An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Clarendon Edition of the Works of John Locke)

For the voluntary reader, the fact that Locke was highly influential also means that his ideas have been developed into something clearer and more interesting by the intervening generations. Read Hume or a 20th-cent. empiricist instead.


Only to Be Used in Scholarly Research   December 29, 2003
 18 out of 23 found this review helpful

The Nidditch edition of Locke's Essay is commonly considered the authoritative version of the text. This in mind, the Nidditch text is to be avoided for the beginner to Locke. This is not due to any oversights or editorial intrusion that corrupts the work. Considering Nidditch restored the text and avoided the common editorial tendency to use paragraph introductions for each section (which Locke did not), atop of not having to contend with translation liberties, it stands as the only scholarly edition of the work. However, because it is restored to its original state, one must remember that capitalization for any and all (deemed) pertinent terms or phrases was a common practice during Locke's time. As such, readers in the 21st century typically associate a capitalized letter (unless it is a proper name or title) with a new sentence, thus a new thought. Having to continuously reorganize one's thoughts to conform to Locke's now archaic prose style (which occurs anywhere from one to six or more times in a typical sentence) distracts from the overall content of the work. As such, the reader may be well advised to obtain another critical edition of the work and use the Nidditch text as a reference tool.


Worth Re-Cognising   April 5, 2003
 4 out of 4 found this review helpful

Any search for this text will result in a plethora of commentaries upon it, whilst it itself seems almost doomed to take second place. The importance of this work to philosophy cannot be underestimated; Descartes is held in common perception to be the figure who changed the course of philosophy. Whilst it is true he may have dipped his toes in uncharted waters, Locke was the first to plunge in. Here we find human understanding stripped to its first principles and from there rebuilt in such a fashion as to purge the presumptions of our age. Locke recommends modesty to the philosopher and thinker throughout and in our current times this message might need restated. In a world, which owes so much to the United States Constitution, it would be appropriate for us all to see what it owed its own origins to and be recalled to values of liberty, modesty and reason in a way which does not rush headlong into a catastrophe of pride.


Outstanding work from a Giant of a Mind.   March 23, 2003
 6 out of 14 found this review helpful

The most important book in the History of Western Philosophy. Anyone wishing to understand the western tradition will have to grapple with this work eventually.

Its not that Locke got everything right, but he does at least point us in the right direction.