Account+of+Perception

For the Early Moderns, "perception" was a faculty or power of the mind to acquire ideas within from without. Each early modern had a peculiar understanding of how this process occurs.

Malebranche
(6 August 1638 – 13 October 1715) He says that he cannot conceive of how secondary or natural could affect us because he can only conceive of power/force as residing in the will of God. He says that other philosophers believe that we can be affected by natural causes, but they cannot agree on how this happens. This shows us that, "//Men often talk about things they do not know, and since the power of creatures is a fiction of the mind...each one has imagined it according to his fancy//." (//Search//, VI.ii.3) He believes that it is God's will that causes things to happen, no matter what our deceptive senses may cause us to believe.

//First Proof of the Efficacy of Secondary Causes:// If secondary causes did nothing, we would not be able to distinguish between living and non-living things. //Reply:// Men would still be able to see animals performing certain actions, such as eating, growing, jumping...

Locke
(29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704)

Theory of Ideas: Experience is of the IDEA, not of the actual object. "A sufficient impulse there may be on the organ, but, it not reaching the observation of the mind, there follows no perception." (//Essay// II.ix.4)

Leibniz
(July 1, 1646 - June 21, 1716)
 * “One could know,” wrote Leibniz, “the beauty of the universe in each soul, if one could unfold all its folds, which only open perceptibly with time.” (//PNG :13) A soul, by Leibniz’s lights, was a "monad"—a simple substance that is a unity of infinite perceptions or representations of the external world that also has the power to reflect and experience these perceptions if sufficiently clear and distinct. It thus seems fair to read Leibniz as claiming that our knowledge of the universe is perfect and complete—that we can know all things. We //get //this knowledge not by perception per se, but by "apperception," or possessing a conscious awareness of what we perceive.//


 * Much like Socrates’ example of Meno’s slave boy, the perceptions are all there, we just have to draw it out by become aware of them. But since each distinct perception of the soul includes an infinity of confused perceptions which embrace the whole universe, the soul itself knows the things it perceives only so far as it has distinct and heightened [revelees] perception; and it has perfection to the extent that it has distinct perceptions. (PNG:13) Each soul knows the infinite—knows all—but confusedly. (PNG: 13) This is made clear by understanding Leibnitz's account of the soul as it relates to his //Monadology//. Leibnitz suggests that the soul is a perceiving monad located in a unique location within the universe. The soul is only all-knowing from its unique perspective. The fact that the soul is limited to one location from which it may perceive the universe, places a limit on individual understanding.


 * So, we can’t get at all that knowledge until it is somehow made “clear” to us, until all confused perception is isolated into its finer parts. According to Leibniz, its like, “…the great noise of the sea: I hear the particular noises of each wave, of which the whole noise is composed, but without distinguishing them.” (//PNG : 13) So, its not a bucket that we need, but a pipettor—better a micro-pipettor. //


 * For Leibniz, ideas are the pipettor of our perceptions. “Exact ideas”, as he sometimes puts it, allows apperception to draw out the multitudes of confused perception out the soul. It “heightens our perceptions” by calling attention to the precise and exact perceptions and allows the mind to pinpoint them acting as a kind of highly focused flashlight—a laser pointer. (see //Monadology 25) So, we can know everything as long as we have our “laser ideas” to pinpoint them and draw them from their confused well. //