Quote: "there is scarce any particular thing existing, which in some of its simple ideas, does not communicate with a greater, and in other a less number of particular beings."(Locke 821)
Question: While considering Locke's assumptions about how knowledge and ideas work, is it possible for us to ever truly understand the internal world? (The cerebral, the heart/soul, etc.)
Locke states that when recording our own thoughts for our own memories, any words would suffice (Bizzell and Herzberg 817). This suggests that it is not only possible for us to understand our own internal world, but that such an understanding is so intuitive that we need not a formalized language to exercise this self-understanding.
ReplyDeleteThe problem as Locke sees it is when we attempt to communicate our own internal understandings to others. He sees language as wholly incapable of communicating these understandings without error. It would seem that, to Locke, it is fairly impossible to fully and accurately understand the internal worlds of others due to the inherent fragility of our language.