Summary Of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, By John Locke

For all of human history, writers and thinkers have explored human nature and the question, “What does it mean to live in the world?”. The question itself is multi-faceted in that one must understand human nature and the world around him or her to even approach the question. And for years, people have expressed their opinions on this through literature, song, and art. And often, the answers center around the power and authority of an individual to make morally just decisions to benefit both his or herself and the world. Individualism develops through the eyes of faith, reason, morality, and authority. The exploration of thought extends through multiple time periods and many writers. The emerging theme of individualistic morality can be seen
The Enlightenment itself was all about the convergence of global thought as many thinkers explored reason apart from faith. Questioning and doubt became a key focus of writing and was even encouraged as something that moral individuals should do. And following the exploration of doubt, the human mind became the arbiter of truth. One of these key thinkers was John Locke, who presented his own ideas about morality and individualism. Locke has both a philosophical and political point of view. He takes an optimistic approach toward human nature. In “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding”, Locke detailed his view that all knowledge is learned through experience and because of this people are inherently good. He discusses how people are to live in a moral functioning world and the personal responsibility of individuals. In doing this, Locke’s first point is to examine how people learn and gain knowledge. Locke believes that innate knowledge is nonexistent, and people are to learn everything from experience. In a world that had previously believed that the soul came into the world with principles already established, his idea was radical one. Locke was one of the first to suggest a blank slate in the mind and to claim that ideas come into one’s mind through experience and are then organized within the mind. Locke establishes individual authority in that the person is the one who must gain this knowledge and no one person is granted a slate with more knowledge than another. In this way, Locke even supposes that opportunities are equal in the form of knowledge. Similar to Descartes, Locke puts a lot of focus on the thinking self and how men consciously think through ideas (146). However, he looks more deeply into thought itself and how thoughts develop. For Locke, sensation and reflection are essential to any form of thinking because it is through thinking that knowledge is formed. He claims that