The Thoughts Of Locke Through Systemic Functional Linguistics [3]

Russell (1961: 589):

Our ideas are derived from two sources, (a) sensation, and (b) perception of the operation of our own mind, which may be called 'internal sense'.  Since we can only think by means of ideas, and since all ideas come from experience, it is evident that none of our knowledge can antedate experience.  Perception, he says, is 'the first step and degree towards knowledge, and the inlet of all the materials of it'.

Blogger Comments:

Through the lens of Systemic Functional Linguistics, Locke's two sources from which ideas are derived are two of the four types of mental process: perception and cognition.  Like Locke, SFL theory groups perception with cognition, with cognition the more central class of sensing (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 143-4).

Further, Locke's thinking 'by means of ideas' is, in SFL theory, cognitive mental processing that projects ideas, where ideas — and knowledge — constitute the semantic system of language: the content of consciousness.