An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

John Locke

Description

John Locke is widely regarded as the father of classical liberalism. This essay was groundbreaking in its approach to foundation of human knowledge and understanding, he describes the mind at birth as a blank slate filled later through experience, the essay became the principle sources of empiricism in modern philosophy and influenced many enlightenment philosophers. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. Pomona Press are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Épistémologie
• Epistémologie
• Epistémologie
• Epistémologie
• Empiricism
• Philosophy
• Philosophie et théologie
• Movements

Informations

• Publié par: Read Books Ltd.
• Date de parution: 08 janvier 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781447486275
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

AN ESSAY CONCERNING HUMAN UNDERSTANDING

JOHN LOCKE
CONTENTS
I NTRODUCTION
T HE E PISTLE TO THE R EADER
BOOK I
O F I NNATE N OTIONS
I.
Introduction
II.
No Innate Principles in the Mind
III.
No Innate Practical Principles
IV.
Other Considerations concerning Innate Principles, both Speculative and Practical
BOOK II
O F I DEAS
I.
Of Ideas in General, and their Original
II.
Of Simple Ideas
III.
Of Simple Ideas of Sense
IV.
Of Solidity
V.
Of Simple Ideas of Divers Senses
VI.
Of Simple Ideas of Reflection
VII.
Of Simple Ideas of both Sensation and Reflection
VIII.
Some Further Considerations concerning our Simple Ideas
IX.
Of Perception
X.
Of Retention
XI.
Of Discerning, and Other Operations of the Mind
XII.
Of Complex Ideas
XIII.
Of Simple Modes; and first of the Simple Modes of Space
XIV.
Of Duration and its Simple Modes
XV.
Of Duration and Expansion, considered together
XVI.
Of Number
XVII.
Of Infinite
XVIII.
Of Other Simple Modes
XIX.
Of the Modes of Thinking
XX.
Of Modes of Pleasure and Pain
XXI.
Of Power
XXII.
Of Mixed Modes
XXIII.
Of our Complex Ideas of Substances
XXIV.
Of Collective Ideas of Substances
XXV.
Of Relation
XXVI.
Of Cause and Effect, and Other Relations
XXVII.
Of Identity and Diversity
XXVIII.
Of Other Relations
XXIX.
Of Clear and Obscure, Distinct and Confused, Ideas
XXX.
Of Real and Fantastical Ideas
XXXI.
Of Adequate and Inadequate Ideas
XXXII.
Of True and False Ideas
XXXIII.
Of the Association of Ideas
BOOK III
O F W ORDS
I.
Of Words and Language in General
II.
Of the Signification of Words
III.
Of General Terms
IV.
Of the Names of Simple Ideas
V.
Of the Names of Mixed Modes and Relations
VI.
Of the Names of Substances
VII.
Of Particles
VIII.
Of Abstract and Concrete Terms
IX.
Of the Imperfection of Words
X.
Of the Abuse of Words
XI.
Of the Remedies of the Foregoing Imperfections and Abuses
BOOK IV
O F K NOWLEDGE , C ERTAIN AND P ROBABLE
I.
Of Knowledge in General
II.
Of the Degrees of our Knowledge
III.
Of the Extent of Human Knowledge
IV.
Of the Reality of Knowledge
V.
Of Truth in General
VI.
Of Universal Propositions, their Truth and Certainty
VII.
Of Maxims
VIII.
Of Trifling Propositions
IX.
Of our Knowledge of Existence
X.
Of the Knowledge of the Existence of a God
XI.
Of the Knowledge of the Existence of Other Things
XII.
Of the Improvement of our Knowledge
XIII.
Some Other Considerations concerning our Knowledge
XIV.
Of Judgment
XV.
Of Probability
XVI.
Of the Degrees of Assent
XVII.
Of Reason
XVIII.
Of Faith and Reason, and their Distinct Provinces
XIX.
Of Enthusiasm
XX.
Of Wrong Assent, or Error
XXI.
The Division of the Sciences
INTRODUCTION
T HE seventeenth century is extraordinarily important in the history of western Europe. The energy that was expressed in the several renaissance movements, in the religious reformations, and in the political wars of the two centuries immediately preceding it, become more explicitly directed in the seventeenth century towards the establishment of the foundations of the modern world. Experimental science, Protestantism, and the tendency of political sovereignty to be assumed by the governed were firmly established between 1600 and 1700. John Locke s Essay concerning Human Understanding was written during the middle and later years of this significant period and is unusually characteristic and expressive of it.
The context of Locke s life particularly fitted him to speak for the seventeenth century in the Essay . His interests were many, and his friends included great men in science, politics, and religion, both in England and on the Continent. Locke could not properly be said to have had a single career, for in the usual senses, he was never a politician, or an academician, or a scientist, though the fields of politics, science, and of learning in general occupied his life.
Locke was born in 1632. His parents were Puritans, and the father established in the boy the habits of industry and simplicity, and a disposition to consider intolerance a major vice. Locke entered Westminster School in 1646, where he was apparently well trained in the customary classical disciplines. While he was a student there, the first major political event in his life occurred, the execution of Charles I, in 1649.
In 1652 Locke entered Christ Church College, Oxford, where he remained for the next fifteen years. He was unenthusiastic about the Aristotelian-Scholastic curriculum that hung on at Oxford in spite of the changes initiated there by Cromwell. Locke was certainly a competent scholar, but he found the conversation of lively-minded companions more instructive than the formalistic training in disciplines only reminiscent of the greatness of the Middle Ages and of Greece. During Locke s early career at Oxford, the new natural philosophy, or experimental science, became a significant force in the university. The founding of the Royal Society, soon after the Restoration in 1660, symbolized the rapidly growing interest in natural science, and Locke s election in 1668 indicates his early connections with men like Sir Robert Boyle, a founder of modern chemistry.
The fifteen years which Locke spent at Oxford established his interests, particularly in politics and in science, but did not lead him to the definite selection of a career. He seriously considered diplomacy, and even served on a diplomatic mission to the Elector of Brandenburg in 1665; he studied medicine for several years in an intensive fashion; he lectured for some time at the university; and he decided not to go into the Church only after intense thought. A chance meeting at Oxford with Lord Ashley, who later became the first Earl of Shaftesbury and one of the most celebrated political figures of his time, resulted in Locke s becoming attached to Lord Ashley s household as family physician and adviser-assistant to Lord Ashley, particularly in political matters. Locke moved from Oxford to London and into the centre of the stormy political situations of the period.
The next few years in Locke s life were very busy ones. Lord Ashley rose rapidly in importance, became the Earl of Shaftesbury in 1672, and, shortly after, Lord High Chancellor. Locke s duties increased in proportion to Shaftesbury s prominence, and by 1675 Locke s health had so declined from overwork that he went to France for a long rest. Shaftesbury s fall in 1675 suggests that Locke s journey to France was intended to serve the double purpose of regaining his health and of retiring from active political duty, at least temporarily. Most important, the four years in France provided Locke with the leisure necessary to continue the philosophical work he had become progressively more inclined to since his early days at Oxford. In 1671 there had occurred an incident which led Locke into beginning the Essay . In the Epistle to the Reader, Locke relates the incident. 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 subject very remote from this, found themselves quickly at a stand, by the difficulties that rose on every side. After we had awhile puzzled ourselves, without coming any nearer a resolution of those doubts which perplexed us, it came into my thoughts that we took a wrong course; and that before we set ourselves upon inquiries of that nature, it was necessary to examine our own abilities, and see 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 was agreed that this should be our first inquiry. Some hasty and undigested thoughts, on a subject I had never before considered, which I set down against our next meeting, gave the first entrance into this Discourse, which having been thus begun by chance, was continued by entreaty; written by incoherent parcels; and, after long intervals of neglect, resumed again, as my humour or occasions permitted; and at last, in a retirement where an attendance on my health gave me leisure, it was brought into that order thou now seest it.
Shaftesbury returned to power in 1678, became Lord President of the Privy Council, and soon after, Locke re-entered his service. Shaftesbury was greatly concerned to prevent the Duke of York, who became James II in 1685, from succeeding Charles II. Charles stubbornly opposed the popular demand, expressed particularly through Parliament, to disable the Duke of York to inherit the Crown of England. Locke s affiliation with Shaftesbury and his cause finally led to Locke s retirement to Holland in 1683. In 1685 James came to the throne, and Locke officially became an exile.
The years in Holland improved Locke s health considerably, and the leisure and company he enjoyed there made the period of his exile most fruitful. He kept busy working on the Essay and writing various shorter pieces, among them an article on tolerance, Epistola de Tolerantia, Two Treatises on Civil Government , and an abstract of the Essay . The revolution of 1688, which placed William of Orange on the English throne, made it possible for Locke to return to England early in 1689. The first edition of the Essay was published in 1690.
In the second year after his return, Locke became a permanent resident at Oates, the home of Sir Francis and Lady Masham, who were close friends of long standing. Except for a period of public duty from 1696 to 1700 as a commissioner of the Board of Trade and Plantations, Locke spent the time until his death in 1704 in practically unbroken residence at Oates as a member of the Masham household. When his health permitted, he worked diligently upon successive editions of the Essay , on essay