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Summary Locke - An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding notes
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John Locke - An Essay Concerning Human UnderstandingBook Three - Chapter One: Of Words of Language in General
1. God gave man language, with organs ‘fit to frame articulate Sounds’
2. We are able to use these sounds as signs of internal conceptions/ideas, and to
communicate with other people
3. We are also able to use and comprehend general terms, so that we can communicate more
than just particular ideas
4. We also have words to signify the absence of ideas - e.g. ignorance, barrenness
5. Our words depend on common sensible ideas, and words that correspond to complex
ideas are ‘taken from the Operations of sensible things, and applied to certain Modes of
Thinking.’
a. ideas consist of nothing but sensory perceptions or inward operations of
the mind
6. We now consider to what names are applied, and ‘what the Species and Genera of Things
are, wherein they consist; and how they come to be made
a. without language it is impossible to talk about knowledge. Knowledge is
also tied up in language
Chapter Two: Of the Signification of Words
1. Man is essentially a thinking being, and for the sake of society it was necessary that he
have some way of communicating his Ideas, hence language
a. the connection between name and named is not natural, or else there
would be only one natural language
b. words signify ideas
2. Words signify the ideas of the man who uses them. They cannot signify the ideas of
somebody else, or anything not contained within the user’s ideas
3. People can use the same words but have different (say, more or less complex)
understanding of the ideas they signify
4. Men think that their words also:
a. mark ideas in other peoples’ minds
i. the do not necessarily think they hold the same idea, but
that they hold the commonly understood idea in the language
5. Men suppose that their words stand for actual objects (wrongly). This leads to obscurity
and confusion in the use of language
6. Words are used so much that often a word is as good at evoking an idea as an actual
object affects the senses
7. Because we sometimes learn words before ideas, many people use words wrongly
8. The connection between words and ideas is not natural, it is arbitrary. We can make any
word stand for what idea we please.
a. ‘unless a Man’s Words excite the same Ideas in the Hearer, which he
makes them stand for in speaking, he does not speak intelligibly.’
Chapter Three: Of General Terms
, 1. All existent objects are particulars, so we might think that all words would be too. They
aren’t; most are general, and this is no accident.
2. It would be impossible for each particular thing to have a distinct name (or, at least, for
human to remember any number of them)
3. Even if it were possible, this would be useless. Language exists to communicate ideas,
and it would be impossible to communicate to another the idea of particular objects he/she had
not seen
4. Even were it possible, it would not aid the improvement of knowledge, which is enlarged
with use of generalities
5. We do have reason to give particular names to certain kinds of object - persons, countries,
cities, rivers etc, and insofar as we have reason to do so we will continue to
6. Where do general words come from?
a. they signify general ideas, which are ideas separated from time, place
and other ideas that would define them as particular ideas
b. they are capable of representing more than one individual
7. We derive general ideas from particular ideas e.g. from the commonality between the
ideas of mother, father, nurse etc we derive the general idea of a person
8. From such general ideas we can derive more general ideas e.g. by observing the
commonality between people and rabbits, we can derive the general idea of an animal
a. again, we leave out what is particular to that idea, and retain what exists
in common with other ideas
9. We can understand this by considering ‘the ordinary proceedings of [man’s] Minds in
Knowledge’
10. This is why we define ideas by referring to the next most general idea. But this is not
necessarily the best way
a. definitions should be bottom up rather than top down (ie should move
from the particular to the general)
11. General/universal conceptions of things do not correspond to real existence, but are
instruments of understanding
a. this is clear; all objects have a particular, and not a general or universal
existence (categories do not exist in nature)
12. What do general words signify?
a. not particular things. nor pluralities of things, or ‘man’ and ‘men’ would
signify the same thing
b. they signify ‘a sort of Things’, or the essence/species of things
c. general words signify an abstract idea which is the essence of a species
13. But what about when different species seem alike?
a. the essences we understand species by are ideas, they do not necessarily
correspond to reality - in fact the ‘real Essence of Substances, if different from our
abstract Ideas, cannot be the Essences of the Species we rank Things into.’
14. Every distinct abstract idea is a distinct essence, however distinct
15. Essence has two meanings:
a. real essence refers to the non-idealist, physical nature of things
b. nominal essence refers to the human practice of categorising natures, in
accordance with abstract ideas
16. Names are attached to nominal essences
17. Irrelevant debate about the nature of corporeal substances
18. In simple ideas, the nominal and real essences are the same e.g. a drawn triangle - it is
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