Locke, Ideas and Abstraction

The title of Yasuhiko Tomida’s paper ‘“Separation” of Ideas Reconsidered: A Response to Jonathan Walmsley’ portends sustained criticism of my analyses of Locke’s views on abstraction. The impression is misleading. My conclusion, that Locke’s theory of abstraction was one of mental separation of parts of images, is cited several times, but mainly as an opportunity for Professor Tomida to commence his own interpretation of Locke’s views. There is relatively little direct consideration of the arguments advanced for my conclusions. This observation is not intended as a criticism, but rather as a means to understand Tomida’s enterprise. He has advanced an analysis of Locke’s theory of ideas in a series of publications. His recent ‘Sensation and Conceptual Grasp in Locke’contains the kernel of this interpretation. After considering the origin and nature of important ‘simple’ ideas, viz. solidity, extension, power, existence, and unity, the paper ends with a brief discussion of the abstract idea of a triangle. His subsequent response to my work is a continuation of these arguments. Rather than immediately countering Tomida’s response to my interpretation, I will first place his views on abstraction in the context of his larger project, and only then consider his views on abstract ideas, and their relation to my position.