HKB
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Often appears with: universal certainty · reason and the intellect · nominal essence · human nature · doubt, skepticism, and certainty
Usually: reflection (1) · resignation (1) · skepticism (1)
“Because, not knowing the real constitution on which sensation, power of motion, and reasoning, with that peculiar shape, depend, and whereby they are united together in the same subject, there are very few other qualities with which we can perceive them to have a necessary connexion.” John Locke, An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 2 · insight
Locke claims that because we lack knowledge of substances’ real constitutions, we can make only very few certain universal propositions about things like humans, hemlock, and nourishing materials.
15. Whilst our complex Ideas of Substances contain not ideas of their real Constitutions, we can make but few general Propositions concerning them. This is evident, the abstract complex ideas of substances, for which their general names stand, not comprehending their real constitutions, can afford us very little universal certainty. Because our ideas of them are not made up of that on which those qualities we observ…