Reading Guide #2: John Locke, 'Simple Ideas of Sensation' (handout)

These reading guides are provided to assist you in your reading. I encourage you to read the material through, first, then go back to answer the questions. You are not expected to hand in written answers. You are expected to have responses ready for class discussion. Only the boldfaced questions will appear on exams.

1. Where do simple ideas come from?

2. "[I]t will be convenient to distinguish them as they are ideas or perceptions in our minds; and as they are modifications of matter in the bodies that cause such perceptions in us..." (§7) What does this mean? Why does Locke think that this distinction is important?

3. How does Locke define ideas? How does he define qualities? How are they different?

4. What are the primary qualities?

5. What are the secondary qualities?

6. How do ideas of external objects get into our minds, according to Locke?

7. How do we get ideas of secondary qualities?

8. Generally, which qualities really exist in bodies themselves? Which exist in the perceiver of the body?

9. "Take away the sensation of them; let not the eyes see light or colors, nor the ears hear sounds; let the palate not taste, nor the nose smell, and all colours, tastes, odours, and sounds, as they are such particular ideas, vanish and cease, and are reduced to their causes, i.e. bulk, figure, and motion of parts." (§17) Explain.

10. How do the examples of the porphyry and the almond support the primary/secondary distinction?

11. How does Locke's discussion of the water support his primary/ secondary distinction?