John Locke An Essay Concerning Human Understanding Analysis

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John Locke’s, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding was published in 1689 and consists of four separate books and were written over the course of 18 years. Taken together, they comprise an extremely long and detailed theory of knowledge starting from the very basics and building up. The book is primarily concerned with issues in epistemology and metaphysics, though the third book is about the philosophy of language. Issues in moral philosophy, philosophy of logic, and philosophy of religion also find their way into the discussions.
In Book I, "Of Innate Notions," is an attack on the Cartesian view of knowledge, which holds that human beings are born with certain ideas already in their mind. "Of Innate Notions" begins with an argument against the possibility of innate propositional knowledge and then moves on to an argument against the possibility of innate ideas like the idea of God. Then, Locke begins to develop his own theory of the origins of knowledge. Book II lays out Locke's theory of ideas. He argues that everything in our mind is an idea, and that all ideas take one of tw...

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