Abstract
John Locke’s extensive thinking about language reflects the humanist’s concern with the activity of language use and the Scholastics’ concern with the formal aspects of the language-thought system. Much of the focus of the selection develops Locke’s sophisticated account of signification and its intersections with his famous theory of ideas. Highlights of this include his thesis that words immediately signify only ideas and his account of natural kind terms. A significant portion of Locke’s thinking is devoted to abuses and misuses of language, especially how words can misrepresent, mislead, and cloud our thinking. The selection also includes Locke’s account of particles and syncategormata as well as his accounts of definitions and truth.
Text excerpted from: Nidditch, Peter H. ed. 1975. An Essay concerning Human Understanding. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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Notes
- 1.
[This was Locke’s way of citing texts; it refers to page 278 out of 430 of Giles Ménage’s Menagiana (1694).]
- 2.
[By physy Locke means a fusee, a conical grooved pulley from which the string unwinds onto a cylinder containing the watch’s mainspring.]
- 3.
[Often attributed to St. Jerome upon reading Persius—see W. Fraser, “The words ‘Si non vis intelligi non debes legi’ were, I believe, the exclamation of St. Jerome, as he threw his copy of Persius into the fire in a fit of testiness at being unable to construe some tough lines of that tough author. I set down this reply from memory , and am unable to give the authority for it,” Notes and Queries 7 (1853): 23. Cf. Pierre Bayle, Perse, Remark G note to the words “the Lycophron of the Latins”: “Si non vis intelligi, nec ego volo te intelligere [if you do not wish to be understood, neither do I wish to understand you] attributed to Colucius [Coluccio Salutati] concerning the poet Perse, l.5 n.34 of La forêt nuptiale.]
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Hill, B. (2017). John Locke. In: Cameron, M., Hill, B., Stainton, R. (eds) Sourcebook in the History of Philosophy of Language. Springer Graduate Texts in Philosophy, vol 2. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26908-5_27
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