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' (LJ'E‘ .iaw University This is to certify that the thesis entitled Knowledge, The Existence of God, and Faith: John Locke's Influence on Alexander Campbell's Theology presented by Billy Doyce Bowen has been accepted towards fulfillment of the requirements for Ph.D. degree in Arts & Letters Interdisciplinary 777 1 v a, Major professor Date May 30, 1978 0-7639 KNOWLEDGE, THE EXISTENCE OF GOD, AND FAITH: JOHN LOCKE'S INFLUENCE ON ALEXANDER CAMPBELL'S THEOLOGY By Billy Doyce Bowen A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of Interdisciplinary Studies 1978 ABSTRACT KNOWLEDGE, THE EXISTENCE OF GOD, AND FAITH: JOHN LOCKE'S INFLUENCE ON ALEXANDER CAMPBELL'S THEOLOGY By Billy Doyce Bowen This study of John Locke's philOSOphy is limited to its effect on the rationalistic theology of Alexander Campbell. More specifically, the areas of that influence which will be examined are knowledge and faith. Because both conclude that knowledge of God is possible, their arguments for the existence of God will be outlined and critically evaluated. The central thesis is that the theology of Alexander Campbell, in relation to its funda- mental principles, can best be explained by showing his dependence on the writings of John Locke. Though knowledge of the corporeal world is limited to the ideas gained from experience, it is possible to attain other forms of knowledge by means of deduction. The most important example of such knowledge relates to the existence of God. Both men develop a form of the cosmo- logical argument, but there are fundamental differences in the two arguments. Locke offers a proof which begins with the certainty of human existence. Then using the various qualities of human nature, such as goodness, power and intelligence, he argues that the Supreme Being must be the infinite source of these qualities found in human nature. He further argues from the assumption that something cannot proceed from nothing and that for every effect there must be an adequate cause to the conclusion that God must be an eternal mind of absolute power and goodness. In his own develOpment of the cosmological argument, Alexander Campbell criticizes and rejects Locke's form of the argument. He insists, for instance, that it is a fallacy to move from a series of causes to a First Cause. A correct form of the argument must begin with an explanation of how the idea of God originated. His contention is that if man has but five senses by which ideas of external reality are attained, and if God is transcendental, then man could not have gained the idea of God from experience. Since we have the idea, God must be the source. This means God must exist as the causal agent behind the idea. A clear distinction is to be maintained between religious faith and probable Opinion. Each depends on probability and testimony, but religious faith contains at least one element of knowledge: that of God's existence. Nothing in probable opinion reaches the level of knowledge. Also, faith has elements which have been revealed at some point and these have been transmitted to believers by primary witnesses. Faith is above reason, but not contrary to reason because nothing in faith is to be accepted if it proves to be contradictory. Alexander Campbell's concept of faith follows Locke's basic views, but he goes beyond him in one impor- tant point: he shows that faith is an integral part of human existence. As a result he argues that faith being necessary, the Christian faith is the most natural and reasonable because it alone puts man in touch with ultimate reality and provides him with an absolute system of ethics. Thus Locke drew the boundaries of knowledge and faith and Campbell established his theology on the foundation which Locke determined for him. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Without the support and encouragement of a number of people, this dissertation could never have been finished. I wish to thank Dr. Robert T. Anderson, Chairman of the Department of Religion who accepted it as a worthwhile project from the first, and the members of my committee, Drs. Mary Schneider, director; Roger Meiners and Charles McCracken; each of whom provided guidance and suggested specific ways in which the work could be improved. Also I wish to thank Donnis Crump who edited and typed the final draft, and my wife Nancy, who not only worked diligently on the dissertation with me, but gave me the support to bring it to a successful conclusion. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter I. INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 II. THE MEANING AND SCOPE OF KNOWLEDGE . . . . . . . 9 John Locke's Theory of Knowledge . . . . . . . 9 Knowledge and certainty . . . . . . . . . . 9 Knowledge and perception . . . . . . . 21 Alexander Campbell' 3 Use of Locke' s Epistemology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Knowledge and certainty . . . . . . . . . . 31 Knowledge and perception . . . . . . . . . . 35 III. PROOF FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD . . . . . . . . . 44 John Locke's Cosmological Argument . . . . . . 44 The development of Locke' s argument . . . . 44 Critique and evaluation . . . . . . . . 53 Alexander Campbell's Cosmological Argument . . 63 Criticism and departure from Locke . . . . . 63 A revised argument . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 IV. THE MEANING OF FAITH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 John Locke's Concept of Faith . . . . . . . . 81 Faith and facts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 Faith and reason . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 Faith and revelation . . . . . . . . 92 Critique of Locke' 3 Concept of Faith . . . . . 97 V. FAITH AND HUMAN EXISTENCE . . . . . . . . . . . 112 Alexander Campbell's Concept of Faith . . . . 112 Faith and facts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114 Faith and history . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 Faith and life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 Summary and Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . 146 VI. CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 BIBLIOGRAPHY O C O O O O O O O O I O O O I I I O I I 0 1 55 iii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION This study of John Locke's philosophy will be limited to its effect on the rationalistic theology of Alexander Campbell. More specifically, the areas of that influence' which will be examined are faith, knowledge and the existence of God. The central thesis of this study is that the theology of Alexander Campbell, in relation to its fundamental tenets, can be best explained by showing his dependence on the writings of John Locke.1 However, this is not to deny that other sources influenced Campbell as well; it is rather to argue that no other source was so pervasive or as fundamentally important as was Locke.2 Indeed, it 1The writings which influenced him most are the Essay and On the Reasonableness of Christianity. Quotations from Locke's Essay are taken, unless otherwise indicated, from An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, edited with an introduction, critical apparatus and glossary by Peter H. Nidditch (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1975). Two editions of On the Reasonableness of Christianity have been used. The Gateway edition by George w. Ewing—(Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1965), which is unabridged with an introduction by the editor. The abridged edition with a "Discourse of Miracles" and part of "A Third Letter Con- cerning Toleration," edited by I. T. Ramsey (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1967). Robert Richardson, his son-in-law, stated that Campbell had studied Locke's Essay thoroughly. See Robert Richardson, Memoirs of Alexander Cam bell (Cincinnati: Standard Publishing Company, 18975, Vol.1, p. 33. 2For Campbell, John Locke was the Christian philoso- pher par excellence. 1 2 will be shown that Campbell's theology begins and is sus- tained by the epistemology of Locke. There is little need to defend the desire to write about John Locke. He is recognized as one of the most important philOSOphers of his time and is generally acknow- ledged as the father of British empiricism. On the other hand, however, the value of studying Alexander Campbell does need to be explained. Outside the religious group he founded and except for students of American religion, few know anything at all about him. This situation is difficult to understand. Not only did he found the largest religious group indigenous to America, but he was widely recognized as the most astute spokesman for fundamental Christianity during his lifetime. He wrote, among other things, a defin- itive study of baptism and his debate with the socialist Robert Owen attracted national attention.3 In spite of his accomplishments, he has been sadly neglected. For that reason, if for no other, it seems appropriate to present this study of his dependence on Locke. In so doing, tribute may be given to an important figure in American religion and insight gained concerning the rationalistic tendency of one segment of American theology--that which 3Christian Ba tism with its Antecedents and Con- sequents (Nashville, Tenn.: Gospel Advocate Company, 1951): The Evidences of Christianity: Aggebate between Robert Owen and Alexander Cam be 1 (Nashville: McQuiddy Printing Company, 1957 , hereafter cited as Christian Baptism and Campbell- Owenygebate, respectively. was founded by Campbell.4 As will be demonstrated, Campbell begins with Locke's explanation for the origin and develOpment of ideas (where he takes it as a basic truth that knowledge is certain) and then argues from that to the conclusion that life must generally be lived by faith. In the process, however, Campbell makes some fundamental criticisms of and eventually rejects portions of Locke's philOSOphy. Primarily, the criticisms have to do with Locke's cosmological argument-~which he rejects as logically and empirically unsound. Another important difference in the two men has to do with their attempts to defend the Christian faith as historically sound. Both rely on the standard arguments of testimony, the miracles of Jesus and revelation. But Campbell goes further and gives empirical grounding to some of the basic Christian doctrines. The two men alSo differ in their emphases. Locke is a major philosopher and consequently his epistemology is much more extensive and vastly more complex than Campbell's. On the other side, the latter analyzes faith and conversion in greater depth than does the former. Nevertheless, they stand closely together because of the rationalistic tendency 4See, for example, Sydney E. Ahlstrom, A Religious ist r of the American People (New Haven: Yale University Press, 19725, who writes of Campbell that he "was . . . a fervent exponent of eighteenth-century rationalism, . . . [and] a disciple of John Locke. . . ..An intellectualist bent determined his understanding of faith as the mind‘s assent to credible testimony. . . . This rationalist note [also] stands out in his views on baptism," p. 449. 4 which underlies all their most important concepts., Without an appeal to reason, Locke cannot account for substances, other minds, God or external objects. In any case, Campbell sees both sides of Locke's phiIOSOphy and uses them to advantage in developing his rationalistic theology. The study of Locke's writings, especially the Essay, "Letters on Toleration," the correspondence with Stilling- fleet and the Reasonableness of Christianity,5 helps Campbell in two areas of thought. In the Essay, for instance, he discovers the explanation he needs concerning the means by which the mind receives ideas, and thus con- structs a cosmological argument superior to that found outlined in the Essay. In the Reasonableness of Christianity he finds support for his views on inspiration, absolutes in morality and the miracles of Jesus. But it is the dual character of Locke's phiIOSOphy which proves most significant. He discovers in the empirical method precisely what he needs to explain acquisition of knowledge of the corporeal world. In Locke's underlying rationalism he also attains a critical apparatus to be used in defending the Christian system in all his writings and debates. The following chapters will demonstrate just how pervasive Locke's influence is on Campbell's thought. In chapter 2 the epistemologies of both men are 5Other writings which Campbell knew and used are the Vindications 9:7Christianit : A Discourse of Miracles: Some Thoughts ConcerningyEducation, as well as the Paraphrase of Paul's Epistles. See chap. 5, pp. 113, 121-23, 141. 5 examined jointly. This is done primarily because Campbell merely borrows Locke's theory of knowledge in a very crude form. What he does accept are the following elements: experience is the necessary and sufficient condition for knowing: experience involves sensation and reflection. He believes Locke is right in saying that knowledge arises from that which is "given" in experience. Campbell, at least in his theology, strictly limits knowledge to this definition: whereas Locke includes, among other things, the immediate perception of the agreement among ideas, the intuitive cer- tainty of personal existence, a cosmological argument for the existence of God, and inferential knowledge of corporeal objects. According to Campbell, only the first and last item actually fulfill the requirement that knowledge be certain. Serious objections Can be raised about each of the others-~as formulated by Locke. Chapter 3 analyzes each writer's proof for the existence of God. Locke offers a proof which begins with the certainty of personal existence. Then using the various qualities of human nature, such as goodness, power and intelligence, he argues that the Supreme Being must be the infinite source of these qualities in man. He further argues from the assumption that something cannot proceed from nothing and that for every effect there must be an adequate cause to the conclusion that God must be an eternal mind of absolute power and goodness. This argument will be critically analyzed and followed by the revised form 6 Campbell develops to avoid Locke's errors. The former begins as Locke does with the assumption that something cannot proceed from nothing and that every effect has to be preceded by an adequate cause or series of causes. But at this point he insists that any argument which moves from a series of causes to a First Cause is logically unsound. Such an argument cannot account for the idea of God. Thus a prior step, which Locke tries to make but which he cannot without using revelation, is necessary to describe the origin of the idea of God. Locke has already shown how men's ideas are dependent on experience, but the point is men do not have experience of God. Campbell insists that the idea is supernatural in origin and that Locke's failure to appreciate the fact is a serious mistake. Why Campbell believes this will be shown more fully in the text of this chapter. Chapter 4 will examine Locke's concept of faith. Basically, he distinguishes between religious faith and probable Opinion by noting that, even though both rely on probability, faith contains elements which are above reason and therefore depend on revelation at some point. He sometimes speaks of religious faith as the greatest certainty--based on revelation--while at other times he says it is merely probable. He appears to state contra- dictory things about faith, but his statements have to be taken in the overall context of his proof for the existence 7 of God. In relating religious faith to the existence Of God, he is dealing with certainty because God's existence can be demonstrated by a sound deductive argument. Otherwise, religious faith is only probable because it depends on the testimony of witnesses. His cosmological argument must be sound, therefore, in order to keep him from being inconsis- tent regarding faith.6 Alexander Campbell's concept Of faith, as described in chapter 5, takes into account various features of Locke's view. These include the claims that faith is an assent to facts, that it depends on revelation and that it is not contrary to reason. At this point, however, he goes beyond Locke by showing how faith is an integral part of man's existence. He then argues that faith being necessary, the Christian faith is the most natural and reasonable for man to follow because this faith is revealed and contains an absolute system of ethics. These last ideas, Of course, are shared by Locke. In the areas Of knowledge, the existence of God, and faith (this is the logical sequence because faith takes over where knowledge ends), it can be shown that Campbell's rationalistic theology depends on his understandingcflfLocke's various writings. Locke drew the boundaries Of knowledge and Campbell built his theology on the foundation which 6It seens to me that there is no consistent means by which Locke can distinguish between faith and mere probable Opinion without the cosmological argument being true. 8 the former laid for him. He found in Locke a philOSOpher who is sympathetic to religion and one who provides a sound basis for developing a rational justification for the Christian faith. CHAPTER II THE MEANING AND SCOPE OF KNOWLEDGE John Locke's Theory Of Knowledge Knowledge and certainty According to Locke, being certain is a defining characteristic of knowing.7 His analysis of knowledge indicates its basic constituents are the perceiving mind, sensation, reflection, ideas, and judgments. As James Gibson has shown,genuine knowledge, for Locke, must have three essential characteristics: It must be certain, be instructive and have as its Object that which is objectively 7"Where it is not . . . though we may fancy, guess, or believe, yet we always come short of knowledge." IV. i. 2-43. In knowing the existence of God he wants "to show . . . that we are capable of knowing, i.e. being cer- tain that there is a God." IV. x. 1. Again he remarks in the "Elements of Natural Philosophy," Ihe EhilQ§Ophica1 Works of John Locke, with a preliminary discourse and notes by J. A. St. John (London: George Virtue, 1843), p. 604, hereafter cited as Philosophical Works: "Knowledge . . consists in the perception of the truth of affirmative or negative prOpositionsJ' Where perception means intuitive certainty as described in TV. ii. 1, "the mind is at no pains of proving or examining, but perceives the Truth, as the eye doth light." Locke is even more positive in his "Second Letter to the BishOp of Worcester" when he states: "With me, to know and to be certain is the same thing: what I know, that I am certain of, and what I am certain of, that I know. What reaches to knowledge, I think may be called certainty: and what comes short of certainty, I think cannot be called knowledge." Philosophical Works, p. 532. Also see IV. iv. 18. This is a very strong position because it means that a knowledge claim is valid if and only if it is certain. Campbell secured a COpy of Locke's letters to Stillingfleet 9 10 'given' or real.8 Reduced to its bare minimum, knowledge is "nothing but the perception Of the connexion of the agreement, or disagreement and repugnancy of any of our ideas. In this alone it consists."9 Agreement and disagree- ment among ideas may be analyzed into four basic types: identity, or diversity; relation; co-existence, or necessary connexion: and real existence. These agreements and disagreements, in Locke's view, contain all the possibilities for knowledge. As he remarks, All the inquiries we can make concerning any of our ideas, all we can know or can affirm con- cerning any of them, is, that it is, or is not, the same with some other: that it does or does not always co-exist with some other idea in the same subject: that it has this or that relation with some other ideas: or that it has real existence without the mind. Specific examples of each type of relationship are given by him as follows: in 1836 and began publishing them in that year's Millennial Harbinger. Alexander Campbell, ed., The Millennial Harbin er (Bethany: By the Editor, 1830-1864), pp. 2 2-253: 463-465, hereafter cited as MH. 8James Gibson, Locke's Theory Of Knowledge and its Historical Relations (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1917 9 pp. 2-4. 91V. 1. 1. Stillingfleet questioned this definition of knowledge as being detrimental to the Christian faith. Locke answers this charge in his "Second Letter to the Bishop of Worcester" by curtly stating that he "will give Off the placing of certainty in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of ideas, if your lordship will be pleased to shog that it lies in anything else." PhilOSOphical Works, p. 31. 10IV. i. 3. 11IV. 1. 7. 11 Thus blue is not yellow, is Of identity. Iyg, triangles upon equal bases betweenyparallels are equal, is of relation. Iron is susceptible Of magnetical impressions, is of co-existence, God is, is of real existence. Intuition (perception--Locke often uses the two inter- changeably) is a necessary condition for knowledge because it allows the individual to grasp the relational connec- tions among ideas immediately. With these basic types of agreement and disagreement, together with intuition, Locke believes he holds the key to all knowledge.13 The ideas on which knowledge depends are, in the first instance, received by a passive mind. Actual knowing there- fore depends on bringing the mind into attentive consideration of its perceptual experience. In every case of knowing "where this perception is, there is knowledge: and where it is not . . . we always come short of knowledge."14 Moreover, according to Locke, this perception is either mediate or immediate. Mediate perception results from deductive reasoning where each step in the deduction itself is per— ceived by intuition to be true. But immediate perception is limited to "seeing" the relationship between two ideas: that is, by comparing two ideas in the mind, "We see, or, 12Ibid. 13He argues extensively for this view in IV. iii. 1-21. Essentially, he insists knowledge is limited to ideas which may be reduced to one or more of the relations he has listed. Cf. Richard 1. Aaron, John Locke (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1971). pp. 225-2 . 141v. 1. 2. A 12 15 This as it were, behold their agreement or disagreement." reference to seeing, which Locke uses concerning intuition, gives an important hint as to his understanding of the perceptual process. Intuition is a kind of internal "seeing" anahagous to external vision. Thus, two ideas, according to Locke's theory, can be compared or contrasted in much the same,say, 16 that two external Objects can be. His attempts to clarify what he means by intuition are not very successful, showing only that it occurs during introspection so that, if we will reflect on our own ways of thinking, we shall find, that sometimes the mind perceives the agreement or disagreement of two ideas immediately by themselves, without the inter- vention Of any other: and this, I think, we may call intuitive knowledge.17 Indeed, he thinks pure intuition requires no proof at all and in the prOper conditions will "see the truth, just as the eye needs nothing more than an Object and light by which to see.18 One knows immediately, for instance, "that white 15See his "Elements of Natural Philosophy," Philo- sophical Works, p. 604. 16See R. S. Woolhouse, Locke's Philoso h of Science and Knowledge (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1971), p. 36: "When Locke talks of ideas in connexion with perception . . he thinks of them as mental images of objects and their qualities." Locke states, for instance, "These simple ideas, when Offered to the mind, the understanding can no more refuse to have, nor alter when they are imprinted . . . than a mirror can refuse, alter, or obliterate the images or ideas which the objects set before it do therein produce." 11. i. 25. 171v. ii. 1. I81bid. 13 is not black, and that a circle is not a triangle."19 He very Often Speaks as if perception and intuition are the same thing. But when he is more careful, he makes the proper distinction, as, for example, when he points out that some perceptions may be mistaken.20 At other times, however, he says, "Where this perception is, there is know- 21 ledge," thereby identifying knowledge with one type of perception. The reason he speaks like this is that he believes perception has various degrees of accuracy.22 The highest degree of perception he calls intuition--here there can be no error. This distinction avoids the fallacy that since all intuition is perception, all perception is intuition. Other than saying it has degrees and can be certain, he does not elaborate on his theory of intuition. We must therefore look to the source of his theory as it is found in Descartes and the Cartesians, for it is generally agreed that Locke extensively revised his theory of knowledge 19It is true that Locke knows these are "trifling propositions" and add nothing to our body of knowledge. The only interesting example he can give is that relating to personal existence. (I will come back to this subject later in this paper.) IV. viii. In fact the distinction between "trifling" and instructive propositions is just that the latter add to the body of knowledge while the former do not: see Woolhouse, pp. 10-11 . 20ESpecially II. vii. 19-22. 21 ZzEspecially as the problem of perceptual error shows up in children and the aged. II. ix. 5-14. IV. i. 2. 14 during the years he spent in France between 1675 and 1679.23 Justification for taking this position is based, partly at least, on the fact that the section on knowledge and its dependency on intuition found in Book IV Of the Esssy does not appear in the original drafts Of 1671. Moreover, the similarity between Locke's language in Book IV, regarding knowledge, and that of the Cartesians is more than mere coincidence. Intuition and its function in knowledge is a specific example of this similarity. Thus if one examines Descartes' writing on intui- tion, expecially "Rules for the Direction of the Mind," it is difficult to believe Locke did not borrow significantly from him. Regarding intuition Descartes wrote that it is "not the fluctuating testimony of the senses . . . but the conception which an unclouded and attentive mind gives us so readily and distinctly that we are wholly freed from doubt 24 about that which we understand." He goes on to add, "lflEElElQQ is the undoubting conception of an unclouded and 23See for instance, Aaron, p. 200-201: J. D. Mabbot, John Locke (New York: The Macmillan Press, 1973), pp. 52-53, 76-78, 84, 98, as well as the whole section in Gibson's "Locke and Descartes," pp. 205-232. Gibson notes that the two agree not only in their positive views but are guilty of the same inconsistencies (p. 212). 24Elizabeth s. Haldane and G. R. T. Ross, lhs Philosophical Works of Descartss (Cambridge: At the Univer- sity Press, 1969), Vol. 1, p. 7. Cf. Locke, Essay, IV. ii. 1. Descartes also writes, "This evidence and certitude, however, which belongs to intuition, is required not only in the enunciation of propositions, but also in discursive reasoning of whatever sort." Ibid. Locke agrees, "Certainty depends so wholly on this intuition, that in the next degree of know- ledge, which I call demonstrative, this intuition is necessary in all the connexions of the intermediate ideas." IV. ii. 1. 15 attentive mind, and springs from the light of reason alone: it is more certain than deduction itself . . ."25 By intuition Descartes means the natural function of the mind in grasping truth. "Intuition is not a fitting together Of premises, but a dialectic. Given certain data, they produce out Of themselves a further truth: it is a natural process, and that is yhy it is impossible to make a false inference."26 In another way, then, intuition is like seeing--it is as natural a function of the mind to think as it is for the eyes to see--but with this important difference, intuition cannot be mistaken. This was the incorrigible element Locke needed for his epistemology. He sought some means by which knowledge might be attained without having to resort to innate ideas or principles, and intuition appeared to answer his needs exactly. In the first place, according to the Cartesians, intuitive knowledge is direct and immediate, implying that the mind has the inherent power to apprehend truth directly and incorrigibly. This theory was the very thing Locke needed to blunt the challenge brought forth by the sceptics, namely that nothing is beyond doubt. He believed that surely the sceptics could not doubt those things which are intuitively certain, such as the perception that "white is not black" and "that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two 25 26 Norman Smith, Studies in the Cartesian Philoso h (New York: Russell & Russell, 1962), p. 34. Ibid. 16 right ones."27 He was so certain, in fact, that he went on to declare that these are examples such that "no one who has the use of reason can miss them, where it is necessary they should be taken notice of: nor doubt of their truth, when he does take notice of them."28 However, it is only because the first is a tautology and the latter "is a necessary consequence of its precise complex idea" that they are be- yond doubt. The first adds nothing to what is already known. The statement about triangles follows from the axioms of mathematics, also falling short of actually giving infor- mation regarding the world.29 Basically, then, the difficulty with his theory of intuition is that it is empty, at least on two counts: when he tries to describe how it works and in the examples of intuitive knowledge which he gives. What he finally does say is that we know certain kinds of things, knowledge Of these is certain and intuition is the method for knowing. But if these premises are true, Locke could have made the same claim without including intuition. More importantly, 271v. 1. 2: ii. 1. 28Iv. viii. 3. 29 IV. vii. 6. Also IV. viii. 8. The problem with both examples, then, is their failure to indicate how intui- tion functions. Woolhouse, however, does argue that the last example, at least, is instructive. He remarks, "the idea of having an external angle larger than the internal angles is not 'contained' in that Of being a triangle," p. 15. In this observation he is right, but knowledge is still not extended to what Locke calls "real" existence and this is the area where intuition is needed if knowledge Of God and of the world is to be attained. 17 the identical argument he uses against innate ideas might be 30 If innateness is applied to his theory Of intuition. unnecessary, then so is intuition. Because to say that one knows something by intuition is not to say anything more than that one knows. If knowing and intuition are identical, then why use both terms? If they are distinct, Locke must explain that distinction. Knowledge, however, can be attained in other ways besides direct intuition. Locke designates this second type of knowing as that which is acquired through demonstration. Like intuition, knowledge by demonstration is certain. It is distinguished from intuition by the following: (1) the recognition of agreement among ideas is mediate, (2) intervening ideas or proof are required, and (3) memory 31 He says demonstration is: is by necessity involved. The mediate perception of the agreement or disagree- ment of two ideas is when by the intervention of one or more other ideas, their agreement or disagreement is shown. . . . For instance, the inequality of the breadth of two windows, or two rivers, or any two bodies that cannot be put together, may be known by the intervgption of some measure applied to them both . . . 301. ii. 1. In fact, his position in Bk. 11, which insists all knowledge depends on experience, conflicts with Bk. IV, unless intuition is to be included in sensation. If so, then he needs to indicate how it functions in sensa- tion, and this he fails to do. Cf. Gibson, pp. 124-25: Aaron, pp. 221-24. Neither offers any insight into what Locke means by intuition. 31IV. iii. 1-4. Also, an element of doubt often preceeds the demonstration--doubt is totally lacking for intuitive knowledge. 32”Elements of Natural Philosophy." Philosophical 18 The standard by which ideas are to be compared is composed Of the relational agreements or disagreements outlined by Locke as identity, relation, co-existence and real exist- ence.33 If this analysis is true, then demonstrative knowledge can be attained in a precise manner by using these relations he deveIOped. Locke seems to be saying, for example, that two ideas such as color and shape combined with necessary coexistence lead. to the intuition that all things which have shape are extended.34 The argument, according to O'Connor, can be symbolized in this way: let C stand for an Object which has color, S for its shape and E for extension, while r refers to necessary coexistence. As a result We then see that these two statements have a common term 'shape' (S) and also that,‘in Locke's language, the idea of shape agrees with itself in respect of the relation of identity. Then by a further intuition, we teleSCOpe CrS and SrE into CrE, eliminating the common term and arriving at the conclusion that all colored terms are extended.35 Works, p. 604: cf. IV. ii. 3-7, where Locke says of demon- stration that it is not as clear as intuitive knowledge, intuition is necessary for every step in demonstration, and it is not limited to mere quantity. 33 34 D. J. O'Connor, John Locke (New York: Dover Publications, 1967), p. 167. The example is taken from O'Connor's excellent treatment of Locke's epistemology. See also, pp. 166-171. Cf. Mabbot, pp.81-82. 35 IV. 1. 2. Ibid., p. 168. 19 If O'Connor is right, however, Locke's approach is mistaken for two reasons: (I) No one actually reasons this way and Locke is attempting to describe empirically how men do 36 The indeed think. (2) It is logically inadequate. validity of this type of relational argument holds only for transitive relations such as "equal to," "greater than" and "subsequent to."37 In fact, the only area in which Locke's position seems promising is in mathematics, but mathematical truths follow from logical rules and not merely from the relational agreement of the ideas involved. At best then, Locke's method has very limited application. His account of demonstration would be more nearly adequate if he had recognized the value of the syllogism. Instead he criticized it and failed to develop an alterna- tive form of inference by which his standard of necessary relation could be defended. According to O'Connor, Locke might have gone further and done justice to the actual process of inference by two adjustments to his theory of knowledge which would have been made without seriously affecting its basic principles . . . (1) to admit prososi- Eisss as complex ideas: (2) to admit the logical relations between propositions as ways of 'agreement' between ideas. 36 37 38O'Connor, p. 171. Locke's criticism is found in TV. xvii. 4-6. Essentially, he says that the syllogism is no assistance to reasoning, especially in probabilities, and does not improve knowledge and that inferences are seen better without it. In fact, Stillingfleet made O'Connor's point to Locke. He insisted that one has to rely on the Ibid. Ibid. 20 Failure to make such adjustments left his theory of know- ledge much too narrow and logically unjustifiable. Locke recognizes a third form Of knowing which he calls "sensitive" knowledge. He distinguishes among the types or degrees of knowledge by saying that "The knowledge of the Existence of any other thing [besides knowledge of personal existence and the existence of God] we can have only by sensation."39 Earlier he states: There is, indeed, another perception of the mind employed about the particular existence Of finite beings without us; which going beyond bare proba- bility, and yet not reaching perfectly to either of the foregoing degrees of Eartainty, passes under the name of knowledge. Locke attempts to justify sensitive knowledge but is not really successful. Where general truths are concerned, his claim that epistemological certainty comes by intuition and demonstration is firmly held, but he begins to waver and become unsure of himself when he insists particulars are known by sensation. He defines knowledge as that which is certain, having to do only with relations among ideas, and as long as he sticks to general truths or vague entities syllogism by developing an argument from incorrigible prin- ciples and basing it on reason. Intuition is not inherently correct: but Locke rejected this conclusion by noting that in so far as the syllogism leads to knowledge it depends on intuition. See the "Second Letter to the Bishop of Worces- ter," PhiIOSOphical Works, pp. 580-83: also, Aaron, pp. 222-23. The second of O'Connor's criticisms is based on the fact that Locke did not include logical relations between propositions as one of his ways of agreement between ideas. See IV. 1. 3. 39 40 IVI Xi.- 10 IVI ii.- 14; Cf. IV. XiXo 10 21 like God and self, his use of intuition is at least under- standable. But, if knowledge is only Of ideas in relational clusters, how can he justify his claim to know particulars without abandoning his theory of knowledge? In order to answer this question--and Locke recognized its seriousness-- he appealed to what he called the "real existence" Of things.41 Knowledge and perception The basic assumption behind his positing the exist- 42 ence of corporeal objects is a causal theory of perception. Simple ideas, as he has already argued, are neither mind- dependent nor actual creations of the mind. He notes, "it is not in the power of the most exalted wit . . . to invent or frame one new simple idea . . . nor can any force of the "43 understanding, destroy those that are there The simple ideas require something external. Locke therefore believes he can logically argue for the existence Of things as that causal factor: In fine, then, when our senses do actually convey into our understandings any idea, we cannot but be satisfied that there doth something at that time really exist without us, which doth affect our senses, and by them give notice of itself to our apprehensive faculties, and actually produce 41IV. xi. 2,3. See, also, Aaron, p. 245: "Sensation carries with it a tang of reality in a way in which imagi- nation does not." 4211. viii. 1. "Whatsoever is so constituted in nature, as to be able . . . to cause any perception in the mind, doth thereby produce in the understanding a simple idea." 43II. ii. 2. Campbell makes a great deal of this point, as will be seen. 22 that idea we then perceive: and we cannot so far distrust their testimony, as to doubt that such collections of simple ideas as we have observed by our senses go be united together, so really exist together.4 A further justification for insisting on the "real existence" Of external objects is found in the distinction between actual sensation and dreaming. For example, he remarks that there is a vast difference between dreaming about being in a fire and indeed being in it.45 Although dreams or imagina- tion may arrange ideas into the most extreme patterns, neither of these can enlarge on the mind's store of simple ideas. At the same time, if the mind is not the creative agent (as it might be if innate ideas were possible), then the other source has to be the reality of external things.46 Locke's view of perceptual knowledge of external things may be summarized in the following manner: 44IV. xi. 9. See, also, Maurice Mandelbaum, "Locke's Realism," Philoso h Science and Sense Perce tion: Histori- cal and Critical Studies (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1966). PP. 55-60. Objects exist, according to Locke, "in their own right, independently of us . . . [and] they possess the characteristics which . . . cause us to form the ideas which we do form of them," p. 60. 451v. xi. 7. 46 "Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper, void of all characters, without any ideas . . ." II. i. 2. Also, "For whatever we know is all either inscribed in our hearts by a gift of nature and a certain privilege of birth, or conveyed to us by hearsay, or drawn by us from the senses," Essa s on the Law of Nature, edited by W. Von Leyden (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1954), p. 125. Locke has no doubt at all that the latter alternative is the correct one. It is simply that this alternation covers all possibilities, or, put in logical symbolism, A v B, and - B, so therefore A. 23 1. Whatever begins to be is caused [truth Of reason] 2 Our sensations begin to be [truth of experience] 3. Therefore, our sensations are caused [from 1, 2] 4 . Either we cause our sensations or something else does [truth of reason, viz., A or not -A] 5. We do not cause our sensations, for we passively receive them [truth Of experience] 6. Therefore, something else, which we call "matter," causes them [from 4, 5]47 This theory of perception regarding knowledge of corporeal Objects is a wide departure from the strict empir- icism Locke has advocated earlier. The use of cause and effect to justify inferring external objects is not a happy result for Locke, but he has been forced into it. If his claim to know is not to be limited to tautologies and personal existence, then he must find some means to connect it with objective reality. In order to do this, he devises a causal theory of perception in which the Objects of that O O 4 8 O , O perception are inferred. Percept1ons must arise from an 47IV. xi., especially 2-4. Locke adds that "those that want the organs of any sense, never can have the ideas belonging to that sense produced in their minds," IV. xi. 4. One of his favorite examples is that of the man born blind who would therefore lack any idea of colors. This example also proves, according to Locke, that the ideas are not created by the organs themselves because a man in the dark cannot see colors, Ibid. See also, PhilOSOthcal Works, pp. 600-601. 48See, however, Richard Aaron's claim that Locke's theory of sensitive knowledge is not an inference, p. 246. Yet Aaron makes no effort to prove this is a correct view except to say, "the existence Of objects independent of us 24 external stimulus acting upon the various sense organs. Therefore, he insists, Simple ideas are not fictions of our fancies, but the natural and regular production of things without us, really Operating upon us . . . the idea of whiteness, or bitterness, as it is in the mind, exactly answering the power which is in any body to produce it there, has all the real con- formity it can, or ought to have, with things without us. And this conformity between our simple ideas, and the existencZ of things, is sufficient for real knowledge. 9 Thus, the perceiving mind and the external world are perfectly matched, according to Locke, to produce knowledge of simple ideas. The concept of knowledge advocated here is a version of the correspondence theory Of truth, but it has some similarity to the pragmatic theory that the practical value of ideas determines, to a large extent, their truth. He is saying in effect that as long as simple ideas conform in a practical way to human needs--as in deciding between imaginary and real fire--then this is all that a knowledge claim requires at this level.50 is no inference for Locke . . ." Obviously, though, when- ever one knows only effects, and by analogy must construct the cause, then inference is the means by which the causal agent is known. Cf. IV. iii. 29. 49 50Of course, there is the further condition that it must be consistent with the rest of our experience. But he wants to know "the use of this knowledge" and its limits, IV. iv. 1. "The things that, as far as our observation reaches, we constantly find to proceed regularly, we may conclude, do act by a law set them: but yet a law, that we know not," IV. iii. 29. See, also, Mandelbaum, "Locke's Realism." "The experience to which we must appeal is . . . .our ordinary observation in daily life," p. 40. The value of knowledge for its practical results shows up even more TV. iv. 4. 25 In summary, simple ideas are known by means of sensa- tion, based on the following factors: the simple ideas are not innate, they are not creations of the imagination, Often they are perceived without the perceiver soliciting them, therefore they must have an external cause. Moreover, simple ideas are found to be consistent with our practical needs. _All of these factors support Locke's claim that some kind of external reality stands behind simple ideas.51 The importance of simple ideas for Locke cannot be over-emphasized. They form the empirical basis for the structure of more complex ideas, but the claim to know the latter was much more difficult to defend. Concerning substances, he writes: Our ideas of substances being supposed copies, and referred to archetypes without us, must still be taken from something that does or has existed: they must not consist Of ideas put together at the pleasure of our thoughts, without any real pattern they were taken from, though we can perceive no inconsistency in such a combination. The real patterns he mentions here are further described as clearly in mathematics and morality. Mathematical entities, Locke says, "tis possible he never found either of them existing mathematically, i.e. precisely true, in his life." Their value is not lessened, however, because they serve their needed purpose. IV. iv. 6. Morality depends on conformity with a rule of action. II. xxvii. 11-14, and expecially 15. 51Aaron's guarded statement about Locke's position here is close to the truth, when he notes, "the view that things do exist externally is a satisfactory explanation of our sensory experience, p. 146. 52IV. iv. 12. 26 being those that "are made up of such simple ones, as have been discovered to co-exist in nature."53 Imaginary substances such as the centaur, Having made conformable to no pattern existing that we know, and consisting of such collections of ideas as no substance ever showed us united together, they ought to pass with us for barely 1mag1nary. There are real difficulties with Locke's epistemology, however. The two problems which have direct bearing on the subject of religious knowledge are those surrounding substance and the related issue of real as opposed to nominal essence. Substance is relevant, of course, because God, though a Spirit, is a substance. If a knowledge claim is more than a fiction or a conventional way of looking at things, it must have reference to some substantial or objective reality. What that is and how it is known depends on whether the real essence of an Object can be known. This issue applies directly to knowledge of God. Locke begins by making a distinction between knowing substance per se and a particular substance. Even here he admits, We have no such clear idea at all, and therefore signify nothing by the word substance, but only an uncertain supposition of we know not what.. . . 53Ibid. Gibson's comment here is helpful, "We must be able to show that the combination of qualities, which constitutes the specific content of our ideas, has been actually presented in experience," p. 132. 54II. xxx. 5. 27 [An] idea, which we take to be substratum, or ‘ support, Of those Ideas we do know.557 At the same time, it is Obvious to any Observer that certain "simple ideas go constantly together" and as a consequence, "not imagining how these simple ideas can subsist by themselves, we accustom our selves, to suppose some 56 This substratum, substratum, wherein they do subsist." which it is necessary to posit in order to account for the same simple ideas, Locke designates as substance. For this idea of substance, Stillingfleet insists, Locke has departed from his claim "that the materials of all our knowledge are suggested and furnished to the mind only by sensation and reflection."57 That is to say, if the idea is conceived and known only by means of reason, then it is a counterexample to Locke's empirical epistemology. Locke attempts to avoid this criticism by drawing a distinction between the general idea of substance (which does not arise by sensation and reflection) and the simple idea of relation which holds between a support and its accidents (it does enter through sensation and reflection)?8 551. iv. 18. Cf. II. xxiii. 1. 5611. xxiii. 1. 57PhilOSOphical Works, p. 507f. "First Letter to the Bishop of Worcester." Also, 11. xxiii. 2-4. 58 Ibid. There is one problem here, however: in order to perceive a relation, it is necessary to have at least two things, X and Y. But in this situation Locke has only X as a perceived quality (simple idea): the other side Y (substance) is completely unknown. See his discussion of relation in II. xxv. Again Locke is forced to make an exception for his doctrine of substance. 28 By way of example, he writes, All ideas of all the sensible qualities of a cherry come into my mind by sensation: the ideas of perceiving, thinking, reasoning, knowing, etc., come into my mind by reflection. The ideas Of these qualities and actions, or powers, are perceived by the mind, to be by themselves inconsistent with existence. . . . Hence the mind perceives their necessary connexion with inherence, or being supported, which being a relative idea, super-added to the red color in a cherry, or to thinking in a man, the mind frames the correlative idea of a support. For I never denied, that the mind could frame to itself ideas of relation. Thus he tries to circumvent Stillingfleet's criticism by making the idea of substance depend on simple ideas related by perceptual necessity and discovered as a recurring phenomenon. It is true that the complex idea is a logical construct, but it is based on actual perception and serves as an explanation for an Otherwise inexplicable mystery. That is, why do the same qualities always appear in the same object? And what serves to hold them together in just these recognized patterns? Substance is the answer which Locke gave to both questions. The idea of spirits or spiritual substances is conceived in the same way, by supposing a substance, wherein thinking, knowipg, doubtipg, and a power of moving, etc. do subsist, we have as clear a notion of the substance of Spirit, as we have of body: the one bei supposed to be (without knowing what it is the substratum to those simple ideas we have from without: and the other supposed (with a like 59"First Letter to the Bishop of Worcester," Philosophical Works, p. 508: of. II. xxxiii. 3-4. 29 ignorance of what it is) to be the substra- tum to those Operatioga, which we experiment in our selves Within. Thus, it is reasonable to conclude that there is a thing which has or unites in one location the observable qualities of any particular object. All substances have this specific quality in common: they form the unitary core for any Object which can be named.61 A real as opposed to a nominal essence is this central core which holds the qualities together in order to form a particular object. Consequently, when Locke writes of "some substratum wherein [the qualities] do subsist, and from which they do result," he appears to be identifying the substratum with the real essence.62 This identification does not really clarify Locke's concept of substance; rather, 6011. xxiii. 5. 61See especially, II. xxiii. 6, "Tis by such combina- tions . . . that we represent particular sorts of substances to ourselves." Cf. J. L. Mackie, Problems from Locke (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), p. 76: "It is in this sense reasonable to postulate a thing which has all these properties. . . ." Mackie also remarks, "it is by belonging to this one underlying something that they are all held together and go to make one complete thing," p. 77. 62See 11. xxiii. 3: II. xxiii. 1: and Mackie, p. 77. Also, notice John W. Yolton, Locke and the Compass of Human Understandi (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1970), p. 107: who disagrees by saying, "We can never say our ideas are conformable to the real essence of an object." This is not precise, however, if we can say the real essence is that which causes the qualities to recur in the same pattern on every occasion. Mackie is more nearly correct when he says, "The real essence is the particular internal constitution," p. 77. As Locke told Stillingfleet, "it is the relation we perceive and know in particular objects and their qualities." "First Letter to the Bishop of Worcester," 30 it introduces another idea which must be defended. Real essences and substances are unknown and unknowable entities. They are clear departures from his empirical philosophy and are necessary because that philosophical position cannot explain all perceptual phenomena. He introduces a causal theory of perception to justify his claim to know corporeal Objects. Once this has been admitted, he is then compelled to explain what could be known beyond the fact that Objects do exist externally to the human mind. At this point, he is still confined to intuitive knowledge of his own existence and a vague world of objects which cause simple ideas. That theory leaves too much of the world outside the boundaries of knowledge. He now introduces substance, as a metaphysically necessary postulate, and as the object which makes perception possible. The problem with this approach is that any aspect of Locke's view on substance, real essence, or his causal theory of perception, can be denied without apparent self-contradiction, which would not be true if his theories were incorrigibly certain. In any case, the whole network of problems will recur in his attempt to prove the existence of God.63 But PhilOSOphical Works, p. 508. He also remarks that "a rela- tion cannot be founded on nothing." See, also, II. xxv. 1-10. 63Mackie tries to defend Locke by arguing that what is found in the treatment of substance is not Locke's view, but his report of what the common person says about sub- stance. Even if this were true, it does not explain Locke's answer when pressed by Stillingfleet to give a different view: he admits "that [he] can introduce . . . only an obscure, confused, imperfect, inadequate idea of substance." 31 before going into that problem, it is time to sketch in the theory Of knowledge which Campbell took over from Locke. Alexander Campbell's Use of Locke's Epistemology Knowledge and certainty In his religious debates as well as in his various books and articles, Campbell makes a clear distinction between faith and knowledge. He believes much confused thinking, especially as applied to Christianity, is caused by a failure at this critical point. For instance, he charges that Robert Owen's criticism and rejection of reli- gion rests in the main on just this confusion. Of Owen he says, "I am apprehensive that he confounds, or uses inter- changeably, the terms belief, knowledge and Opinion."64 As a result, Owen's attempt to explain his reasons for rejecting religion lack precision and show a basic misunder- standing of religious epistemology. His criticism is unsound, according to Campbell, because it relies on an ambiguous use of belief, knowledge, and opinion. Mackie, pp. 79-80. And see PhilOSOphical Works, p. 512, "We must still talk like children" on the subject of substance. 64Campbell-Owen Debate, p. 67. Cf. MH(1836), p. 166: "Faith, knowledge, Opinion, are . . . by our best speakers and writers sometimes confounded--they mean three things, not one, or two." Also, see MH(1834), p. 344 for a defini- tion of faith. A Debate between Alexander Campbell and N. L. Rice (Lexington, Kentucky: By A. R. Skillman & Son, 1844), pp. 618-620: hereafter cited as Campbell-Rice Debate. 32 Writing on this same theme, he explains the various differences among these basic terms: Faith is the simple belief of testimony, or confidence in the word of another. Knowledge is the experience we have of things within us: or the information we acquire by the exercise Of our senses and judgment on the things without us. Opinion is no more than probable evidence, the View or conclusion which the mind forms by its reasonings and reflections on those things of which there is no certain evidence within one's reach.65 Knowledge, in distinction from faith, is the same for Campbell as for Locke. That is, the paradigm for knowledge is the certainty that arises from the immediate perception of the "given" in personal experience, while faith depends on the credibility or testimony found in a reliable document or witness. The criteria for separating the three depends on the faculty or method by which each is attained: Belief always depends upon the testimony of others: knowledge upon the evidence of our senses: opinion, upon our own reasonings. . . . I know this desk is before me, I do not (merely) believe it . . . . I know that which is communicated to my sensorium through the awareness of my senses: and all that is thus communicated we dominate knowledge. 65MH(1836), p. 166. Cf. IV. xviii. 2. for Locke's view of faith. Knowledge is limited to our ideas in Locke's theory: these ideas originate in experience, that is, by sensation and reflection, IV. iii. For Opinion, see IV. xv. 3, "receiving any proposition . . . without certain know- ledge that it is so." 66 Campbell-Owen Debate, p. 67. The simple ideas serve knowledge in the same way that facts serve faith. Each is the basic constituent out of which the whole of knowledge and faith are constructed. 33 What he says here, however, should not be taken to mean that all knowledge arises strictly through sensation. This interpretation would contradict what he has said in other places. It would also have the unfortunate result of negating mathematical truths, the general laws in science, and the possibility of proving the existence of God. Along this line he writes, All the knowledge we have of material nature has been acquired by the exercise of our senses and of our reason upon these discov- eries. All our ideas of the sensible universe are the result of sensation and reflection.67 In the context Of the debate, he is simply pointing out how Owen's failure to differentiate between faith and knowledge makes it impossible to account for knowing, even at the fundamental level of sense perception. Just as significant, when the claim is made that knowledge arises from sense experience, this does not imply that all sense experience is veridical. On the contrary, some perceptions are decep- tive: and just as important, it is a logical fallacy to go from the idea that all knowledge begins in sensation to the 68 converse that all sensation gives knowledge. The three sources of knowledge, then, are sensation, 67Campbell-Rice Debate, p. 618; of. MH(1836), p. 166, where he notes that knowledge has to do "with the experience of things within us" (i.e. with reflective thinking and judgment). 68Campbell certainly recognized this type of fallacy for he said, "Every man is an animal: but it does not follow that every animal is a man." MH(1836), p. 167. 34 reflection and deduction. In sensation ideas are “communi- cated to my sensorium through the awareness of my senses,"69 according to Campbell. This leads to knowledge of things external and gives the basic distinction between belief and knowledge. An individual believes what he receives on testimony from others, but he knows that which he experiences personally. Thus he writes, "If I hear one say, 'I believe my eyes-~my ears,’ I am aware he either speaks ignorantly or figuratively."7O This is a fundamental misuse of lan- guage, in Campbell's view, for it shows a failure to understand how knowing differs from believing. As will be pointed out later, the external world causes the ideas which the senses carry to the mind. Without this causal process, there would be no ideas to know at all. Sensation provides the ideas which reflection ar- ranges into the most intricate and complex patterns. Here knowledge depends on "the agreement of words with their proper meanings . . . and the things which they represent."71 Deduction is one method of reflection which leads to genuine knowledge. If the propositions expressed in the premises 69Campbell-Owen Debate, p. 67. 70MH(1836). p. 168. 71Ibid., p. 167. Campbell's epistemology. like his theory of language, is a building-block procedure. Knowledge results from simple ideas as the basic constituents out of which complex ideas are formed. Language is the result of words constructed out of the letters of the alphabet. Ideas furnish man with the raw materials for knowing and the alphabet provides him with the materials for words and language. Cf. II. vii. 10. 35 are true, then the conclusion leads to knowledge. For example, proof for the existence of God is "according to reason" and provides the single element of knowledge which an individual can have regarding religious truth. As a result, man's relationship to God is one Of faith rather than knowledge. Thus Campbell has a theology of faith and Locke is a primary source for this position. This applies to the view that knowledge is extremely narrow, as well as to the possibility of arguing successfully for the existence of God. If God exists, for instance, and if man is to know this truth, then the idea of God must be innate, attained by way of the senses or given through revelation. In order to discover by what means the idea of God has reached man, Campbell analyses the perceptual process. His theory of perception, though naive, is essentially Lockian. We}; Thus, what is discovered about Campbell's epistemology is that it fails to develop more than a very primitive kind of theory. But it is just as obvious that the theory he has arises from his study of Locke's Esssy. He does recognize the complexity involved in the movement from bare experience to actual knowing. The best explanation of this process is a causal theory of perception as found in Locke's writings. It is by means of the senses, Campbell explains, that 36 Communications are made to some internal power or principle called the mind. The mind through the senses, by what is called sensation, has the power of perception, by which I become acquainted with all things external. By memory I become acquainted with all things past: by consciousness I become acquainted with all things internal. . . . Now [he continues] sensation, perception, memory, and consciousness are just as distinct from each other as the ear, eye, or hand. But these constitute the mind as our different members constitute the body. 2 Working together, the various activities of the mind take the ideas received through experience and classify them as truths--from which knowledge arises-~or reject them as 73 false or useless. Speaking on the same topic (i.e., sensation), Campbell notes: Our senses, conversant about particular sensible objects, do convey into the mind, several distinct perceptions of things, according to the various ways, wherein those objects do affect them.74 He goes on more specifically to describe the connection between the various sense organs and the ideas conveyed into the perceiving mind. Thus, he states: It is not possible, for any one to imagine any other qualities in bodies, however constituted, 72Campbell-Owen Debate, p. 75: cf. Locke, II. ii. 1-3. 73MH(1836), pp. 166-167: "Faith employs itself only with the testimony concerning some person or fact. Know- ledge claims for its province the nature and properties of persons or things." This is in line with Locke's view that knowledge, at some point, has to do with the external world of particular substance and attributes. 74§§mpbell-Owen.Debate, p. 124. This is a direct quote of II. 1. 3. 37 whereby they can be taken notice of, besides, sounds, tastes, smells, visible and tangible qualities. And again, I would have any one try to fancy any taste, which had never affected his palate: or frame the idea of a scent he had never smelt: and when he can do this, I will also conclude, that a blind man hath ideas of colors, and a deaf man true distinct notions of sounds.7 By following Locke's theory of sensation during the Owen debate Campbell may say: The conclusion, therefore, from these premises, is, that a man born without any one of these senses, must ever remain destitute of all ideas derivable through it: that a man born deaf, dumb, blind, and without tactability, has all these avenues to intelligence closed up, and must therefore remain an idiot all his life- time . . . a man blind-born can never acquire any ideas of colprs, nor a deaf-born man any ideas of sounds. 7 Not only does Campbell follow Locke very closely here, but he uses the same examples to make his points. An inter- esting example is Campbell's use of the infant's Observance 75Ibid. Used by Campbell in the Owen Debate, pp. 124-25 from Locke's Essay II. ii. 3. 76Ibid., 11. ii. 2. See, also, Philosophical Works, pp. 600-603, where Locke gives a more detailed analysis of the workings of the five senses. See also, Campbell- Owen Debate, pp. 143-154. 77Campbell-Owen Debate, p. 149. Cf. II. iii. 1: "If these organs . . . which are the conduits to convey them from without to their audience in the brain . . . are any of them so disordered, as not to perform their functions, they have no postern to . . . bring themselves into view, and be perceived by the understanding." In the Rice debate Campbell remarks, "A blind man has no idea of colors, nor a deaf man sounds. . . . Whatever knowledge, therefore, is peculiar to any sense can never be acquired by another," Campbell-Rice Debate, p. 618. 38 of candlelight. Locke had written, how covetous the mind is, to be furnished with all such ideas, as have no pain accompanying them, may be a little guessed, by what is observed in children new-born, who always turn their eyes to that part, from which the light comes, lay them how you please. 8 Using the same example Campbell remarks, We well know that upon the presentation of a candle to the vision of an infant, there is one distinct and separate impression made upon the retina of each eye . 9 Thus, not only are there important similarities between the two writers in that both assume a causal theory of percep- tion, in which the Operations of the senses are viewed as absolutely essential to attaining ideas: but it is apparent that Campbell followed Locke in the development and presen- tation of his epistemology. Sensation provides the raw materials out of which knowledge of the external world is gained. This knowledge is then stored in the brain by memory, used in reflection by being turned into more complex ideas or merely forgotten. The two men state that the same elements (namely, sensation, perception, memory, judgment and reflection) are necessary and sufficient for knowledge. Knowledge, then, for Campbell has to do with simple ideas originally gained through the senses and expanded into more complex ideas by reflection. He writes, for instance, The mind forms ideas in accordance with the sensations impressed upon the brain. The mind 78 79 II. ix. 7. Campbell-Owen Debate, p. 150. 39 is perfectly conscious of the existence of these impressions: they are communicated directly to the sensorium, and here begins the intellectual process of reflecting upon, com- paring, and recalling them: then presenting in different views, separating, abstracting, combining, and generalizing them. All this is in the natural operation of the intellect 8n the subjects presented to it by sensation. 0 Locke's version of this process is so much like that quoted above that it seems obvious Campbell borrowed heavily from it. Notice, for example, This great source, of most of the ideas we have, depending wholly upon our senses, and derived by them to the understanding, I call sensation. Locke goes on to say that, after attaining ideas by sensation, The mind receiving the ideas . . . from without, when it turns its view inward upon it self, and observes its own actions about those ideas it has, takes from them other ideas, which are as capable to be the objects of its contemplation, a3 any of those it received from foreign things.8 By this use of reflection, he explains, the mind develops all its complex ideas, ideas of relation, as well as abstract ideas, by three distinct methods: 1. Combining several simple ideas into one compound one, and thus all complex ideas are made. 2. Bring two ideas, whether simple or complex together: and setting them by one another, so as to take a view of them at once, without uniting them into one: by which way it gets all its ideas of relations. 80stlpbell-Owenppebate. p- 151. 81 82 II. i. 3. 11. vi. 1. 40 3. Separating them from all other ideas that accompany them in their existence: this is called Abstraction. The importance to Campbell of this Lockian view of how ideas are gained by the human mind will be seen much more clearly when both men try to give an account of how the idea of God originated. Locke will argue that the idea originates in sensation and then is further developed through reflection, but Campbell will insist this cannot be true. based on that empiricist theory of knowledge which both men advocate. Ideas, once they have been perceived, have to be put into some systematic and orderly structure. Everything is to be submitted to the most minute observation. No conclusions are to be drawn from guesses or conjectures. We are to keep within the certain limits of experi- mental truth. We first gather the facts, then group them together, and afterwards comes the classification and comparison of them.84 A natural and obvious way for beginning this procedure is to follow Locke's method of separating them into categories, each conveyed into the mind by a particular sense.85 Still, according to Campbell, there is need for a more systematic classification of all ideas and knowledge. 83 84Campbell-Owen Debate, p. 218ff. See IV. vii. 3, for instance. Also, see IV. xx. 2. for Locke's views on leisure, observation and experimentation. 85Campbell-Owen Debate, pp. 148-149. Ideas of each sense are cIearIy spelTed out by Campbell, and he concludes, "a man born without any one of these senses, must ever remain destitute of all ideas derivable through it," p. 149. Cf. Locke's version in II. iii-v. They are identical. 11. xii. 1. 41 He remarks along this line: Mr. Locke, the great mental phiIOSOpher, was duly sensible of this, and sought to divide the whole world of ideas into provinces separate and distinct from each other. He so generalized ideas as to place them all under three distinct heads . These three genera generalissima , or grand generic ideas, are,--things, actions, signs. . . . According to this eminent Christian philOSOpher, all science pertains to these three, or thgse three engross all science in the world. 6 The value to be found in this approach to knowledge and its particular functions is indicated by Campbell in showing what use he found for it. Following both Locke and the moderns . . . or rather putting them together and forming a tertium guid, a new compound, we would have five sciences of sciences, or five general sciences, which would include the whole area of human knowledge. . . . We should ggll them physics, metaphysics, ethics and symbolics. But he goes on to point outtifijsis actually nothing more than what Locke had proposed. When analysed into the two funda- mental areas of being and action, the new classification may be summarized along these lines: Thus, according to the division now contemplated, we would have two chapters of science on things, two chapters on actions, and one on signs: and thig8 after all, is but the perfection of Locke's views. All that pertains to man, intellectually and morally, is contained under these various headings. This provided 86”Literature, Science and Art," PppularpLectures and Addresses (Nashville, Tennessee: Harbinger Book Club, N. D.), pp. 130-131. A lecture given in 1838. Cf. Essay IV. xxi. 87 88 Ibid., p. 131. Ibid., p. 132. 42 Campbell with a new justification for claiming the Christian religion speaks to the whole man because Christianity reveals God as the basic reality and declares the prOper life which the reality of God demands. And in conclusion, therefore, he insists, . . . that there is one science, and one art springing from it, which is the chief of all the sciences and of all the arts taught in all the schools. . . . That science, as defined by the Great Teacher, is the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ whom he has commissioned. . . . And that art which springs from it is the noblest and the finest in the universe: it is the art of doing justly, of loving mercy, and of walking humbly with our God.8 This way of thinking remains constant in the theology of Campbell. He never departs from the view that God is the ultimate reality which man can know. Nor does he ever reject the view that Obedience to God is the only valid system of ethics. For both views he was dependent, to an important degree, on the teachings of Locke. Finally, religious ideas are to be evaluated on the same basis as those in other historical documents. Campbell would have rejected outright the view of some contemporary writers that religious language has its own special logic or method by which its ideas are to be evaluated.90 89 90See, for example, Antony Flew and Alasdair Maclntyre, eds., The Newpgssays in PhilOSOphical Theology (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1955), pp. 96-130. This section touches on the important problem of how religious statements may be falsified. Since it is concluded that they cannot be, as they are normally formulated, the sugges- tion is made that they should be revised or evaluated as Ibid., p. 141. 43 On the contrary, he insists that the Bible and its witnesses are to be evaluated strictly by the standard on which all historical documents stand or fall. As he remarks, When we enter into an examination of the testimony on which religion is founded, we have no other scientific rules to resort to, than those which regulate and govern us in ascertaining the weight of all historical evidence. Campbell believes the Biblical record stands the test of history, otherwise he would have rejected it as worthless. He never considers the possibility of revising its state- ments into something less than statements of fact. Like all true historical claims, the Biblical record must be accepted or rejected on the basis of its primary witnesses. Any proof for the existence of God, therefore, has to conform to the following criteria: (1) It must be in harmony with the empiricist (i.e., the scientific or experimental) method: and (2) The proof has to be logically sound. The second criterion includes among its conditions an account of the origin of the idea of God and any deductions from this idea have to conform to the rules of right reason. Locke's version of the cosmological argument will be presented first and then Campbell's revised form. Each will be critically analyzed in turn. unique statements. That is, religious statements should be reclassified as mythological, poetical, or possibly as emotive: anything other than factual. 91Campbell-Owen Debate, p. 282. Cf., Robert F. West, Alexander Cam bell and Natural Reli ion (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1948 . PP. 90-104. CHAPTER III PROOF FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD John Locke's Cosmological Argument The develppment Of Locke's argument In their efforts to prove the existence of God, both Locke and Campbell offer a form of the Cosmological Argument. As will be seen, although they start with the same basic premises, namely, that something cannot proceed from nothing and for every effect there must be an adequate cause, they develop their arguments very differently. Essentially, the difference is caused by Campbell's perception of a prob- lem in accounting for the origin of the idea of God, a problem which Locke does not see or fails to appreciate. Because of this issue, Campbell believes Locke's argument is logically unsound for two reasons: first, it is fallacious to argue from a series of causes to a first cause: and secondly, the origin of the idea of God is problematic for an empirical theory of knowledge such as Locke advocates. Locke rejects innateness, but then tries to show how the mind can originate the idea apart from experience. In any case, according to Campbell, the result either contradicts Locke's view on innateness or his empirical philOSOphy. I will begin by setting out both arguments and end with a critique and evaluation. 44 45 Locke's answer to the first problem, Of how the idea of God originated, is given in two parts. To begin with, the idea of God is not innate: "If any idea can be imagined innate, the idea of God may, of all others, for many reasons, be thought so . . ."92 Yet he goes on to note that whole nations have been discovered among whom there was to be 93 This fact in found no notion of a God, no religion.” itself effectively refutes the claim that the idea of God is innate to the human mind. At the same time, he insists that even if the notion Of God were a universal character- istic of mankind, this in itself would not prove innateness. Indeed, the names of fire, sun, heat, and number are virtually universally received, but there is no justification for thinking these are innate ideas. Language and communication are a more reasonable means for explaining ideas, Locke argues. As a consequence, therefore, the doctrine of innate ideas is empty of any genuine explanatory value. In a more positive sense, he believes that experience nature and revelation are the possible sources for the 92 93Ibid. Campbell uses this point in the debate with Rice when he states, "Where the Bible has not been sent, or its traditions developed, there is not one single spiritual idea, word, or action . . . (and) six-tenths or seven-tenths of mankind are wholly given up to the most stupid idolatries or delusions," Campbell-Ricefiyebate, p. 619. The idea of God is shared by most nations because that idea has been filtered down to them by tradition. But knowledge of God does not necessarily lead to correct worship of Him. This is what Campbell means and it is very much in line with Locke's statement. More specifically they are saying that the idea of God is not innate. In 1V. 8.90 46 idea of God. Once the idea of God is acquired, it would have a natural tendency to spread to those who enjoyed a common language: For men, being furnished with words, by the common language of their own countries, can scarce avoid having some kind of ideas of those things, whose names, those they converse with, have occasion frequently to mention to them: and if it carry with it the notion of excellency, greatness, or something extraordinary: if apprehension and concernment accompany it: if the fear of absolute and irresistable power set it on upon the mind, the idea is likely to sink the deeper, and spread the farther: expecially if it be such an idea, as is agreeable to the common light of reason, and naturally deducible from every part of our knowledge, as that of a God is. 4 Locke insists that the idea of God fits into this category because the marks of extraordinary wisdom and power are evident in the creation. These marks are so evident, in fact, that any rational creature who reflects on the creation cannot help but become aware of the supreme deity as the creative source of all things.95 But this explanation merely shows how the idea of God made its way to the vast 94 95Ibid. Cf. A Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistle of Saint Paul (London: Printed by W. B. for A. and J. Churchill, 1706), p. 14: "The invisible things of God lie within the reach and discovery of men's reason and under- standing." This is Locke's comment on Romans 1:20. From 1:19 we know he found the creation to be a pointer to God's existence. This idea is brought out with greater clarity in Essay I on The Laws of Nature when he writes, "God shows Himself to us as present everywhere and . . . forces Himself on the eyes of men . . . in the fixed course of nature." p. 109. Also see, IV. x. 7: "Our own existence, and the sensible parts of the universe, offer so clearly and Essay, 1. iv. 9. 47 majority of mankind: it gives no clue to how the idea arose in the first place. In other words, Locke gives a chrono- logical account of the idea, when what he needs is a logical explanation of its origin. If the idea is not innate as Locke insists, then there was a time when men lacked it. By what means did the first man attain that idea? If it is by experience, which Locke requires to make his epistemology consistent, then what specific experience leads to the idea of deity? This is the central problem he tries to solve and needs to answer even before attempting to prove how the existence of God can be demonstrated. According to Locke, the idea of God originated through human eXperience. He writes, for instance: Which ever of these complex ideas be clearest, that of body, or immaterial Spirit, this is evi- dent, that the simple ideas that make them up, are no other than what we have received from sensation or reflection: and so is it of all Sur other ideas of substances, even of God himself. 6 God as an idea may be accounted for in the same way that any other complex idea is conceived--by sensation and reflection. He believes complex ideas are created by enlarging those simple ideas, we have taken from the operations of our own minds, by reflection: or by our senses, from exterior things, to that vastness, to which infinity can extend them. cogently to our thoughts [proof for God], that I deem it impossible for a considering man to withstand them." 96 97 Essay, II. xiii. 32. Ibid. 34. 48 The idea of God, he argues, arises by sensation from the external world98 and through reflection on the positive human qualities. He gives this account of the procedure: the complex ideas we have both Of God, and separate spirits, are made of the simple ideas we receive from reflection: e.g., having, from what we experience in ourselves, got the ideas Of exist- ence and duration: of knowledge and power: of pleasure and happiness: and of several other qual- ities and powers, which it is better to have than to be without: when we would frame an idea the most suitable we can to the Supreme Being, we enlarge every one of these with our ideas of infinity: and so putting them together, make our complex idea of God. He thus assumes that the idea of God is a complex idea made up of infinite qualities such as existence, duration, knowledge, power, pleasure and happiness. Even if the assumption is granted, a serious problem remains and Locke is keenly aware of the difficulty. This underlying problem has to do with the question of whether the idea of God, since it is attained primarily by reflection, has any referrent external to the human mind. The question, for Locke, has to be answered in line with what he says about ”real existence” and what can be known of particular substances. Ideas may refer to corporeal objects external to the mind, or they may stand for creative images of the imagination. Locke's causal theory of perception, 98Observing the wonders of creation, for example, leads to the further reflections of seeking a cause and then determining the characteristics of that ultimate cause. 9911. xxiii. 33. 49 especially when simple ideas are concerned, assists him in distinguishing between real and imaginary objects. But a whole cluster of problems surrounds his attempt to disting- uish between real and imagined substances. In the first place, the term substance refers to an unknown "substratum, or support, of those ideas we do "100 know. When Stillingfleet insists that this definition means "we must allow an idea of substance, which comes not in by sensation and reflection: and so we may be certain of something which we have not by these ideas,"101 Locke attempts to avoid this criticism by saying that the general idea of substance does not arise from sensation and reflection, but rather is a creation of the understanding based on ideas which, however, do come into the mind by sensation and are bound into a complex unity by reflection. Hense the mind perceives their [i.e. modes or accidents] necessary connexion with inherence, or being supported, which being a relative idea, superadded to the red color in a cherry, or to thinking in a man, the mind frames the correlative idea of a support. . . . But because a relation cannot be founded in nothing . . . the obscure and indistinct vague idea of thing, or something, is all that is left to be the positive idea, which has the relation of a support, or substratum, to modes or accidents: and that general indetermined idea of something is, by the abstraction of the mind, derived also from the simple idea of sensa- tion and reflection.102 1001. iv. 18. 101PhilOSOphical Works, p. 507, "The First Letter to the BishOp of Worcester." 102Ibid., p. 508. 50 This being Locke's considered Opinion, it is possible to conclude that the idea of substance itself is a logical inference. All he can claim to know beyond this is that a collection of simple ideas 11; found on repeated occasions to cohere in recognized patterns. He attempts to go beyond this position with his theory of real and nominal essences. The former distinction is of particular interest in rela- tionship to the knowledge of God. His definition of a real essence is: that real constitution Of any thing, which is the foundation of all those prOperties, that are com- bined in, and are constantly found to co-exist with the nominal Essence: that particular consti- tution, which every thing has within it self, without any relation to any thing without it.103 Real essences are to be distinguished from nominal essences. About the latter he says, it is evident they are made by the mind, and not by nature. . . . For if we will examine it, we shall not find the nominal essence of any one species of substances, in all men the same: no not of that, which of all others we are the most intimately acquainted with. The specific example Locke has in mind is the idea of man. Though the idea is the same, that is, it has a determinable real essence, the nominal essence--how the idea of man is perceived and defined--may vary from person to person.105 103 104 105Ibid. Cf. Yolton, Locke and the Compass of Hpman Understanding, p. 30: ”The nominal essence, the col- lection of qualities, is our epistemic basis for classifying into kinds." III. vi. 6. III. vi. 26. 51 For Locke, therefore, the real essence determines what sort of thing is perceived, while the nominal essence has to do with the class of things wherein the object is to be placed. Yolton's point is well made when he writes, "Real essence is responsible for the observable qualities by means of which things are classified into kinds, but the kinds of things that there are are a function of our ideas, not of the real essence."106 Knowledge of real essences as a causal factor is based on a logical inference. What is known of nominal essences is determined by the type of classification one gives the sort of thing he wants to identify. As Locke states, between the nominal essence and the name there is so near a connexion, that the name of any sort of things cannot be attributed to any particular being but what has this essence.1 7 In order to pick out a sort of thing, therefore, one has to recognize the nominal essence. Consequently, to be recog- nized a thing must have that nominal essence as a defining characteristic.108 106 107111. iii. 16. That is to say, "any particular thing to be of this or that sort (is) because it has that nominal essence," III. vi. 7. 108See, for example: W. Von Leyden, "What is a nominal essence the essence of?" John Locke: Problems and Perspectives. Edited by JohnflW. Yolton (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1969), pp. 224-233, especially pp. 230-31. Cf., Woolhouse, pp. 96-99, where the author argues that a primary motive for Locke's distinction is to avoid sceptical relativism. Peter Geach, on the other hand, says that Locke does not allow individuals to have nominal essences and is Ibid., p. 31. Cf. III. vi. 7. 52 In reference to the knowledge of God, the doctrines of real and nominal essences, as well as "real" existence play a very important role. It is necessary to suppose that the term "God" refers to a real being with determinate qualities. The problem here is that Locke does allow the possibility of an object having real essence without exist- ence. One might, for instance, imagine a perfect circle without existence, as found in mathematics. The critical question will then be whether God, as the most perfect Being,has real existence. In answer to this question, Locke proposes a demon- strative argument to prove that God does indeed exist. The argument will be set out first in outline form. Then cer- tain premises will be analyzed and critically evaluated. As Locke presented it, his argument has the following form:109 1. Something exists [by intuition] 2. Nothing cannot produce something [assumption: Whatever exists must be self-caused or be caused by something else] 3. What exists must have a beginning in time, or have existed forever [by alternation] 4. But if everything had a beginning, then there would be nothing now [from 2 and 3] 5. There must, then, be something which is eternal [2, 3 and 4] therefore mistaken. See, Reference and Generality (Ithaca, N. Y.: Cornell University Press, 1962), pp. 42-46. But if Geach's analysis were true, then Locke could never pick out the same thing on two different occasions--which is absurd. 1091v. x. 1-19. 53 6. This eternal something must be either mind or matter [by alternation] 7. Since matter cannot give rise to mind, and mind does exist, mind must be the eternal principle. [5, 6 and by assumption: effect cannot be greater than its cause] 8. To create the universe, including other minds, this eternal mind must be all-powerful, and all-knowing [2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7] Therefore, God, as the all-knowing, all-powerful, eternal creative force, must exist. Critique and evaluation Locke believes the argument to be sound. Yet in spite of his confident assertion that his proof of God's existence leads to certainty, he sometimes wavers. He writes, for instance, though this most Obvious truth that reason discovers: and though its evidence be (if I mistake not) equal to mathematical certainty: yet it requires thought and attention: and the mind must apply it self to a regular deduction of it from some part of our intuitive knowledge.110 In fact, Locke has good reasons for second thoughts, for there are some serious problems regarding his proof. The first premise, posited on his own existence, he accepts as true beyond doubt. It is based somewhat loosely on Descartes' cogito ergo sum and indicates that Locke believes the formulation sound and took it at face value. ”As for our own existence,” he writes, we perceive it so plainly, and so certainly, that it neither needs nor is capable of any proof. . . . 110TV. X. 1. (my italics) 54 If I doubt of all other things, that very doubt makes me perceive my own existence, and will not allow me to doubt of it. . . . If I know I doubt, I have as certain a perception of the existence of the thing doubting, as of that thought, which I call doubt. . . . In every act of sensation, reasoning, or thinking, we are conscious to our selves of our own Being: and, in this matter, 111 come not short of the highest degree of certainty. Locke, of course, does not see any difficulty with this initial premise: in his mind it stands as secure as intui- tive knowledge can be. But still there is a problem, and that is to determine how existence follows from thinking. At first glance, existence appears to arise from thinking in a straightforward logical inference of the form: B(a) --9 (Ex) (x=a) Where, "I think" is an attribute assigned to an individual and "I am" or "I exist" expresses existence of the same 112 Thus, it may be concluded (Ex) (x=a). Put individual. another way, ”a thinks" and there exists at least one indi- vidual identical with "a." From this by means of Mpgps Ponens, the conclusion may be drawn: B(a)-p (Ex) (x=a & B(x) )113 111IV. ix. 3. Here we have, according to Aaron, "intuitive knowledge of a single concrete existent, an 'internal infallible perception'," p. 241. 112See W. V. O. Quine, who states that "to be is to be a value of a bound variable." From agLogical Point of View (New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1954), p.9. 113 Following the example given by Jaakko Hintikka in his excellent article, "Cogito, Ergo Sum: Inference or Performance?", Descartes: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Willis Doney (New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1967). PP. 111-112. 55 Apparently, then, the argument is sound, but even so, the movement from the single premise "I think" to the conclusion "I exist" has been challenged many times. One of the earliest challenges comes from Gassendi, a contemporary of Descartes. He suggests that ambulo, ergo sum, "I walk, therefore 114 I am is as good an inference as cogito, ergo sum. Descartes can argue that walking and thinking are not equally valid, however, because the latter is a necessary attribute while walking is merely a contingent quality. In other words, an individual may exist without walking, but he cannot exist without thinking. In any case, this defense is not available to Locke, for he does not accept the Cartesian thesis that the mind is always thinkinggl15 For this reason, if for no other, Locke's version of the cogito argument is based on a synthetic proposition: that a person exists when 116 he is thinking. It is therefore conceivable in Locke's formulation that a person may actually not exist for one 114In the "Objections to the Second Meditation," Haldane & Ross II, p. 137. Quoted by Hintikka, p. 112. Campbell also uses a similar criticism by Thomas Reid and writes, ”Now this proof (cogito, ergo sum) was juat as illogical as if he had said, 'I have an eye or an ear, and therefore I am'." Campbell-Owen Debate, p. 44. 11511. 1. 11-17. See also II. xix. 4: "I ask, whether it be not probable, that pplnkipg is the action, and not the essence of_the soul?" A view exactly the opposite of Descartes' own opinion. 1161V. ix. 3: "in every act of sensation, reasoning. or thinking, we are conscious to our selves of our own Being: and . . . come not short of the highest . . . certainty." 56 moment and then exist the next. As a result, personal existence is at best a conditional Of the form, If B is thinking, then B exists. 117 but And a conditional of this type cannot be certain: if it is not certain, then based on Locke's epistemology, it cannot qualify as knowledge. This first premise is critical to Locke's argument, however, and if it cannot be salvaged in some form, his argument simply fails to get off the ground. His claim to know that God exists depends on a demonstrative argument, every premise of which must be intuitively certain. Clearly, his first premise as it stands is not certain. It has been suggested that Descartes' cogito argument may be improved if it is changed from an inference to a performative proposition. The same holds for Locke's argu- ment as well, and by following this suggestion the first premise of the cosmological proof may be preserved. Changing the argument into a performative proposition entails that it be existentially inconsistent for a person to say of himself "I do not exist,” because to assert such a sentence is to conduct a performance (utter a sentence) which he could not do if he were non-existent. As Hintikka puts it, "The existential inconsistency of such a sentence (’I do not exist') will mean that its utterer cannot add 'and I exist' 117This is so because thinking is a contingent quality for Locke. Only a conditional of the form ” if 1