essay on human understanding summary

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

54 pages • 1 hour read

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Chapter Summaries & Analyses

The Epistle to the Reader and Book 1, Chapters 1-4

Book 2, Chapters 1-11

Book 2, Chapters 12-33

Book 3, Chapters 1-11

Book 4, Chapters 1-21

Key Figures

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Discussion Questions

Summary and Study Guide

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke is a study of how humans think, learn, and retain knowledge. Scholars often focus first on Locke’s philosophical treatises, but his work on epistemology complements and shapes his political thought. Born in 1632, the English philosopher ushered in the Age of Enlightenment and is considered one of the greatest Western philosophers in history. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding , first published in 1690, explores the origin and nature of knowledge. Locke’s work is unique because it rejects the previously accepted concept of innate knowledge and advocates for reason and observation.

This guide references the 2014 Wordsworth Classics edition, which also includes Locke’s Second Treatise of Government .

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Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding details the 17th-century philosopher’s exploration of the origin and scope of human knowledge. Locke’s work challenges previously accepted ideas about innate knowledge—the idea that certain principles are present in the minds of all humans at birth. Innate knowledge is supported by the notion of universal consent , which Locke vehemently challenges. Instead, Locke asserts that the origin of knowledge is sensory experience. As humans grow up and accumulate experiences, intaking sensory details, they form ideas and principles about the world around them. They apply different processes of thinking to make sense of the ideas and to find patterns. By connecting and comparing ideas, humans form complex and abstract thoughts.

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Locke argues that observation and sensory experience are the first steps to an intellectual life. This empiricist approach emphasizes reason, solidifying Locke as a key figure in Enlightenment thinking, which championed logic and science. In An Essay Concerning Human Understanding , Locke advocates for the concept of tabula rasa . This theory proposes that the mind is a blank slate that experience fills over time. The book contextualizes the following themes: The Tabula Rasa Theory , Empiricism and the Role of Experience , and The Spiritual Nature of Knowledge . These themes work together to form a full picture of Locke’s epistemological philosophy. The work includes a brief introduction and four books.

In Book 1, “Of Innate Notions,” Locke outlines his three goals: to discover the origin of ideas, to understand the nature of an idea, and to determine how to acquire knowledge when it seems limited. Locke challenges earlier schools of philosophy and the concept of innate knowledge. He denies the existence of universal consent, claiming that no singular principle exists on which all humans can agree. Instead, ideas form through experience. While asserting that God plays a vital role in the acquisition of knowledge, Locke denies that God imparts innate knowledge or that morality and the concept of God are divinely appointed to the mind before birth.

In Book 2, “Of Ideas,” Locke explores simple and complex ideas. He argues that two types of experience contribute to ideas: sensation and reflection . Sensory impressions reveal simple ideas. As humans gather sensory impressions and then compare and align ideas with other ideas, understanding becomes complex and nuanced. Locke asserts that the human mind is distinct from its animal counterparts because it can make judgments, discern, compare, compose, and form abstract thoughts. The ability to apply these thought processes, Locke suggests, reflects God’s nature; furthermore, God imparts pain and pleasure to help humans determine the difference between right and wrong.

Book 3, “Of Words,” breaks down abstract ideas and navigates the relationship between language and ideas. Producing names for every individual idea would present a formidable challenge. Therefore, classification provides the clarity and conciseness to bring order to ideas. Additionally, Locke explores the subject of essences, a concept widely accepted since Plato. Locke proposes that essences are general ideas about the things that humans observe. He distinguishes real essences from nominal essences, which represent the abstract. This book finishes with a critique of language. Locke reveals how the impreciseness of language complicates philosophy and science. He therefore challenges scientists and philosophers to avoid misuse of language. Those who use words inconsistently or without fully understanding the ideas they represent contribute to the confusion of language and ideas. Locke proposes several remedies, including using the same words for specific ideas and taking the opportunity to define meaning.

Book 4, “Of Knowledge and Probability,” addresses the nature of knowledge. Locke shows how finding the ways in which ideas relate and diverge contributes to an understanding of truth and probabilities. Sensory experience is the source of knowledge but can limit understanding. Humans are unable to know more things with certainty because of their own restrictions. However, they can understand the nature of existence. People recognize their own existence through intuition, the existence of God through perception, and the existence of others through sensory experience. Locke challenges the idea that a world outside the mind doesn’t exist, citing human experience as substantial evidence. In addition, he also shows the relationship between faith and reason, arguing that the two inform and complement one another.

Locke concludes by encouraging his readers to take up the banner of knowledge. Only by loving knowledge and actively and intentionally pursuing it will humans be able to inch closer to certainty and truth. Locke’s advocacy for thinking and contemplation reflects a history of epistemology that emphasizes the noble pursuit of understanding.

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A Summary and Analysis of John Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Published in 1689 though formally dated 1690, John Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding is one of the most important works of Enlightenment philosophy: indeed, in many ways, Locke paved the way for the (later) Enlightenment.

But what is it about An Essay Concerning Human Understanding , and Locke’s argument, which makes him so important?

You can read the whole of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding here (the text is taken from the original 1689 edition, which erroneously gave the title as An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding ), but we’ve tried to summarise the main points of Locke’s argument below, before proceeding to an analysis of his meaning – and his significance.

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding : summary

Locke begins the Essay by arguing against the earlier rationalist idea (propounded by Descartes among others) that ideas can be innate within the human mind. For Locke, when babies are born their minds are empty: a notion which he famously calls the tabula rasa (literally, ‘blank slate’). Human minds are like a blank sheet of paper when we’re born, and everything that ends up in them is supplied by experience.

This signals Locke’s adherence to empiricism over rationalism: rather than believing knowledge and ideas about the world are in-built within us by nature, he believes that ideas are acquired from external stimuli, from us going out there into the world and being exposed to things.

Book II develops this idea in more detail. Experience is the bedrock of all human knowledge. We don’t inherently ‘know’ things: we learn about things as we experience them. This is a bit like a ‘nurture over nature’ view. There are two routes to knowledge via experience: sensation and reflection . Sensation is about coming into contact with the external world, whereas reflection comes from introspection, or from reflecting on what we have experienced.

Book III proposes an idea later developed in more depth by Immanuel Kant: that we cannot ever know true reality, only our perception of it. And our perception of reality is necessarily subjective: you don’t have precisely the same experience of the world as I do. It is also in Book III that Locke attempts to apply his empiricist approach to language.

Book IV appears, on the face of it, to contradict what Locke had set out to argue: namely, that empiricism rather than rationalism is the correct way to view knowledge. But he is actually arguing that, once we adopt an empirical mindset, we are then able to draw a rationalist conclusion of the world from that experience.

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding : analysis

The twentieth-century philosopher Isaiah Berlin once suggested that John Locke effectively invented the idea of common sense in matters of philosophy, and An Essay Concerning Human Understanding is certainly a powerful defence of the importance of an empiricist outlook, whereby we trust our own senses and experiences rather than simply assuming things to be innately true and unquestionable. Bertrand Russell made a similar claim about Locke’s book.

What this means is that Locke’s contribution to philosophy lies partly in his emphasis on the importance of experience in forming our ideas and values. Empiricism places the emphasis on our own sensory understanding of the world (what is now sometimes called ‘lived experience’, to offer a broader term).

This means that we trust our own senses rather than some innate knowledge we come pre-programmed with at birth. How do we know right from wrong? Locke would argue that we have to learn what ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ mean in order to know that.

Locke is, of course, right to emphasise the importance of experience in forming our knowledge of the world. But, in his determination to oppose the rationalist approach touted by Spinoza, Descartes, and others, does he take things too far in the other direction?

There are many moral philosophers who would argue that we do have an innate sense of right and wrong which is present at birth, even if we’re too young to act on it as soon as we leave the womb. Evolutionary biologists would argue that we wouldn’t have got as far as we have as a species without this in-built sense of morality, among other things.

There are other aspects of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding which critics have argued are too reductive. Although our own experience is obviously important in shaping our view of the world, few would go so far as Locke and argue that it’s the only significant factor.

For one thing, our experience of the world is just too different: a man living in a secluded monastery in Yorkshire is unlikely to arrive at the same ‘knowledge’ of the world as a midwife working in London. Locke grants that our experiences will necessarily be subjective, but where does that leave us when considering supposedly self-evident or universal truths, such as ‘killing is wrong’ or ‘do unto others as you would have them to do you’?

Nevertheless, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding is an important book, not least because it was a milestone in philosophy and would act as the foundation for the work of many philosophers who came after Locke.

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