Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-gq7q9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-21T13:28:19.692Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Section 3 - Simple and complex ideas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Hans Aarsleff
Affiliation:
Princeton University, New Jersey
Get access

Summary

§ A complex idea is the union or the collection of several perceptions; a simple idea is a perception considered distinct by itself.

Though the qualities that affect our senses (says Locke [E 2.2.1]) are so firmly united and so well blended together in the things themselves that there is no separation or distance between them, it is nonetheless certain that the ideas which these different qualities produce in the mind enter it by the senses in a manner that is simple and without any blending. For though sight and touch do often at the same time excite different ideas from the same object, as when someone sees motion and color simultaneously or when the hand feels the softness and warmth in a piece of wax, the simple ideas which are thus united in the same subject are as perfectly distinct as those that enter the mind by different senses. The coldness and hardness that we feel in a piece of ice are ideas that are just as distinct in the mind as the smell and whiteness of a lily or as the taste of sugar and the smell of a rose; nothing can be more evident to any man than the clear and distinct perception he has of those simple ideas, of which each taken separately is altogether uncompounded, consequently producing nothing in the mind but an entirely uniform conception that is not distinguishable into different ideas.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2001

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×