Essay concerning human understanding
by John Locke · first published 1689
31% recommend63% neutral6% critical
Why HN recommends it
Foundational empiricist work that shaped modern philosophy. Reading it directly is rewarding, and it suits programmers or anyone seeking philosophical grounding in how knowledge is formed.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Locke's Essay ... (1690) withstood an onslaught by traditional theologians, for rejecting orthodox theology and the concept of innate ideas: as he suggested that God could make matter think. The Essay quickly became one of the most influential books of the eighteenth century, and its contributions to the philosophy of space and time, matter and power were quickly hailed as formative contributions to ... philosophy''--Amazon.com.
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…meant to be exhaustive and is coming from personal memory of "aha!" moments in my own life, but will perhaps serve as a useful beach head for your own investigations: * Descartes' Meditations * Locke Essay Concerning Human Understanding * Hobbes Leviathan * Kant Critique of Pure Reason * Kant Prolegomena * Kuhn Structure of Scientific Revolution * Hegel Phenomenology of Spirit * Foucault Discipline & Punish * Sellars Epistemology…
on “Ask HN: Learning about philosophy” ↗…in the original (nevermind even in the original language!). It's almost always condensed versions by another author of the "main ideas". I had this experience when I picked up a copy of John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding and read the thing in the original. I was completely shaken by the beauty of it. It saddens me because 90% of the beauty is lost in favor of "just getting to the main idea". You lose so, so much. It…
on “How David Hume Helped Solve My Midlife Crisis” ↗One of the most beautiful "old" books to read (especially if English is your native tongue) is John Locke - Essay Concerning Human Understanding. It's a beautiful piece of text, more so if you can get an old Oxford Claredon Press edition edited by Peter Nidditch. I've read that Nietzsche and Schopenhauer are also delightful to read in the original.…
on “C.S. Lewis on the Reading of Old Books” ↗Yeah, but we're talking a new work by a prolific author with more than 8,000 articles of writing known. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding and reading about the empiricists (berkeley, hume, locke) shook my world as a teenager. The works and letters of his contemporary philosophers and brilliant people made me a better person, giving things…
on “Scholars Discover Original Locke Manuscript in Greenfield Library” ↗…recommend Extreme Programming Explained by Beck and the Poppendiecks on Lean. In my opinion, a philosophical grounding is helpful for the programmer. Accordingly, I'd want to suggest something like Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding or a secondary source on Aristotelian categories. Moreover, a broad knowledge of different types of ethical systems will benefit a developer. Lastly, as a kind of curve ball, I would recommend any STEM…
on “Books I recommend to my software engineering students” ↗In order to understand Kant, first read David Hume's Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Kant's major ideas are entirely a response to this essay (we English-speakers are lucky to have this crucial piece of the Enlightenment in our native tongue). Hume argues that cause and effect are entirely…
on “What If Consciousness Comes First?” ↗…"pursuit of happiness" in the Declaration of Independence as being a fundamental human right. Jefferson most likely borrowed this idea from John Locke, one Jefferson's key intellectual influences. In his essay "Concerning Human Understanding", Locke stated that, "The necessity of pursuing happiness [is] the foundation of liberty. As therefore the highest perfection of intellectual nature lies in a careful and constant pursuit of true and…
on “There's More to Life Than Being Happy” ↗During my first year as a student at University I stumbled upon the book An Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke in the philosophy section. It was the critical edition by Peter Nidditch, beautifully typeset and bound. I flipped through it and the style of English looked intriguing so I took the book…
on “Why read old philosophy?” ↗Others think govt is merely an extension of natural law... Similarly, Sabine notes the position of John Locke in Essay concerning Human Understanding: [Civic power] can have no right except as this is derived from the individual right of each man to protect himself and his property. The legislative and executive power used by government to protect…
on “Restoring felon voting rights a 'mess' in battleground Florida” ↗…understanding of the word commonwealth comes from Hobbes, the book's full title is: Leviathan or The Matter, Forme and Power of a Common Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil. 7 & 8. Two Treatises of Government | An Essay Concerning Human Understanding—John Locke Locke is an English empiricist Enlightenment philosopher, his ideas had a strong influence on governance structures in the U.S. Locke was an early epistemologist, so his words are well chosen…
on “Philosophy of Science: Suggested Core Readings and Background Texts [pdf]” ↗Quartered Safe Out Here by George MacDonald Fraser, a memoir of WW II infantry service in Burma An Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke, started in 2011, finished this year War and the Iliad essays by Simone Weil, Rachel Bespaloff, and Herman Broch EIMI by E.E. Cummings, his account of a visit to the USSR in 1931 Prolegomena…
on “Ask HN: Best books you read in 2012” ↗…criticisms for your supposedly inevitable answers! But all it really means is that they're different from suggestions that we've heard before!" On the other hand, I had little success trudging through An Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke. So, I'd suggest that a reader who makes a patient attempt will find that many of them open up and become old friends. If not, I wouldn't bother to suffer through. There are plenty of books…
on “The Most Influential Books Ever Written (2010)” ↗Several philosophers have attended to those very thought experiments. I recently read some of Locke's "Essay Concerning Human Understanding" (Book 2), and he has some interesting thoughts on person-hood and persistence of consciousness in chapter 27.
on “A Neuroscientist’s Theory of How Networks Become Conscious (2013)” ↗…ideas of relations. 3. The third is separating them from all other ideas that accompany them in their real existence: this is called abstraction, and thus all its general ideas are made. John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)" [0] https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/sicp/full-text/...
on “Programmers and Musicians” ↗Somehow Locke managed to qualify as a physician, teach (as I recall it) classics at the university, and write the Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Not half bad for a lazy man.
on “A rediscovered lost memoir about John Locke” ↗