Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke

John Locke is one of the influential English philosophers and is best known for his epistemological and political views. He observes knowledge to have begun with simple sense perceptions and combining these in to complex abstract ideas.

He is the founder of empiricism with the basic distinction between the primary qualities of experience (measurable things) and secondary qualities (color, smell, sound, taste etc), which held to be produced as the result of the impact of the primary qualities on the passively perceiving subject. Unlike rationalists like Rene Descartes the subject of empiricism is born with no innate ideas; it is a ‘tabula rasa’ (blank mind) upon which natural experience is imprinted.

Words are signs of ideas, always based on experiences that precede them. Their relation to these ideas is purely arbitrary; through after repeated use they seem natural for Locke. Except for proper names words are general and do not refer to specific objects. Rather they signify abstracts ideas built up from combinations of simple ones. After the discussion of the “imperfection" of words, Locke remarks of the difficulties we encounter in the interpretation of the ancient authors.

John Locke disagrees with the figurative use of language. It suggests wrong ideas, move the passion and mislead the judgment. Locke opines that rhetorical is the instrument of error and deceit. Plato also suggests the same idea. Both, Plato and Locke, regard mathematics, as the only trustworthy language. Locke locates the truth in the empirically derived ideas.

Locke believes that all knowledge is based on experience. He says our mind is blank when born and all ideas are accumulated in the course of time through experience. He divides all ideas in to two: External ideas based on our sensations and the internal ideas on the reflection. Sensation is always of qualities, which are as follows:

Primary Quality: It is also termed as objective, impersonal or universal quality. Such quality believable since it is measurable and known by the sense of sight (by eyes).
Secondary Quality: It is subjective and personal. It can't be measured, we can only feel or experience it. Due to it, secondary quality varies from person to person, so it is unbelievable. Subjective quality is felt by the sense of touching tasting and smelling.

Our sense organs always input the data from the external world; first, we inscribe simple ideas in to our mind and then move on towards complex one. Simple ideas enter in to our mind, which has a processing faculty/ power. This power filters and reflects those ideas and those ideas change in to one. A complex idea is the truth and knowledge, but without any evidence, we cannot believe in knowledge and truth.

We can still summarize his view as-external ideas are simple ideas based on smelling, tasting, feeling hearing etc, and the internal ideas are complex ideas based on thinking, rethinking and combining the simpler ideas. Simple ideas are the primary ideas stand as the base for more complex and abstract ideas.

Locke opines that words are vehicles to express ideas. The words are the signs of ideas and they're arbitrary. Ideas are incorporated in words although there is no natural relationship between the words and the things they refer to. There is no link between sound and meaning. He believes that figurative language feeds passion and emotion so it is bad to use it. The abstract ideas in the mind are concretized or expressed with the help of language. Words are arbitrarily applied to the ideas and things but the constant use makes those words natural. Language is needed to share the speaker's ideas with hearer's idea and vice- versa.

The greatest part of the words is general, not particular. It is so because it is impossible to give names to every particular. The names are given to the things that our mind finds peculiar distinct and clear. The definitions are given to the things according to the genius and differentia. The essence can be taken to be the being of the things whereby it is what it is ‘essentia’. There are two types of essence real and nominal. Real essence is impossible to get. E.g. we can provide a particular name for each of the individuals. But the word ‘human being’ is the common quality of every individual.

Locke holds his view on the “Imperfection of words.” To communicate ideas is the purpose of the language. But sometimes language fails in communicating ideas. We've many ideas but the language lacks the sufficient number of vocabulary to express each and every ideas. Since there is no natural connection between words and ideas they speak, Locke thinks it to be the imperfection in the language.

There is no standard of the words as being the collection of the ideas. The imperfection also occurs when language is misused. It can cause the communication problems, like the misunderstanding between the speaker and the listener arises due to language. Speaker has ideas and wants to express his ideas but hearer does not possess the same ideas. Hearer only understands the partial ideas of the speaker.

Initially, the speaker holds his inability because of the lack of vocabulary and whatever he expresses, the hearer only understands partial. So, language creates the misunderstanding between the speaker and hearer. We are imaginative and emotional, we go beyond the universe but language lacks the capacity of transcendence. So, all imaginative ideas can't be expressed in language.