Monthly Archives: February 2015

recognition in context

The way that I interpreted Kant’s belief about observing known and unknown objects is that, known objects will cause one to subconsciously recognize it, requiring no new cognition. However, unknown objects need forms of cognition to perceive and understand the uses and identity of an object. Yet, I think that even if one is able to subconsciously recognize the object, one can still not know the identity and purpose of the object.

The way that we differentiate between objects and store them into our minds is through the objects characteristics. We look at a television and see that it is rectangular, the more modern one are flat, chords are running from the back of it, and it provides images. Hypothetically, if I were to look at a rectangle with chords running from the back of it that also provides images, I would assume that it was a T.V. But, these qualities are shared by a desktop monitor. Which is similar in all of these ways, as well as size. In this case, the two objects are not differentiable, if they were provided in an environment that does not appeal to one of the object’s inherent stigmas, as a desktop would normally be seen in an office setting, and a TV would be seen in a living room. Therefore, I do not think that one can subconsciously identify all objects known to him. There must be some subconscious decisions that require some cognitive input to achieve the identification of an object. If one were in a office building, they would initially think that I am in an office building, and, from that, if they were to see an object that has the similar characteristics of a television, they would not assume that it were a television, but a computer monitor. But this is achieved through the initial input that they are in an office.

Effects of Schooling on Identity

In his Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant discusses what makes up identity. He suggests that identity comes from self-consciousness and that self-consciousness arises from a combination of ideas that a person calls their own. This combination of ideas arises as a result of understanding how things are related. This seems to mean that the more people relate different ideas in the same ways the more similar their personal identities.

So how does this factor into schooling? Schools are institutions in which students are taught to make connections in a specific way. For example, we learn relations between letters and words, colors and objects, reprimands or rewards and actions, etc. Everyone is taught to make these same connections. Furthermore, many schools are restrictive and do not allow for deviance. For example, in math class, a student may discover a new way to solve a problem, one that is different from the way the teacher explained. Although the student came up with the correct answer, the teacher reprimands the student, or takes points off a test because it was not the “right” way to solve the problem. This reinforces connections the teacher made earlier between the idea of correctness and her method of solving the problem.

I believe this shows the limiting effect of schooling. It creates fewer differences between the ways in which people combine their ideas and therefore fewer differences in identity.

The Leap of Faith

Reading Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason” was helped immensely by the introduction. I was very relieved that I read it because when I was reading, I admit, I was a little flummoxed, but with the guidance of the introduction and its breakdown of the argument’s main points, I absorbed the information a lot better and cleaner.

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Construction of Perception

In Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant discusses how people are able to perceive different objects and determine how those objects exist relative to other objects. Kant determines that in order to truly perceive that an object exists, one must synthesize their different presentations to create a more holistic perception.  Continue reading

Why Only Physical?

In Book 2 of “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding” by John Locke, Locke talks about how “the variation of great parcels of matter alters not the identity”, and then he goes on to give the example of the oak tree, and how “an oak growing from a plant to a tree… is still the same oak”, and that a “colt grown up to a horse, sometimes fat, sometimes lean, is all the while the same horse”. (Ch. 27, 3) This I completely agree with and understand. However, it appears to me that Locke is being a bit narrow in his argument. Locke is only focusing on the physical aspect identity instead of looking at the spiritual or emotional aspects identity, which I believe, when concerning humans, are the things that play the biggest part in altering one’s identity.

If I applied Locke’s argument about how physical variation does not alter identity to humans, he would be completely correct. Humans go from being an infant to an adult to a person of old age. Throughout this entire physical process, it is true that this person is the same. Their identity is not altered. If they were to take fingerprints when they were eight years old and then when they were eighty-eight years old, the prints would match because they are still the same person. However, from the age of eight to eighty-eight, the person has gone through a lot of spiritual and emotional changes. What they used to do and how they acted and what they believed in as a child changed when they became an adult, and may have even changed some more when they became elderly. And this change is what truly alters a person and causes them to not have the same identity as they did when they were of younger age.

This is the only problem that I have with Locke’s argument. I wish that when he talked about physical traits not altering identity that he would have compared it to spiritual and emotional aspects and how they do alter a person’s identity

Locke on Identity

John Locke is an English philosopher best known for his idea of natural law. In his work An Essay concerning Human Understanding, he goes on to question the qualities that make up the things we observe. He begins by explaining his own definition of “identity” in respect to time, which he describes as “when we see anything to be in any place in any instant of time, we are sure (be it what it will) that it is that very thing, and not another” (329). Locke expresses here that when we see something (for instance an apple on the table), we are certain that it exists in front of our eyes and not in another place. To continue, he argues that “it follows, that one thing cannot have two beginnings of existence, nor two things one beginning; it being impossible for two things of the same kind to be or exist in the same instant, in the very same place, or one and the same thing in different places” (329). He expands on identity as a single object cannot be in the exact same place as a different object. From here, we can classify and figure out what exists at a certain place at a certain time.

Locke takes his thinking from small objects to the individual. His case for consciousness is intriguing because he presents our five senses as evidence for perception, even though our perception can be blurred. This is important to identity because even though our different senses are considered separate from each other, they combine to make up our body as a whole and thus form our identity.

Lastly, Locke asks an intriguing question about different states of consciousness. He declares, “But is not a man drunk and sober the same person? Why else is he punished for the fact he commits when drunk, though he be never afterwards conscious of it?” (344). This is interesting because while a man who is drunk and the same man while sober are in different states of consciousness, the sober man will have to endure the punishment that his drunk side committed. This could ask a question about how mental patients should be treated. Should split-personality persons face different punishments from persons who are consistently mentally ill?

Defining the Identity

In this section of John Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding, the reader gets a glimpse into the tangled terminology of “identity.”  He introduces the idea of separating one from the other to create said identity when he says “one thing cannot have two beginnings of existence, nor two things one beginning” (II. 27. 1).  Here, Locke uses the approach of dissecting the concept of existence and being, therefore designating any one thing to solely one origin and by later providing examples using the atom and the oak from a tree. Continue reading

Future Identity

In Book II of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding Locke succeeds at confusing me. Which I can only assume is what he was trying to do because I have no idea what his intent was otherwise—I was that confused. From what I gather, our identities are basically a continuum of awareness of ourselves at any instant in time? It is mind boggling to think of myself as being aware of myself in a series of “insensibly succeeding” snapshots of being and it is very bleak to think that now, that instant where I was so hopelessly mind-boggled by Locke is a part of my collective self-awareness and inextricably a part of my identity for as long as I remain aware of that instant. Which brings me to one of many questions: Does reality even have anything to do with our identites? Continue reading

Who did it better?

An Essay concerning Human Understanding, by John Locke is an interesting piece. In chapter 27, he uses an analogy of atoms in order to explain his theory that no two things can exist in the same place.

“let us suppose an atom…if two or more atoms be joined together in the same mass, every one of those atoms will be the same…But if one of these atoms be taken away, or one new one added, it is no longer the same mass, or the same body”(Ch.27;3).

Locke uses scientific concepts in order to reinforce his theory of composition. However, this seems to relate with Plato’s Meno in which Socrates uses mathematics in order to drive his theory.

While different in theory(Socrates trying to prove education, Locke with understanding), they both employ some sort of quantitative medium in which to explain their points.  In regards to who I feel had a stronger analogy, let us analyze the examples. In Meno, Socrates uses a geometric shape with quantitative measurements in the form of numbers. Locke uses atomic theory in its infancy in order to push his point.

I am not saying that Plato’s argument is stronger or better than Locke’s, however in An Essay concerning Human Understanding, Locke employs concepts that were fairly new at the time of his writing, and therefore was not readily understood by everyone. Geometry and measurement has a longer history, with a much more far-reaching audience, explaining how the Slave knew some of what Socrates’ was explaining.

Consciousness and the Law

In The Philosophical Works and Selected Correspondence of John Locke, Lock discuss how someone perceives one’s self and the idea of “consciousness” and how it relates to one’s existence. One unique aspect of consciousness that Locke discusses is the idea that no matter what some one looks like, or what condition he or she is in, that person is still the same person.  Continue reading