HKB
4 passages · search this phrase →
Often appears with: language, naming, and meaning · the nature and attributes of God · spread of religious ideas · priesthood and religious office · no innate principles · name vs idea · logical maxims · justice as a virtue · fire and sun analogy · fate, destiny, and necessity · education and the training of the young · doubt, skepticism, and certainty
Usually: argument (4) · skepticism (4) · censure (1) · curiosity (1)
Locke argues against innate speculative principles: universal assent proves nothing innate, and he claims children and idiots do not know supposed axioms like “Whatsoever is, is.”
5. Not on Mind naturally imprinted, because not known to Children, Idiots, &c. For, first, it is evident, that all children and idiots have not the least apprehension or thought of them. And the want of that is enough to destroy that universal assent which must needs be the necessary concomitant of all innate truths: it seeming to me near a contradiction to say, that there are truths imprinted on the soul, which it …
Locke answers the objection that innate moral rules can be corrupted by education by arguing that this would undermine universal consent, leaving people uncertain like having no rules at all.
20. Objection, Innate Principles may be corrupted, answered. Nor will it be of much moment here to offer that very ready but not very material answer, viz. that the innate principles of morality may, by education, and custom, and the general opinion of those amongst whom we converse, be darkened, and at last quite worn out of the minds of men. Which assertion of theirs, if true, quite takes away the argument of univ…
Locke says even widespread names for God do not show an innate idea, comparing it to universal words like “fire” and “sun,” and arguing that repeated mention and reason help spread the concept.
9. The name of God not universal or obscure in meaning. But had all mankind everywhere a notion of a God, (whereof yet history tells us the contrary,) it would not from thence follow, that the idea of him was innate. For, though no nation were to be found without a name, and some few dark notions of him, yet that would not prove them to be natural impressions on the mind; no more than the names of fire, or the sun, …
Philo presses Cleanthes by saying orthodox divines may look “atheist” under Cleanthe’s labeling, then argues that treating God like an architect’s mind fails to explain cause and effect.
mind at all. It is an abuse of terms to give it that appellation; and we may as well speak of limited extension without figure, or of number without composition. Pray consider, said PHILO, whom you are at present inveighing against. You are honouring with the appellation of Atheist all the sound, orthodox divines, almost, who have treated of this subject; and you will at last be, yourself, found, according to your r…