John Locke's Argument Analysis

Berkeley’s misunderstanding of Locke’s abstractionism , and contradictory theories used to defend his belief of general ideas, causes the negative stance on abstractionism to be uncredible. Taylor’s main points include Berkeley’s use of abstraction throughout his defense of general ideas, his failure to attack Locke’s full concept of abstraction, and his own contradictory reasoning in his arguments. Taylor argues that Berkeley may reject the notion of abstractionism, yet he agrees that we can abstract, but the abstraction can not lead to abstract idea or that abstraction gives an inconsistent idea. Either way Berkeley expresses some belief in abstraction, but did not fully understand Locke’s abstraction, causing him to argue against Locke. Taylor breaks down Locke’s abstractionism into two parts the first being a paradigm instance view of abstract ideas, and the second is a schematic representation view of abstract ideas. Berkeley’s argument is based off of the assumption that abstractionism is that “words become general by being made the signs of general ideas”(Locke 111). Taylor gives large focus to the

Such as the concept of God and spirits, which can be easily thought of, but rather difficult to imagine. He also states that words can be used without mental imagery. An example was given to how a man, by the name of Peter, can be thought of as a man using one mental operation, and as an animal using a different mental operation, but neither of these operations can be through mental imagery. This becomes rather confusing due to the original concept that thought and imagine are equals. Berkeley’s concept that knowledge comes from a use of recognition and imagination, loses focus as he concedes that mental imagery cannot be used to distinguish certain