Essay Concerning Human Understanding Book 2

[Marion Georgi]

AnEssay Concerning Human Understanding is a work by John Locke concerning the foundation of human knowledge and understanding. It first appeared in 1689 (although dated 1690) with the printed title An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding. He describes the mind at birth as a blank slate (tabula rasa, although he did not use those actual words) filled later through experience. Locke was inspired by the ideas of the Muslim philosopher Ibn Tufayl in his book Hayy ibn Yaqdhan, translated by Edward Pococke.[1][2] The essay was one of the principal sources of empiricism in modern philosophy, and influenced many enlightenment philosophers, such as David Hume and George Berkeley.

One of Locke's fundamental arguments against innate ideas is the very fact that there is no truth to which all people attest. He took the time to argue against a number of propositions that rationalists offer as universally accepted truth, for instance the principle of identity, pointing out that at the very least children and idiots are often unaware of these propositions.[7] In anticipating a counterargument, namely the use of reason to comprehend already existent innate ideas, Locke states that "by this means, there will be no difference between the maxims of the mathematicians, and theorems they deduce from them; all must be equally allowed innate; they being all discoveries made by the use of reason."[8]

In Book II, Locke focuses on the ideas of substances and qualities, in which the former are "an unknown support of qualities" and latter have the "power to produce ideas in our mind."[9] Substance is what holds qualities together, while qualities themselves allow us to perceive and identify objects. A substance consists of bare particulars and does not have properties in themselves except the ability to support qualities. Substances are "nothing but the assumption of an unknown support for a group of qualities that produce simple ideas in us."[10] Despite his explanation, the existence of substances is still questionable as they cannot necessarily be "perceived" by themselves and can only be sensed through the qualities.

In terms of qualities, Locke divides such into primary and secondary, whereby the former give our minds ideas based on sensation and actual experience. In contrast, secondary qualities allow our minds to understand something based on reflection, in which we associate what we perceive with other ideas of our own.[11]

Thus, from the consideration of ourselves, and what we infallibly find in our own constitutions, our reason leads us to the knowledge of this certain and evident truth, that there is an eternal, most powerful, and most knowing being; which whether any one will please to call God, it matters not!

Book III focuses on words. Locke connects words to the ideas they signify, claiming that man is unique in being able to frame sounds into distinct words and to signify ideas by those words, and then that these words are built into language.

Chapter ten in this book focuses on "Abuse of Words." Here, Locke criticizes metaphysicians for making up new words that have no clear meaning. He also criticizes the use of words which are not linked to clear ideas, and to those who change the criteria or meaning underlying a term.

Thus, Locke uses a discussion of language to demonstrate sloppy thinking, following the Port-Royal Logique (1662)[13] in numbering among the abuses of language those that he calls "affected obscurity" in chapter 10. Locke complains that such obscurity is caused by, for example, philosophers who, to confuse their readers, invoke old terms and give them unexpected meanings or who construct new terms without clearly defining their intent. Writers may also invent such obfuscation to make themselves appear more educated or their ideas more complicated and nuanced or erudite than they actually are.

Thus, there is a distinction between what an individual might claim to know, as part of a system of knowledge, and whether or not that claimed knowledge is actual. Locke writes at the beginning of the fourth chapter ("Of the Reality of Knowledge"):

Many of Locke's views were sharply criticized by rationalists and empiricists alike. In 1704, rationalist Gottfried Leibniz wrote a response to Locke's work in the form of a chapter-by-chapter rebuttal, titled the Nouveaux essais sur l'entendement humain (New Essays on Human Understanding). Leibniz was critical of a number of Locke's views in the Essay, including his rejection of innate ideas; his skepticism about species classification; and the possibility that matter might think, among other things. Leibniz thought that Locke's commitment to ideas of reflection in the Essay ultimately made him incapable of escaping the nativist position or being consistent in his empiricist doctrines of the mind's passivity.

Empiricist George Berkeley was equally critical of Locke's views in the Essay. Berkeley's most notable criticisms of Locke were first published in A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, in which Berkeley holds that Locke's conception of abstract ideas are incoherent and lead to severe contradictions. He also argues that Locke's conception of material substance was unintelligible, a view which he also later advanced in the Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous.

At the same time, Locke's work provided crucial groundwork for future empiricists such as David Hume. John Wynne published An Abridgment of Mr. Locke's Essay concerning the Human Understanding, with Locke's approval, in 1696. Likewise, Louisa Capper wrote An Abridgment of Locke's Essay concerning the Human Understanding, published in 1811.

This, Reader, is the entertainment of those who let loose their own thoughts,and follow them in writing; which thou oughtest not to envy them, since theyafford thee an opportunity of the like diversion, if thou wilt make use of thyown thoughts in reading. It is to them, if they are thy own, that I refermyself: but if they are taken upon trust from others, it is no great matterwhat they are; they are not following truth, but some meaner consideration; andit is not worth while to be concerned what he says or thinks, who says orthinks only as he is directed by another. If thou judgest for thyself I knowthou wilt judge candidly, and then I shall not be harmed or offended, whateverbe thy censure. For though it be certain that there is nothing in this Treatiseof the truth whereof I am not fully persuaded, yet I consider myself as liableto mistakes as I can think thee, and know that this book must stand or fallwith thee, not by any opinion I have of it, but thy own. If thou findest littlein it new or instructive to thee, thou art not to blame me for it. It was notmeant for those that had already mastered this subject, and made a thoroughacquaintance with their own understandings; but for my own information, and thesatisfaction of a few friends, who acknowledged themselves not to havesufficiently considered it.

Were it fit to trouble thee with the history of this Essay, I should tell thee,that five or six friends meeting at my chamber, and discoursing on a subjectvery remote from this, found themselves quickly at a stand, by the difficultiesthat rose on every side. After we had awhile puzzled ourselves, without comingany nearer a resolution of those doubts which perplexed us, it came into mythoughts that we took a wrong course; and that before we set ourselves uponinquiries of that nature, it was necessary to examine our own abilities, andsee what OBJECTS our understandings were, or were not, fitted to deal with.This I proposed to the company, who all readily assented; and thereupon it wasagreed that this should be our first inquiry. Some hasty and undigestedthoughts, on a subject I had never before considered, which I set down againstour next meeting, gave the first entrance into this Discourse; which havingbeen thus begun by chance, was continued by intreaty; written by incoherentparcels; and after long intervals of neglect, resumed again, as my humour oroccasions permitted; and at last, in a retirement where an attendance on myhealth gave me leisure, it was brought into that order thou now seest it.

The bookseller will not forgive me if I say nothing of this New Edition, whichhe has promised, by the correctness of it, shall make amends for the manyfaults committed in the former. He desires too, that it should be known that ithas one whole new chapter concerning Identity, and many additions andamendments in other places. These I must inform my reader are not all newmatter, but most of them either further confirmation of what I had said, orexplications, to prevent others being mistaken in the sense of what wasformerly printed, and not any variation in me from it.

There are so many instances of this, that I think it justice to my reader andmyself to conclude, that either my book is plainly enough written to be rightlyunderstood by those who peruse it with that attention and indifferency, whichevery one who will give himself the pains to read ought to employ in reading;or else that I have written mine so obscurely that it is in vain to go about tomend it. Whichever of these be the truth, it is myself only am affectedthereby; and therefore I shall be far from troubling my reader with what Ithink might be said in answer to those several objections I have met with, topassages here and there of my book; since I persuade myself that he who thinksthem of moment enough to be concerned whether they are true or false, will beable to see that what is said is either not well founded, or else not contraryto my doctrine, when I and my opposer come both to be well understood.

Upon this ground I have thought determined ideas a way of speaking less liableto mistakes, than clear and distinct: and where men have got such determinedideas of all that they reason, inquire, or argue about, they will find a greatpart of their doubts and disputes at an end; the greatest part of the questionsand controversies that perplex mankind depending on the doubtful and uncertainuse of words, or (which is the same) indetermined ideas, which they are made tostand for. I have made choice of these terms to signify, (1) Some immediateobject of the mind, which it perceives and has before it, distinct from thesound it uses as a sign of it. (2) That this idea, thus determined, i.e. whichthe mind has in itself, and knows, and sees there, be determined without anychange to that name, and that name determined to that precise idea. If men hadsuch determined ideas in their inquiries and discourses, they would bothdiscern how far their own inquiries and discourses went, and avoid the greatestpart of the disputes and wranglings they have with others.

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