Abstract
Locke holds that we have two radically different types of ideas. Ideas of substances like a horse, a pig, and the metal gold are designed to correspond to things in the world that exist and have their properties independently of our ideas. Mode ideas have the opposite direction of fit. They are not meant to capture independently existing archetypes but rather function as categories that we impose on the world. Examples of mode ideas are the idea of a rainbow, a tune, a duel, and etching. But this category is important for Locke because it includes the key ideas of mathematics and morality. Thus, Locke’s distinction between two types of ideas corresponds to a distinction between bodies of knowledge that derive norms from observation (the various sorts of natural philosophy) and those intended to prescribe norms (mathematics and ethics). But although this way of thinking is fundamental to Locke’s moral epistemology, I argue that he has some difficulty accommodating the substance-mode ontology with his other metaphysical and semantic commitments.
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Notes
- 1.
These are all examples of mixed modes. There are also simple modes – “modifications of any one simple idea” (2.13.1) – such as space and extension (2.13.2); place (2.13.7); and hours, days, time, and eternity (2.14.1). I focus on mixed modes, since they cause more problems. For more on simple modes, especially in connection with Locke’s views on mathematics, see Carson (2005).
- 2.
Cf. Leibniz, New Essays 2.12: “This division of the objects of our thoughts into substances, modes and relations is pretty much to my liking. I believe that qualities are just modifications of substances, and that the understanding adds relations … although relations are the work of the understanding they are not baseless and unreal. The primordial understanding is the source of things; and the very reality of all things other than simple substances rests only on the foundation of the perceptions or phenomena of simple substances. Often the same holds with regard to mixed modes, i.e. they ought to be treated rather as relations.”
- 3.
See Bolton (1998) for a discussion of this contrast.
- 4.
For more on this claim and some of the problems it raises, see LoLordo (2008).
- 5.
This is consistent with the fact that we’re often inspired to design a mode idea because of something we have experienced, as in Locke’s example of “the man who first framed the idea of hypocrisy,” who “might have … taken it at first from the observation of one, who made show of good qualities, which he had not” (2.22.2).
- 6.
Locke also holds that all ideas of qualities correspond to their archetypes, but – since in this case the archetypes are external – he offers quite a different explanation.
- 7.
As Martin Lenz points out, this marks a clear change from the view expressed in section 26 of Draft A, where Locke refers to moral “Notions or Standards of our actions being not of our owne making but depending upon something without us”.
- 8.
For more on this point and its significance, see LoLordo (2012, Introduction).
- 9.
I owe this point to an anonymous referee.
- 10.
Part of why Locke’s readers have not typically noticed the problems raised by his ontological category of modes is that they have not recognized just how different Locke’s usage of the term ‘mode’ is from his predecessors’ usage. One exception is Ayers (1991, 2.91–109), who points out several of the problems I discuss below.
- 11.
See e.g. Principles of Philosophy 1.56 and 1.61 (AT 8a.26 and 29–30).
- 12.
One might also worry that it turns composite substances into modes, since composites depend for their existence on their parts. However, Locke makes it clear that the paradigmatic composite substances – things like horses and gold – do not depend for their existence on any particular parts. This is the moral of the early sections of 2.27.
- 13.
For a recent and well-articulated epistemic interpretation, see Anstey (2011, chapter 11).
- 14.
It is false that all modes are mental for Locke: consider the rainbow. And it is also false that all qualities are bodily: consider perceiving and reflecting, or pleasure and pain.
- 15.
The term ‘quartan fever’ – meaning a fever that recurs on the fourth day – suggests that the disease was originally conceived as the set of symptoms. But Leibniz’s view that malaria has a real essence distinct from its nominal essence suggests that he conceives of malaria as the underlying cause of those symptoms instead.
- 16.
If you think that the malaria is the underlying parasite, then you might deny that the malaria depends for its existence on the sick person. (You would thereby turn malaria into a substance.) But the same move cannot plausibly be made for hurricanes and earthquakes.
- 17.
Of course, watches depend for their existence on the existence of certain material parts. But this is no different from the way animals depend for their existence on the possession of some material body. That’s the point of the comparison between animals and watches Locke is making here.
References
Anstey, Peter. 2011. John Locke and natural philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press.
Ayers, Michael. 1991. Locke, vol. 2. London: Routledge.
Bolton, Martha. 1998. Substances, substrata and names of substances in Locke’s essay. In Locke, ed. Vere Chappell. New York: Oxford University Press.
Carson, Emily. 2005. Locke on simple and mixed modes. Locke Studies 5: 19–38.
Descartes, René . 1988. In Oeuvres de Descartes, 11 volumes, ed. Charles Adam and Paul Tannery. Paris: J. Vrin.
Locke, John . 1979. In An essay concerning human understanding, ed. Peter H. Nidditch. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
LoLordo, Antonia. 2008. Locke’s problem concerning perception. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 72.3: 705–724.
LoLordo, Antonia. 2012. Locke’s moral man. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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LoLordo, A. (2013). Three Problems in Locke’s Ontology of Substance and Mode. In: Lenz, M., Waldow, A. (eds) Contemporary Perspectives on Early Modern Philosophy. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, vol 29. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6241-1_4
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