Perhaps more than anyone we'll read this semester, John Locke is at risk of coming across as a bit mundane.  Particularly in comparison to folks like Descartes, who are making some fairly exotic sounding claims, it's frequently almost as if Locke is just stating the obvious.  What we should probably keep in mind here, though, is that these ideas might sound obvious because they've been around for a few hundred years. They certainly weren't obvious to everyone when Locke wrote his Essay.  In this sense, perhaps it's best to think of Locke as laying down a groundwork for a lot of ideas we take for granted today; ideas like all thinking begins with sensory experience, and there are no such things as "innate ideas."  If we had to fight against some biases to not reject someone like Descartes prematurely, perhaps we need to be extra critical of someone like Locke, because he's saying stuff that most of us are inclined to already agree with.  

All of this prelude is to underscore how difficult it is to find something in Locke's Essay that is controversial enough to get a good discussion going.  

Still, one of the more provocative notions that Locke seems to come back to over an over again throughout the Essay is that to talk of an idea that is never brought to our conscious attention is just plain nonsense.  In Book I, Ch 2,§5 he writes,"it seems to me nearly a contradiction to say that there are truths imprinted on the soul that it doesn’t perceive or understand. No proposition can be said to be in the mind which it has never known or been conscious of."

Not only is the justification offered by Locke for this claim relatively thin, but it's unclear just how this would relate to the rest of Locke's project.  

So here's our discussion prompt:
Is Locke right when he says that ideas that are never perceived by the mind are "nearly a contradiction?"  And sub-question: at the end of the day, what (if anything) is on the line in how we answer this question?

     There are at least a couple of levels of meaning in Locke's phrase "nearly a contradiction"- on the surface/semantically, ideas never perceived by the mind do indeed seem a contradiction. But our minds are functional before we learn language and symbols (and in rare cases could operate without ever having them). Think of that hypothetical situation: a human being never exposed to any oral or written language. Is it essential that the objects and forces of nature we encounter have words for them? Would we invent our own language if totally isolated; is the "naming of names" an innate instinct?

     Although very basic, even animalistic, I believe there are some innate ideas. But maybe the term "idea" is the problem- perhaps "talents" or "aptitudes" is better. Before we know the word for it, pain is real. The simplest organisms on the planet recoil from a source of pain. A pain can be so intense that it transcends words.

     Similar examples would be hunger, thirst, maybe even the sex drive. But admittedly, these might not have been the types of ideas Locke had in mind. The professor brings up a great point about Locke, in how we in modern society take many of his concepts for granted... I learned in UNCG's BLS program, for example, that primitive cultures never linked the sexual act with the resultant pregnancy and birth! They never made the connection, as strange as that sounds now.

     My impression is that Locke was disputing the notion that we are born with a sense of right or wrong, or, carried even further in Christianity, that we are "born in sin". This is what I believe is really at stake, or "on the line" within his reasoning. And on that higher level of consciousness, I tend to agree with him. We do not intrinsically know good from evil at birth. We can't even come to total agreement when adults as to what behaviors fit those labels. Good and evil are learned concepts, can be influenced by environment, and obviously some of us have a better sense of them than others.

@Brendon Kenney:

     I agree with your observations- my claims for innate ideas are those of a very basic function, mostly biological. Some others occurred to me that are similarly archetypal: I think various stimuli that trigger fear are recognized innately- the growl of a large predator (dogs, large cats, bears, etc.); thunder or howling wind; I'm sure there's numerous others. Facial expressions such as a smile, frown, or grimace are possibly hardwired into the infant brain as cues they can react to.

     I think you've grasped the key historical change in philosophy in the comparison of Descartes and Locke (and I suspect that was our professor's intention)- the shift from mostly theological explanations to those that are more scientific.

@Lindsay Crumpler:

     It's really intriguing to think about what you propose (and which I tend to agree with): that we are compelled by an instinctual need to name things. Obviously it makes sense for communicating with other humans (and even some animals- it's suggested that dogs learn 20-40 words).

     It also helps us organize all our perceptions and thoughts internally. It makes me wonder, getting back to animals, whether many of the higher mammals don't have their own "words" for things. It's fairly obvious that dolphins and chimpanzees do. But even if they're unspoken, couldn't a dog have its own names for the people and events in its life? (One almost certain candidate would be "FOOD!")

@Jennifer Bracken:

     It's really intriguing to think about what you propose (and which I tend to agree with): that we are compelled by an instinctual need to name things. Obviously it makes sense for communicating with other humans (and even some animals- it's suggested that dogs learn 20-40 words).

     It also helps us organize all our perceptions and thoughts internally. It makes me wonder, getting back to animals, whether many of the higher mammals don't have their own "words" for things. It's fairly obvious that dolphins and chimpanzees do. But even if they're unspoken, couldn't a dog have its own names for the people and events in its life? (One almost certain candidate would be "FOOD!")

@Brittany Alexander:

     You have totally understood what I was trying to say about words. An "apple" is an "apple", yes... but there must be at least 100 words for it in the different languages of the planet. (In Spanish, it's "manzana"; in French, "pomme"...) Do the different languages give a slightly different meaning to the concept? I think so- your name, for example- could be "Bretan", "Bretagna", "Bhriotain", and many other forms, based on where your parents had lived when they named you. Would the alternate pronunciations have made a difference in how you perceived yourself? Again, I think so... I really believe I would have a different personality if I had been named "Marco" or "Marcus".

@Professor Rosenfeld:

     You are correct in your critique of my proposal- I wasn't very clear about it. Yes, an apple is an apple no matter what one calls it. I'm only suggesting that there may be a very subtle psychological difference between languages. Some seem more "warm" than others, or more "fluid"; and where the different parts of speech go in a sentence varies to a great degree. I've always heard that the Inuits/Eskimos have about 20-30 different words for snow compared to most ethnicities' two or three. The link below is to an article that explains basically what I had in mind:

https://edge.org/conversation/lera_boroditsky-how-does-our-language-shape-the-way-we-think

@Mary McCaskill:

     I'd like to comment on this "squares have four sides" proposal. It would seem that some concept of numbers is innate- even a very primitive mind can grasp the concept of "more", I would think: Let's say that a bird is following a trail of crumbs- is that the same as a number-line? No- it's not counting "one, two, three..." but it is realizing "here's another one, and another one". And when the crumbs run out, it stops.

    Maybe the concepts of (at least) "some", "more", and "none" are innate. But it is a cultural influence that gives us the idea of "four", and this is also due to the fact that the world has agreed upon a base-10 system as the standard for counting. (In a base-3 system "4" would become "11").

     Another thing to consider is the fact that the vast majority of pieces of music are in 4/4 time or some other even number of beats. Is that innate? Possibly- due to the fact that we have an even number of legs. We walk in an even number of steps, a rhythm that becomes familiar very early on.