As with the conception of the objects of thought and knowledge that we found in the Wax Tablet, it is this lack of aspects that dooms the Aviary's conception of the objects of knowledge too.
Similarly, since we have no (abstract) idea of existence, distinct from the conception of particular objects, there is no basis for claiming that the idea of God implies his actual existence.
Such a geometrical representation of physics cannot really be said to be right or wrong, for it only implements, if it can, current ideas governing the conception of objects and properties of an impersonal objective external world.
Reid presses this epistemological point into heavy service in the context of the conception of non-existent objects.
As with Reid's appeal to the irreducible intentionality of conception, Reid's position regarding the conception of non-existent objects has proven challenging to explain and to defend, but starts have been made (David 1985 6 Nicholss 2002).
For one thing, the form a religious community's ultimate concern takes (and the conception of its object with which it is bound up) varies from one religious community to another.
Further, he accepts Berkeley's objections to Locke, and takes them to show that no mental events or states, whether sensations or the conceptions of objects that follow them, could possibly resemble any non-mental object.
What makes us convinced of the accuracy of the conceptions of objects involved in perception is that they arise from our constitutions.
However, for Reid, the conceptions of objects that follow from our sensations are not derived from our sensations since they do not bear any kind of resemblance to the qualities which cause them.
A primary belief involved in both the conception and the rendering of these objects was and is that all organic and inorganic matter contains spiritual power and that the mask itself therefore possesses the power of whatever material was used to make it.
