An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 2
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text
- Extent:
- ~160,000 words · 738 passages
Cite this work
- APAJohn Locke. (n.d.). An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 2. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/john-locke/an-essay-concerning-humane-understanding-volume-2
- MLAJohn Locke. "An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 2." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/john-locke/an-essay-concerning-humane-understanding-volume-2.
- ChicagoJohn Locke. An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 2. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/john-locke/an-essay-concerning-humane-understanding-volume-2.
What it is about
The second volume of Locke's Essay: Books III and IV, on words and on how far human knowledge reaches.
Context and history
Published in 1689 with the date 1690, and rewritten across five editions up to Locke's death. The catalogue holds it in two volumes: the first contains Books I and II — the refutation of innate ideas and the building up of all ideas out of sensation and reflection — and the second Books III and IV, on language and on the limits of what we can know. The spelling 'Humane' in the title is not an error: it is the orthography of the day. The whole English philosophical vocabulary comes out of this book, including primary and secondary qualities and the first modern discussion of personal identity; both Berkeley and Hume begin by arguing with it.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
VI. OF UNIVERSAL PROPOSITIONS: THEIR TRUTH AND CERTAINTY VII. OF MAXIMS VIII. OF TRIFLING PROPOSITIONS IX. OF OUR THREEFOLD 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 OTHER CONSIDERATIONS CONCERNING OUR KNOWLEDGE XIV. OF JUDGMENT XV. OF PROBABILITY XVI. OF THE DEGREES OF ASSENT XVII. OF REASON [AND SYLLOGISM] 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 BOOK III OF WORDS CHAPTER I. OF WORDS OR LANGUAGE IN GENERAL. 1. Man fitted to form articulated Sounds. God, having designed man for a sociable creature, made him not only with an inclination, and under a necessity to have fellowship with those of his own kind, but furnished him also with language, which was to be the great instrument and common tie of society. Man, therefore, had by nature his organs so fashioned, as to be fit to frame articulate sounds, which we call words. But this was not enough to produce language; for parrots, and several other birds, will be taught to make articulate sounds distinct e