Locke Shows On The And Agnosticism Contradictions Analysis

As a comprehensive expression of modern English empiricism, Locke attempts to cast away antiquated metaphysics system and throws all his energy into epistemology question, thereby sets up the first integrated epistemology system of modern times. Basic principles of empiricism advanced by Bacon are proved systematically in his complicated and enormous philosophical system, it exposes a series of contradictions between materialism monism and dualism, cognoscism and agnosticism, empiricism and rationalism and so on at the same time. His theory forms the starting point of many ideological lines afterwards and produces a very important influence on later ages. This article will stress the contradiction between cognoscism and agnosticism in his philosophy. Analyzing thoroughly this contradiction will have great significance for us to understand correctly and evaluate objectively Locke' s philosophy and to probe into evolutional inter logic of modern empiricism from materialism to idealism, from cognoscism to agnosticism and sum up experience and lesson of theoretical thought of human cognitive history.This article gives an exposition to specific expression of the contradiction between cognoscism and agnosticism of Locke' s philosophy at first. Locke asserts that substance is essential in ontology and is of acatalepsy in epistemology. He believes as a support of sensible qualities, substance is an existence on the basis of supposition. Corporeal substance and spiritual substance are all exist, but we can' t make distinct and obvious idea of each substance, only can we deduce and confirm its existence, while what is the substance on earth, we don' t know forever and we can' t know at all. Thing' s nominal essence is cognoscible and its essence of reality is unknown. Locke considers nominal essence is species essence or category essence of object and abstract idea of simple ideacollection of object with all sorts of qualities expressed by general phrase, so nominal essence is cognizable. Essence of reality is interior structure supported by all qualities and not sensed by object, because of the limitation of sensory organ, we can recognize superficial phenomenon of object only, while we can' t recognize interior structure of object, so essence of reality can' t be recognized. Human' s knowledge reaches generality, while it can' t reach universality and certainty. Locke thinks that idea is direct object and limits of knowledge, and all ideas base on the idea of substance. But substance and its true essence are unknown, and only external object presented by sensory organ can be recognized. Human can acquire simple idea about concrete attributes of individual objects and can' t recognize essential attributes and universal law, so experience can offer general knowledge only and can' t furnish knowledge with universality and certainty.The article makes a thorough inquiry into intrinsic necessity of the contradiction between cognoscism and agnosticism next. Logical premise of the contradiction is criticism to human intellect. Locke takes human intellect as research object of philosophy for the first time in west philosophical history. He stipulates the aim and assignment of philosophy that different from traditional philosophy, and his purpose is to inquire into original, certainty, and extent of human knowledge, together with the grounds and degrees of belief, opinion and assent. That is to say, he tries to define appropriate extent of human intellect to assure reliability and accuracy through the research on human cognitive ability, but the way of restricting one' s activity to a designated area or sphere results in agnosticism directly. Inevitable cause of contradiction is substance category with malpractice. Locke deems that substance is support of sensible qualities without attribute. Attribute of substance isn' t sensible, while it is a thing of exceeded experience at the back of heavy curtain of consciousness. Substance is a hollow abstract without realistic5content, because substance has any real exis...