Locke's "Idea" And Its Object

John Locke is takes “idea” as intermediary to clarify the question that how our mind get the knowledge about the external things in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding,but there are so many differences between the scholars' views about the meanings of Locke's “idea”.According to Thomas M.Lennon's the principle of division(1),there are three main theories of Lock's “idea”,the traditional view is The Surrogate Theory which deems that Locke's “idea” is the immediate object of mind,the mind can not know the external thing immediately except by the intermediary effect of the idea,but the problem is that our mind can't make sure whether the ideas represent the external things correctly or not,and even can not make sure whether there is any thing in the universe or not,the ideas becomes the veil which between the mind and the external things,this is “The Veil of Ideas”,the problem will lead Locke's knowledge theory to meet with the idealism and skepticism.To Solve those problems,some scholars come up with The Mental Behavior Theory,which takes Locke's “idea” as mental behaviors,the knowledge of the things is the the mind's operation,so there is no barrier between the mind and the external thing;canceling the ontology meaning of the “idea” will be another way to solve the problem,weakening the difference between the ideas and the things and only talking about the function of “idea” which connects the mind and the external things,the theory which is called The Weakening Distinction Difference argues that we shouldn't judge the nature of the “idea”.The three main theories all have defects,so the treatise will prove that there is no “The Veil of Ideas” by analyzing the coherence problem between the particular ideas,that is,the problem between ideas of primary quality,the secondary quality and the substance with their objects respectively,the treatise will sort out three aspects meanings of Locke's “idea”,converging the stress of the mind's operation of The Mental Behavior Theory's,and the argument about the representative function of the idea with The Weakening Distinction Theory,to modify The Surrogate Theory.