Finally, there is Locke’s position, or point of view, which is that—he says—of God. He asks: Does the Christian God, the God in Whom we believe, the God of mercy and of love, approve and applaud the actions of those who, “out of a principle of charity, as they pretend, and love to men’s souls … deprive [others] of their estates, maim them with corporal punishments, starve and torment them in noisome prisons, and in the end even take away their lives”? Locke’s answer to this question is strong and clear:
That any man should think fit to cause another man—whose salvation he heartily desires—to expire in torments, and that even in an unconverted state, would, I confess, seem very strange to me, and I think, to any other also. But nobody, surely, will ever believe that such a carriage can proceed from charity, love, or goodwill. If anyone maintain that men ought to be compelled by fire and sword to profess certain doctrines, and conform to this or that exterior worship, without regard had unto their morals; if any endeavour to convert those that are erroneous unto the faith, by forcing them to profess things that they do not believe and allowing them to practise things that the Gospel does not permit, it cannot be doubted indeed but such a one is desirous to have a numerous assembly joined in the same profession with himself; but that he principally intends by those means to compose a truly Christian Church, is altogether incredible.
It is an interesting answer, and a very modern one. Scarcely any Christian today would find fault with it, which is the best proof of Locke’s influence on our minds and ideas. We are almost all Lockians now, in politics and religion.
Is that because he made us what we are, or is it because he could foresee what we would be?
JOHN LOCKE
An Essay Concerning Human
Understanding
GEORGE BERKELEY
1685–1753
The Principles of Human Knowledge
DAVID HUME
1711–1776
An Enquiry Concerning Human
Understanding
The history of philosophy, like the history of many ideas that are very old, reveals a pendulum movement. The bias in philosophy has swung back and forth between two main views of what is, and of how the human mind knows what is. Those are the fundamental questions with which philosophy at all times and places has been concerned.
These two main views have names: Rationalism and Empiricism. To simplify the matter greatly, Empiricists believe that nothing exists that is not at least to some extent perceivable, and that knowledge, at least to a large extent, is about things that are or can be perceived. Rationalists, on the contrary, maintain that real things are ideas and principles, while the phenomenal, perceivable world is merely a reflection of the reality that we do not perceive at all—it is not material—but instead intuit or known with our minds a priori.
The greatest of all Rationalists was Plato; his pupil, Aristotle, was also a Rationalist, but not an extreme one like Plato. With Plato and Aristotle the pendulum swung far toward Rationalism, but it swung back toward Empiricism with the rise to prominence of the Stoic and Epicurean philosophers, who held that the mind at birth is a tabula rasa, or “clean slate,” on which messages are “written” by the senses. Unsophisticated philosophers are usually Empiricists, and the early Christian thinkers were not sophisticated; but Saint Augustine, as a follower of Plato, introduced the Church to the Rationalism that prevailed for nearly a thousand years. The pendulum swung again: Thomas Aquinas and Roger Bacon were, in their very different ways, Empiricists whose theories were subtle and highly sophisticated. But Rationalism struck back during the early Renaissance with the revival of interest in Plato and especially Aristotle and the dominance of the so-called Scholastic philosophy in schools everywhere in Christendom. Thus, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, the pendulum had swung far toward Rationalism—and was ready again to swing the other way.
Descartes, though in many ways a Rationalist, gave the pendulum a strong push, and so did the first of the English Empiricists, Francis Bacon, with his relatively naive insistence that all philosophical study and investigation should be concerned with the secrets of nature, to unlock which would allow man to progress. Thomas Hobbes was in some ways a fervent Empiricist, although he also held some Rationalist views. It remained for John Locke to push the pendulum all the way to the Empiricist side, where it remained for more than a century, thanks to successive pushes given it by Berkeley and Hume. The pendulum swung back again in the nineteenth century under the enormous influence of Kant and, especially, Hegel. We live today in an era of reaction to Hegelianism; Radical or Logical Empiricism is probably the dominant philosophical school of our times. There are signs, however, that the pendulum is beginning to swing again toward Rationalism, and it can be safely predicted that it will do so sooner or later.
A pendulum swings back and forth, hanging from a central point. The central question of philosophy goes something like this: Given that there are real things in the world and minds that both perceive and know them, then what is it that is known? Is it “things themselves” or is it ideas about those things, principles derived or abstracted from those things, that the mind comprehends and about which it reasons?
And if it is the “things themselves” that are actually known by the mind, then what is the relation between the mind and the thing known? Is the thing itself in the mind—or some material shadow or image of it (perhaps made of atoms)? Or does the mind bring to the process of knowing innate or a priori concepts and/or capabilities and/or categories of thought? The above may seem complicated, but really only one question is being asked. How you answer it determines where you stand on the great perennial issue of philosophy.
Locke published his “Essay Concerning Human Understanding” shortly after his return to England from his exile in Holland. The year was 1689, which also saw the publication of his two major political works, the “Letter Concerning Toleration” and “The Second Essay on Civil Government.” The two political works occasioned immediate controversy; the philosophical treatise took a while to sink in. Eventually it became the bible of English Empiricists and was accorded a devotion only equaled by the devotion paid to Newton’s achievements in the fields of mathematics and celestial mechanics. The book is gracefully written and is one of the easiest philosophical books to read.
The Irishman George Berkeley (1685–1753) made a considerable career for himself because of his charm and good temper—and also because of his keen intellect. He composed a famous poem, “Westward the course of Empire takes its way”; was a famous bishop; and wrote a famous book, Principles of Human Knowledge (1710), which purported to attack Locke but really advanced his Empiricist views a good distance. It too is easy to read.