Camden Philosophical Society: On Human Understanding

The October 20th session will, as usual, be a hybrid gathering from 3:30-5:30 pm EDT on the third Tuesday of the month. All are welcome to participate, in-person at the Picker Room of the Camden Public Library or by Zoom. That goes for visitors, as well as year-rounders in Maine, and friends of the society wherever you may be.

If you wish to join via Zoom, please email sewright772@gmail.com. You will receive a Zoom invitation the morning of the meeting. Click on the “Join Zoom Meeting” link in that invitation at the time of the event.

On October 20th we will continue our investigations into human understanding, how we perceive the world and how we come to know what we know. We will use the work of John Locke and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnizt’s as the basis for our discussion.  

Lloyd Gillespie will provide this framework and has provided the following background on these two thinkers – John Locke (1632-1704) and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnizt (1646-1716).  Their lifespans overlapped and although they never met they did engage in a significant debate concerning rationalism versus empiricism as a means of acquiring knowledge.  In fact, Leibnizt’s New Essays on Human Understanding represent his response to John Locke.  Are we born with a certain innate knowledge ?  Or are we indeed a “blank slate” at birth? This dialogue below is perhaps a good summary of the differences between these views: 

Th (Locke): The human mind at birth is a tabula rasa—a blank sheet of paper, void of all characters and without any ideas. All our knowledge is founded on and ultimately derives itself from experience and external sensation.

Ph (Leibnitz): I must object to this total emptiness. The soul is born with perception. The debate of a pure tabula rasa is rendered void by the existence of petite perceptions—unconscious, minute perceptions. Consider a newborn baby. The infant is born with massive perceptual attributes and potential that they do not need to learn. In their petite perceptions, they already possess an innate familiarity with what they see, hear, smell, taste, and feel. The soul has motivating, a priori attributes at birth, existing as a matrix of potential. The slate is not blank; it is pre-structured to perceive.

Th (Locke): If an idea is innate, it must be consciously recognized. How can a soul possess ideas it does not know it has?

Ph (Leibnitz): Because there is a profound mechanical distinction between simple perception and apperception. Perception is merely the internal state of the soul representing the outer world; it is common to all substances, even animals and plants. Apperception, however, is conscious awareness—the reflective attention given to that internal state. It is the mind looking inward at its own operations.

(The dialogue is from Leibniz’s own original material interpreted by and TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL LATIN, FRENCH AND GERMAN, WITH NOTES)

In preparation, please read from the attached link: (page numbers pertain to the pdf numeration) 

Primary Reading – pages 64-108 (Book 1 – Innate Ideas). Suggested but not mandatory, the Preface – pages 41-63. This is the original text and Lloyd recommends to use only this reading as your source since more modern translations differ.  In fact, you might note a spelling difference for “Leibnizt” (the original) and the more common usage “Leibniz”.  Apparently even Leibnizt varied between the two versions in his signings ! New Essays on Human Understanding

https://archive.org/details/cu31924032296422

Additionally, please also watch this short clip, which will provide more background to Leibniz in his time:

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8waA7Ma