John Locke Essay Concerning Human Understanding

    Essay on human understanding is a good topic to write on. Even though you will be not the first one to write a paper on the topic, new essays on human understanding are always welcome. Besides that, every author has a point of view of his/her own. John Locke essay concerning human understanding is a chance not only to get a good grade but to broaden your knowledge in general and on this particular topic in particular. Pardon for the tautology.

    It is very important to have human understanding in relationships with other people. Through understanding we make friends at school, college, work, and membership clubs. Common interests are what make people united, get them together, they have something to talk about, they understand one another and once there is understanding, there is a good right human relations.

    Mentioned above John Locke had a philosophy of his own. This philosophy was depicted in his essay. For example, the words “Wherever law ends, tyranny begins” belong to him. He also believed that “Men`s happiness or misery is most part of their own making”. He was an American liberty philosopher. “Freedom of men under government is, to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society, and maybe by the legislative power erected in it; a liberty to follow my own will in all things, where the rules prescribes not; and not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary will of another man”.

   His other words are to be mentioned here: “I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts”. Essay by John Locke is a representation of questions upon men`s way of thinking and perceiving things. It is very touching how people express themselves by means of a language, religion, logic.

   His Essay has an introduction called The Epistle to the Reader. He speaks of how he have become involved into the way of thinking he ended up with. He tells a joke based on a talk with friends who made him jump to a conclusion that very often people suffer because there is a lack of human understanding.

   Just like any other essay, John Locke`s Essay has body paragraphs, which are four books and an analysis in conclusion. Book I tells about faith. He says that every person is given birth with a certain package of principles. They are innate and, going back to the theme of faith, he says that men`s belief in God is not something innate.

    Book II tells about knowledge. There are simple and complex ideas. They all are knowledge. The book also tells about experience, that there are two types of experience by means of which simples ideas form in a men`s mind. Simple ideas are divided by Locke into several categories: those are sight of taste, based on sensation ideas such as size and shape, reflection emerged ideas and ideas based on both reflection and sensation, which are substance, pain, unity, pleasure and existence.

    Then goes book III. The notion of essence is argued by him in third part of his Essay. Plato argued that men are recognized due to their belonging to certain species as long as a human being is aware of the species` essences. Locke says though that essence as a separate entity does not even exist. Then goes a discussion about language. Locke says that most people use words without even knowing what those words truly means; every word has a meaning, has an idea, complex or not; Locke believes that one should not use a word if s/he does not know what this word stands for, communicate one language, so there were no terms but understanding through a common vocabulary, in case there are some terms, provide with a definition and try to always apply consistently words.

    Book IV tells that a reason produces knowledge and to make it happen, Locke gives four kinds of agreement and disagreement, which are identity (black is black) and diversity (black is not yellow), relation (if to take two triangles, which have equal bases and whose location is within the same parallel, such triangles would be equal), coexistence (iron attracts objects made out of iron only), realization of the fact that existence is an idea (the idea of God and of oneself).

    Analysis stands for the conclusion of the Essay. It is important so there were introduction, body paragraphs and a conclusion within the essay. Those are things, which make the essay look complete. If no instructions, it is not a nonnecessary condition. Its content makes it credible.

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