The endnote begins, simply enough, as an expansion of Locke's apology for using the word "idea" so much. It seems that the Bishop of Worcester (named with such quintessential Britishness: Bishop Stillingfleet) took issue with Locke's description of ideas as impressions we have of external reality, because he felt it had some encouraging influence on a group that he refers to as "the enemies of our faith" (which later turns out to be Unitarians, something I find hilarious).
What follows is a debate that Locke and Stillingfleet conducted through correspondence, edited and prepared for publication by Locke. And while it is easy to see why this extended digression made it into the edition I have, with its useful discussion of original ideas and the importance of observation (worth a post on its own), I find this interesting because it illustrates what is at the heart of philosophical discussion. While some things seem perfectly obvious and straightforward to us, when we try to articulate them, much less put them in a coherent system of thought, all the sudden everybody finds fault in them.
Ironically, this illustrates Locke's point that no "ideas" are innate. That is, we are not born with some absolute knowledge, on which we build our understanding of the world in necessary and demonstrably true ways. Innate ideas are ideas that we are born knowing, or that are imprinted in our minds as soon as our minds come into being, waiting only to be uncovered by reason. Locke argued that innate ideas don't exist.
Sure, you can, if you gather a group of like-minded persons find infinite confirmation of some fairly silly ideas. Sorry libertarians, I am thinking of you. You are totally welcome to say whatever you want, without censor, in the comments. But, if you try to confirm your ideas among a larger sample of the population, no matter how well formed they are, you'll find that plenty of people don't actually agree, and some of them actually make pretty good points.
But back to Locke. In Book I of The Essay, Locke presents his argument that there are no innate ideas. His argument could be restated as: those ideas that we want to believe are innate are not really held by everyone, particularly very young children and the mentally challenged. The ideas he discusses in particular are the rationalist notions that "what is is" and "it is impossible for the same thing to be and not be." While Locke doesn't claim these things aren't true, he does claim that it isn't apparent to everyone, because it is the faculty of reason that enables people to come to these conclusions. And from there, he goes on, and on, countering every rebuttal he can imagine. In the end, there are still people who disagree.
Locke, the author of The Reasonableness of Christianity, refers to another negative reaction to the first edition of his book from a religions group, in the "Epistle to the reader" preceding the introduction. Apparently, some people thought that denying innate ideas left them with no proof of "spirits," and that alone was enough reason to reject the book. Imagine that, someone claiming that some such philosophy can't be true because if it were they couldn't believe in the things they really wanted to.
My point is, if we did have innate ideas, wouldn't everyone by necessity agree with them? But nothing meets this standard (I really should post on the social construction of knowledge). This is why some very annoying contrarians love philosophy. You know who I mean. The guy who wants to point out the most trivial problems with everything you say. This is one reason (but by no means not the only reason) why other people hate philosophy. I don't mean that some people just don't want to be questioned, or to have to examine why they think what they do. It would be easy to say that some people are that way, or that it is human nature. But it would be contrary to what I think the point of philosophy is, not to rely on such lazy generalizations. Besides, in my experience, people really do want to justify what they believe. Eventually, however, people are comfortable accepting a reasonable amount of confidence in their thoughts and feelings, and don't generally need a rational basis for everything.
So what if we don't have innate ideas? Or, even worse, what if our innate ideas aren't demonstrably and absolutely true (uh oh!)? At the time that Locke was writing, to question innate ideas was, in the words of Ron Burgundy, kind of a big deal. And, I don't want to get into that. Actually, I really do want to get into that. But this is a blog post. I need to keep it short. The fortune cookie version of what I am trying to say is, nothing you think can be said in a way that cannot, with sound reasoning, be questioned. But when you try to say something, and face the questions, it can lead you down a path that makes life worth living.
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