Table Of ContentAN
ESSAY
CONCERNING
HUMAN UNDERSTANDING
JOHN LOCKE
AN
ESSAY
CONCERNING
HUMAN UNDERSTANDING
Abridged and Edited,
with an Introduction and Notes, by
KENNETH P. WINKLER
Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.
Indianapolis / Cambridge
John Locke: 1632–1704
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
was first published in 1689
Abridgment copyright © 1996 by Kenneth P. Winkler
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
12 11 10 09 4 5 6 7 8 9
for further information, please address
Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.
P.O. Box 44937
Indianapolis, Indiana 46244-0937
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Cover design by Listenberger Design & Associates
Text design by Dan Kirklin
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Locke, John, 1632–1704
[Essay concerning human understanding. Selections
An essay concerning human understanding: abridged,
with introduction and notes/by Kenneth P. Winkler.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-87220-217-8 (cloth). ISBN 0-87220-216-X (pbk.)
1. Knowledge, Theory of—Early works to 1800. I. Winkler
Kenneth P. II. Title.
B1291.L63 1996
121—dc20
96-26935
CIP
ISBN-13: 978-0-87220-217-7 (cloth)
ISBN-13: 978-0-87220-216-0 (pbk.)
ePub ISBN: 978-1-60384-773-5
Contents
Editor’s Introduction
Chronology
Bibliography
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
Bracketed chapters have been omitted from this abridgment.
The Epistle to the Reader
BOOK I. Of innate notions
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. Of ideas
i Of ideas in general, and their original
ii Of simple ideas
iii Of ideas of one 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 infinity
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 distinct, obscure 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. Of words
i Of words or 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: Of knowledge and opinion
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 our knowledge of the existence of a GOD
xi Of our knowledge of the existence of other things
xii Of the improvement of our knowledge
xiii Some farther 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 Of the division of the sciences
The Stillingfleet Correspondence
Glossary
Index
Editor’s Introduction
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding is an unusual book: it
is one of the largest, richest, and most ambitious works in the history
of philosophy, but it became recommended reading for students
almost as soon as it first appeared in print. John Locke published the
Essay late in 1689 (the title page of the first edition carries the year
1690); by the end of 1692, the Provost of Trinity College Dublin was
so “wonderfully pleased and satisfyd” with the book that he “Orderd it
to be read by the Batchelors” at his college [that is, candidates for
the bachelor’s degree, or perhaps recent recipients], who were then
1
“strictly” examined—by the Provost himself in their progress.
The most obvious obstacle to the Essay’s success as a textbook
was its length: the generous folio pages of the fourth edition of 1700,
the last one to appear in Locke’s lifetime (and the basis of the
2
present abridgment) contain over three hundred thousand words.
Locke himself worried about the length or “prolixity” of the Essay,
even before he thought seriously about its being used by students.
As he admits in “The Epistle to the Reader,” “possibly … some parts
of [the book] might be contracted: the way it has been writ in, by
catches, and many long intervals of interruption, being apt to cause
some repetitions.” He adds that he is now “too lazy, or too busy to
make it shorter,” but in 1692, when he went to work on the second
edition (to appear in 1694), he asked his friend William Molyneux,
the leading Irish scientist of his day, whether he should condense it.
Molyneux in turn asked two “very Ingenious” friends to read the book
with Locke’s concern in mind; all three found it “in all its Parts … so
wonderfully Curious, and Instructive; that they would not venture to
3
alter anything in it.” Locke was relieved. He had been “of a mind to
contract it,” out of fear that some of its “explications” were “too long,
though turn’d several ways, to make those abstract notions the
easier sink into minds prejudiced in the ordinary way of education.”
But finding that others “judge[d] the redundancy in it a pardonable
4
fault,” he decided he would take “very little pains to reform it.”
Molyneux may have been happy with the Essay, but he thought
Locke should write another book, in a form more suitable for
students. “Your next [book],” he told Locke, “should be of a Model
wholy New, and that is by Way of Logick, something accommodated
to the Usual forms, together with the Consideration of Extension,
Solidity, Mobility, Thinking, Existence, Duration, Number, etc. and of
the Mind of Man, and its Powers, as may make up a Compleat Body
of what the Schooles [that is, the universities] call Logicks and
5
Metaphisicks.” (I hope the archaic spelling of Locke and his
correspondents is not too distracting. I preserve the spelling here in
my introduction, because I am quoting from the standard scholarly
edition of Locke’s correspondence. In the abridgment itself, Locke’s
spelling and capitalization have been modernized, as I explain
below.) “A Large Discourse in the way of a Logick,” Molyneux
continued, “would be much more taking [that is, more captivating or
attractive] in the Universitys, wherein Youths do not satisfy
themselves to have the Breeding or Busines of the Place, unles they
6
are ingaged in something that bears the name and form of Logick.”
Locke wrote back to say that he had no interest in the project: he
thought that the topics listed by Molyneux had been dealt with in the
Essay, and if the Essay already contained the “matter” of logic and
metaphysics, he wondered, what would be gained by adopting the
“method” of the textbooks? “I like the method [the Essay] is in better
than that of the schools,” where doctrines are set down as if they
7
can’t be questioned or revised. “I am fully convinced,” Molyneux
wrote in reply, “by the Arguments you give me for not turning your
Book into the … form of a Logick and Metaphysicks; and I had no
other reason to advice the other, but meerly to get it promoted the
easier in our Universitys; One of the Businesses of which Places is
8
to Learn according to the Old forms.” These forms aside, he
thought, there was no better logic than the Essay. “I know no Logick
that Deserves to be Named [as reading for students],” he wrote
9
several months later, “but the Essay of Humane Understanding.”
