Philosophy 210/310 Early Modern Philosophy  Andrew Mills'  Homepage Course Resources Homepage Dept. of Religion and Philosophy

Study Questions for Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding

Book I, Chapter i

1. What is Locke's project in the Essay?  How does he think this will enable him to fend off the sceptics?  (What is a sceptic, by the way?)
2. Why should we start philosophy by understanding understanding?

1. What's the "universal consent" argument for innate ideas?  What is Locke's response to that argument?
2. What reason does Locke give for rejecting the idea that there are innate ideas which are "unknown" or "unperceived" by the mind?

1. What is the difference between a "soul" and a "man", according to Locke?
2. Locke draws a number of absurd consequences from the claim that a soul always thinks (and, in particular, that it thinks when the man is asleep).  He does this in order to argue against the claim that a soul always thinks.  What are the absurd consequences in question?  Do you agree with his argument here?
3. What, in particular, is the point of the Castor and Pollux discussion?
4. What is the point of the analogy with hunger in II.i.19?
5. What is the distinction between simple ideas and complex ideas?
6. By what powers does the mind construct complex ideas out of simple ones?
7. In what sense is the understanding passive?  In what sense active?
8. What is the point of II.ii.3?

1. What is the difference between hardness and solidity?
2. What is the difference between an idea and a quality?  What is the relationship between them?
3. What is the distinction between primary and secondary qualities?
4. What are the primary qualities?  What are the secondary qualities? Is it the case that all the ideas that are "ideas of one sense" are secondary qualities?  Explain.
5. What evidence persuades him that qualities come in these two kinds?
6. What is the point of the grain of wheat discussion in Ch. VIII, Sect. 9?  There is an argument for the primary qualities there--try to reconstruct it.
7. How does Locke know that the qualities he thinks are primary are actually primary and that the qualities he thinks are secondary are actually secondary?
8. What's the point of the analogy with pain and steel dividing our flesh in Ch. VIII, Sect. 13?
9. If green is a secondary quality which belongs to the mind and not to objects, then how does Locke explain why I see green when I look at grass? What role does the grass play? What else plays a role?
10. (IMPORTANT) Why does Locke think that the ideas of primary qualities resemble the  qualities in the objects, but that the ideas of secondary qualities do not resemble qualities in the objects?
11. What point is Locke making with the example of fire which produces the sensations both of warmth and pain?
12. Indeed, why does Locke talk so much about the power that things have to cause us pain?  What role does that play in his argument?
13. What's the point of the almond pounding case in Ch. VIII, Sect. 20?
14. What point is he making with the example a cold hand and a warm hand stuck in the same pail of water?
15. The discussion of the sun and its effects on us and a lump of wax in Ch. VIII, Sect. 24 is very interesting. What is Locke's argument there?  Does it persuade you of his conclusion? (He repeats the nerve of the argument in Sect. 25.)
16. Descartes drew a distinction between primary and secondary qualities.  Are there significant differences between Locke's account of the distinction and Descartes'?

1. What is our complex idea of "substance"?  Why is our idea of substance a complex, and not a simple, idea?
2. What does Locke mean by "substratum"?  Why are we driven to suppose that there is some substratum?  What is the relationship between the substratum and all the qualities of a thing?
3. Do we have a clear idea of substance?  Why or why not?
4. Locke's discussion of substance should remind you of Descartes' discussion of the wax in Meditation II.  Compare what Locke says to that passage from Descartes.
5. What are the three sorts of simple ideas that make up our complex idea of corporeal substance? (See Sect 9)
6. Do you think that microscopes give us a "more accurate" view of how things really are?  Does Locke?
7. If our senses, unaided, are not useful for perceiving the true natures of things, then what are they useful for?  And if our senses are not useful for perceiving the true natures of things, how are we to discover those natures?

1. Why doesn't the identity of a "man" consist in the identity of a soul?
2. In virtue of what does the identity of a substance consist?  human being (="man")? person?  That is, what are the conditions under which we can say that this substance is the same substance as that one?  And, similarly, for "human being" and "person" in place of the term "substance".
3. What does Locke mean by "man" (or, a better term, "human being")?
4. What is the point of the story about the talking parrot?
5. What does Locke mean by "person"?  Do all persons have to be human beings?  Do all human beings (i.e., "men", in Locke's terminology) have to be persons?  Explain.
6. There are a number of people who existed three years ago.  One of them, presumably, is you.  Which one?  What has to be the case, according to Locke, for that person to be you?
7. If being the same person from one time to the next does not consist in being the same thinking substance (see Sect. 10), then what does it consist in?
8. What is the point of Locke's discussion of severing a limb or your little finger?
9. If you have the same soul that Socrates had does that make you the same person as Socrates?  If you need more information about the case to answer this question, what more information do you need?  What is Locke's view here?
10. What would have to be the case for you to be the same person as Socrates?  To be the same human being as Socrates?

Are you asleep and you awake the same person, according to Locke?  Why or why not?