has the faculty
of reasoning, but arrives at incorrect conclusions based upon his experiences.
For Religion had to be rational, and Locke himself, argued in favour of the ‘reasonableness
of Christianity’ towards the end of the seventeenth century. (A Social
History of Madness, pg 15)
So was Locke’s work an important mile stone, for the changes in 17th
and 18th century opinions on madness? In Roy Porters book; ‘A Social
History of Madness’, it can be understood that, drawing from Locke’s
ideas at the time concerning human understanding, ‘reformers’,
as they were known, argued that the madman was not totally void of a reasoning
power, such as the idiot, but a man who’s faulty associating of ideas
had led to erroneous ideas on proper behaviour. It was even suggested that
mad people belonged to fantasy worlds. Which in turn led to an opinion that
mad people should be treated like children, and the ‘mad house’ should,
in fact, be more of a reform school.
Having looked at Locke’s views on the importance of reason, and how he
believes it is connected to madness, I want to further my enquiry by looking
in to how Locke considered animals. I will look at if Locke believes whether
animals are capable of reasoning, and whether or not he reduces the ‘idiot’,
or the ‘madman’, to an animal level?
I began the essay with a quote from Locke; “is the faculty whereby man
is supposed to be distinguished from beasts, and wherein it is evident he much
surpasses them.” Essay, Book IV Chapter XVII. He furthers his argument; “Brutes
abstract not”, (Treaties on Human Understanding, Book II, Section II)
Locke continues, abstraction is a psychological process, that humans use, but
which is not available to brutes (his word for non-human animals). I believe
this is the key difference between humans and other animals. Although I have
already addressed this issue, I believe it s important to consider it again
at this point in the essay, as we must understand what for Locke it is to ‘abstract’.
Human knowledge, he believes begins with ‘perception’. When we
look about us, our sense organs are activated and put into the mind ‘simple
ideas’. For example, my eyes, reacting to something green, might drop
into my mind the simple idea ‘greenness’. So my senses put simple
ideas like this into my mind. So far I don’t have any ‘ideas’ of
objects, for example I don’t have the idea of a bush yet, because Locke
thinks ideas of objects are constructed by us, in our minds. They are constructed
out of the simple ideas which our senses give us, but our minds do have to
construct them. Our senses don’t give us ideas of objects directly.
What the mind does do, Locke believes, is to notice that groups of simple ideas
seem to go together. This group of ideas then forms a complex idea, as I have
explained, which leads to the idea of an object. For example, my mind might
notice that the following simple ideas occur repeatedly together; greenness,
roundness, tallness. My mind might then form a complex idea with just these
ideas as components, leading to a (complex) idea of an object that we might
call a ‘bush’.
This complex idea is not a general idea. It is an idea of a particular object – a particular ‘bush’. When we perceive an individual bush it stimulates our sense organs so that they put a number of simple ideas in our minds. This group of simple ideas continue to appear in the mind, the more often we look at a bush, and the mind, identifying a group of simple ideas that go together, assembles them into a complex idea – this is or complex idea of an individual bush.
Next, Locke explains, having constructed in our minds complex ideas of individual
objects, we can now have general ideas or ideas of categories. For example
we have the general idea of a bush, which the mind has constructed by reviewing
all the ideas of individuals (bushes in this case) it possesses and sees if
there are groups of such individual ideas which have features in common. By
this I mean that the mind may discover that all the ideas it has about the
individual bushes all have greenness, and roundness in common. s’ in
common. If the mind finds such a group, it makes a list of all the features
that are had in common and this forms a further complex idea. This time the
complex idea formed, Locke calls a general idea.
It is this process of forming general ideas from ideas of individual things
that Locke calls ‘abstraction.’ Locke thinks it is this process
of abstraction which nonhuman animals are incapable.
One problem that I noticed here, however, was that Locke’s account of
constructing general does not allow for two separate complex ideas which may
not have the same features. For example a mind may witness a bush in spring
when it is healthy and fully grown, with green leaves. The same mind may then
witness a similar bush at the end of autumn, when it has decreased in size,
and bears brown or red leaves, or no leaves at all. I was unable to find evidence
in Locke’s essay to show that he allowed for such a problem, which I
think shows a weakness in his argument.
It is now possible, having explored what Locke believes abstraction to be,
to ask what argument he puts forward in order to support his claim, “Brutes
abstract not”?
He states; “For it is evident we observe no…making use of general
signs for universal ideas; for which we have reason to imagine that they have
not the faculty of abstracting, or making general ideas, since they have no
use of words, or any other general signs.” (Essay, Book II, Chapter XI)
Locke does consider the suggestion that animals can’t use general words,
not because they can’t perform abstraction but because they have no speech
organs. However, he states that some of them actually can make noises which
sound like words, but they don’t use these to express general ideas.
Human mutes, on the other hand, can use non-verbal signs to express general
ideas. “Men, who through some defect in the organs, want words, yet fail
not to express their universal ideas by sign, which serve them instead of general
words, a faculty which we see beasts come short in.” (Essay, Book II,
Chapter XI)
Locke concludes: “This I think I may be positive in, that the power of
abstracting is not at all in [brutes]; and that the having of general ideas,
is that which puts a perfect distinction betwix man and brutes…”.
(Book II, Chapter XI)
C.F.Goodey interprets Locke, in his work; ‘John Locke’s Idiots
in the Natural History of the Mind’ as holding that abstraction comes
at the top of a whole hierarchy of processes which work in the mind to establish
knowledge and reliable opinion. Abstraction for Locke, he explains, is “a
capability at the top of a hierarchical chain of active psychological perfection.” (Goodey,
'John Locke’s Idiots in the Natural History of the Mind', p. 217)
Though Locke concludes this is the key difference between human beings and
nonhuman animals- “Brutes abstract not” (Treaties on Human Understanding,
Book II, Section II) - he thinks the operations of their minds differ in lesser
ways as well.
Locke thinks they must be thought of as capable of ‘perception’,
which we know Locke understands as the having of simple ideas. But the degree
to which they are capable of manipulating those simple ideas he thinks probably
varies a great deal, and in the case of any given species it is impossible
to tell exactly what powers are present. He does believe however, we know at
least this: you have to have some powers of perception to be an animal at all.
The having of perceptions marks the difference between animals and ‘inferior
ranks of creatures’ – such as plants. Locke says it is perception, “in
the lowest degree of it, which puts boundaries between animals and the inferior
ranks of creatures.” (Essay, Book XI, Chapter IX)
Human beings have the power to call up in to the mind ideas that first entered the mind some time ago– which is how he thinks of memory. He believes animals may have this power, to some degree.
A similar power in human beings is being able to hold an idea in the mind for a given period of time– which is what Locke thinks of as contemplation. Locke considers these aspects of secondary perceptions, and this seems to highlight the first differences between the human mind and the brute. He states; “How far brutes partake in this faculty is not easie to determine; I imagine they have it not in any great degree.” (Essay, Book XI, Chapter XI)
This point raises an issue which I considered earlier, regarding idiots and
madmen. If madmen can have ideas, and can reason, as we have understood from
Locke, then this means they are able to abstract (even if they conclude wrong
things about the world). He believes animals have ideas, however if he believes
they cannot abstract, surly this means they can not have reason, following
his logic. However in chapter 11 he states; “…we can not deny
them to have some reason…”. He believes, and concludes his chapter
by stating that they have ideas but “..have not the faculty to enlarge
them by any kind of abstraction.”(Essay, Book XI, Chapter XI)
If Locke believes they can reason, then it must follow that he believes they
can abstract. What is the difference between them and the mad man? This part
of Locke’s essay led me to feel that he had led himself to a slight contradiction,
assuming, of course, that I have understood Locks account of reason.
I do believe that Locke’s work concerning Reason was extremely valuable
in providing information regarding the mad-man, as well as understanding human
understanding itself. I do think, however there are some weaknesses with Locke’s
argument, and I think it would be interesting to learn how he would answer
my criticism of the section in his argument which I believe does not allow
for two separate complex ideas which may not have the same features (as I explained
earlier).
It is possible to see how further work, following on from my enquiry might take form. I am interested to know if others would regard Locke’s section on animals as a little contradictory. I would also be interested in finding out how Some f Locke’s contemporise may have considered the mad-man, and their reasoning for this.
Bibliography
Locke, J. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. 1690.
Porter, R. A Social History of Madness. (Butler and Tanner Ltd, London, 1987).
Porter, R. Medicine in the Enlightenment. (Rodopi, Amsterdam, 1995).
Haakonssen, L. Medicine and Morals in the Enlightenment. (Editions Rodopi B. V. Amsterdam-Atlanta, The Netherlands, 1997).
Goody, C. ‘John Locke’s Idiots in the Natural History of the Mind’ History of Psychiatry. V(1994), pp215-250.
Popkin, R. Philosophy. (Buterworth-Heinemann Ltd, Oxford, 1969).
Sian Dooley
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