Week 4 - Law & Philosophy

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke, published in 1690, is essentially a short exploration of human knowledge and understanding that Locke wrote and published in his spare time. It was, as the text reveals, simply a way of Locke to record different ideas that he and his friends had while relaxing and discussing different things. The text goes into different ideas such as how people perceive things, ideas being derived by experiences, how words connect to ideas, and the limits of human knowledge.

It is fairly easy to see that many of these ideas being discussed, even if they were not meant to cause any major upheaval in society, sewed the roots of just that. Locke is putting into words the ways in which every single person perceives and learns different things, and that we should always be seeking out new knowledge. Putting the idea in people's minds that each person can think for his or herself and should always be questioning the things around them would do nothing but disrupt the thought process that the monarchy in charge at the time would want people to have. People being curious about their livelihoods, especially in direct response to the actions that their, at the time tyrannical, government is making, would cause them to, more likely than not, be wondering if there is a better way of living they could have, or at least a better government above them. Obviously, this way of thinking contributed greatly in the century following the publishing of this to the American Revolution. Of course, this way of thought is very closely related to the ideals of the Enlightenment period of questioning the world around oneself, including natural phenomena and even religion being the basis for all facts.

Obvious to us, this way of thinking is basically how mostly all research nowadays works. We seek to find answers to the things around us, whether it be through quantifying and qualifying things, or just seeking out what something means to us. How we perceive things and our ability to speak out about our own ideas is a relatively new development in our societies, but has changed the very fabric of our societies and cultures. People no longer have to depend on religion or their government for an explanation for everything.