Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Hackett Classics) Abridged Edition PDF
Preview Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Hackett Classics) Abridged Edition
AN 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 www.hackettpublishing.com 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.”
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