For the essay questions, I gave 24 or 25 points for an answer that pretty much got things right, but perhaps wasn't tightly organized, or clear, or left out a few details, or included irrelevant details, and didn't do anything else spectacular. If you got a 24 or 25, that means that the question was answered adequately.

Here are examples of two essays, that I wrote (in a total of about 10 minutes with no prior prep!) for these. The example answers are from questions 2 and 5, since alomost everyone chose to answer those two. These essays as written are good length (no blabbing about irrelevant stuff, but long enough to include all the relevant information), they mention all and only the relevant details, and are pretty well organized. These essays would have each received a 29 or 30. I am making these available so that you can get an idea of the sort of answer I am looking for with these essays -- the kind of length and organization.

Hope it helps.

2. Explain the hot/cold water example of 2:8:21. What is the problem that Locke thinks his theory solves? How exactly does he claim to solve it? Your explanation should show how primary qualities, secondary qualities, and ideas are interrelated on Locke's view.

The hot/cold water example is this: one places one hand in cold water, and the other in hot water. After a few moments, one places both hands in room-temperature water. This water will feel hot to the first hand and cold to the second. The problem is that hot and cold are contrary. The same object cannot be both hot and cold, in the same way that the same thing cannot be a circle and a square. Yet the very same water is perceived to be both hot and cold.

Locke's solution to this puzzle is to distinguish ideas from the qualities of objects that cause those ideas. Objects have primary qualities, which are the figure, motion, number and arrangement of its parts. They also have secondary qualities, which are powers to cause ideas in us such as the idea of redness, heat, coldness, bitterness, etc. The secondary qualities depend on the primary qualities.

So Locke's theory handles the example in the following way. The water has primary qualities, including its size, and the motion, number, etc., of its parts. In this case the parts are the particles of water that make up the mass. These particles have a certain motion, and this is a primary quality. However, because we have sense organs that are sensitive to motion, the motion of these water particles has the power to act on these sense organs and cause ideas. Thus, the primary quality of motion of the particles supports the secondary quality of being able to cause ideas in us.

The details of this are that when the particles that make up our sense organs are made to move faster, the idea of heat is produced, and when they are slowed down, the idea of cold is produced. To make the example concrete, let us suppose that the particles of water in the cold bucket are moving at 10 meters per second (m/s), while the particles in the hot bucket are moving at 20 m/s. After your hands have been in these buckets for a few moments, the speed of the particles in your hands will also be 10 m/s and 20 m/s. Now, when you place both hands inn the third bucket (suppose its particles are moving at 15 m/s) then these particles will speed up the particles in your first hand, thus producing the idea of hotness, and will slow down the particles in your second hand, producing the idea of coldness.

Locke's theory explains, via the apparatus of primary and secondary qualities, how the different ideas are caused by the same thing, and his view that the ideas are in the mind and not in the object explains why there is no contradiction with the same thing being felt to be both hot and cold.

5. Consider the following example: In the year 1680, February 2, at 10am Eastern time, a certain collection of atoms (supposing all the atoms in the universe are numbered, this collection might contain atom number 1, atom number 2,134, atom number 234, 563, etc.) makes up John Locke's body. At this time, John Locke also has a certain collection of memories: he remembers entering Westminster School in 1646, going to Oxford in 1652, etc. As a matter of striking coincidence, exactly 320 years later, all the same atoms make up the body of your philosophy professor Rick Grush (the same set of atoms). Also, it turns out that meddling neurosurgeons have messed with Rick's hippocampus in such a way as to erase all his memories and give him false memories of entering Westminster School in 1646, going to Oxford in 1652, etc. Now , how would Locke's theory handle the following questions: Is Locke's body in 02.02.1680, and Grush's body in 02.02.2000 the same mass? Are Locke in 02.02.1680 and Grush in 02.02.2000 the same man? Are Locke in 02.02.1680 and Grush in 02.02.2000 the same person? Be sure you explain WHY Locke's theory provides the answers you say it does.

In order to answer this question, it is first necessary to provide for four different principles of individuation. With this in hand, the answers to the three questions will be easy.

First, particles of matter are individuated by the time and place of their creation. We can assume that at this time, each particle can be numbered in such a way that we can keep track of it. But this is no more than the claim that any two particles will have the same number only of they were created at the same time and place, i.e. are really the same particle.

Second, a mass, which is just a collection of particles, is the same as another mass if and only if it consists of all and only the same particles as this other mass. That is each particle in the first mass must be present in the second, and there must be no extra particles that were not in the first. Notice that the principle of individuation for masses depends on a principle of individuation for particles.

Third, a plant or animal is the same as another plant or animal if and only if it participates in the same life. This is true even if there are widespread changes in the number and identity of the particles of matter in the plant or animal. Locke (for our purposes, since we are disregarding Essay 2:27:15) equates the man with the animal homo sapiens.

Fourth, a person is the same person as another if and only if they have the same consciousness, and in particular consciousness of the same acts, through memory. The person is defined by everything that can be brought into the unity of consciousness by memory and awareness.

Now we can answer the three questions. Locke (02.02.1680 10am) and Grush (02.02.2000 10am) are the same mass, because by hypothesis their bodies consist of exactly the same set of particles. By the criterion of identity for masses, this makes them the same mass.

Locke and Grush are not the same man, because they do not participate in the same life. The animal Locke died long before Grush was born, and hence we are clearly dealing with two different lives here.

But Locke and Grush are the same person, given that they have identical memories. this will be because a person is simply identified as the set of memories that can be brought into consciousness, and since there is the same set in both cases (going to Oxford in 1652, etc.) they are the same person.