Contents introduction main Part chapter 1

Epistemology and Psychology
Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding is one of the earliest and most important statements of modern empiricism, the view that all human knowledge derives from sense perception. Arguably the most famous part of the Essay is the first book, which is an extended attack on the possibility of “innate ideas.” Locke compares the human mind at birth to an “empty cabinet” or a “white paper,” possessing only certain instinctive passions such as pleasure and pain, but no ideas about physical or moral things. (Although he comes close to calling the mind a tabula rasa or “blank slate,” these are not actually Locke’s words.)
In the Essay’s subsequent books, Locke argues that sensation and reflection are the two basic components of the understanding, which is built up first by collecting “simple ideas”—basic sensory qualities of objects such as “hot,” “blue” “soft,” and so on—and then reflecting on them in our minds, linking them together to form complex ideas. A parallel development occurs in the realm of abstract ideas (Locke calls these “modes”) such as mathematics and moral precepts. Our minds begin from simple modes like space, duration, and number, and they combine these to arrive at complex and mixed modes such as geometry and justice. Language then serves as a way to arrange and communicate our ideas, but it also introduces many errors into our thinking.
In addition to thinking, the other faculty of the mind is volition or willing, and it is with respect to the freedom of the will that Locke makes a novel contribution to psychology. Locke argues that desire, an “uneasiness of the Mind for want of some absent good…determines the Will to the successive voluntary actions whereof the greatest part of our Lives is made up.” Indeed, satisfaction of desire is relief from uneasiness, and such relief is the heart of happiness. Government that secures rights and the growth of property advances the satisfaction of desires and thus increases happiness. Although the will is ultimately moved by the “greater uneasiness,” however, this need not be the greatest present unease. For the mind is equipped with a “power to suspend the execution and satisfaction of any of its desires.” It is in this state of detached consideration of our options, something that is perhaps most visible among the rational and industrious of whom Locke speaks in the Second Treatise, that “lies the liberty Man has, and from the not using of it right comes all that variety of mistakes, errors, and faults we run into.”
Locke’s epistemology and psychology elevate the importance of individual effort in cultivating the understanding while radically demoting the power of authority, including perhaps especially religious authority, over the mind. True understanding is only available to us through our own senses and the reflective process of our minds, so we can never really know something second-hand.
Locke’s epistemology and psychology elevate the importance of individual effort in cultivating the understanding while radically demoting the power of authority, including perhaps especially religious authority, over the mind. True understanding is only available to us through our own senses and the reflective process of our minds, so we can never really know something second-hand. The other faculty of the mind, in addition to thinking, is volition, or willingness, and it is with respect to the freedom of the will that Locke makes a significant contribution to psychology. Locke claims that desire, which he defines as "an uneasiness of the Mind for the want of some absent good...determines the Will to the successive voluntary actions of which the greatest part of our Lives is made up," determines the Will to the successive voluntary actions of which the greatest part of our Lives is made up. Desire fulfillment is, in reality, a source of respite from anxiety, and such alleviation is at the heart of happiness. Government that protects rights and promotes property growth promotes the fulfillment of desires and hence boosts happiness. Although the "greater uneasiness" finally moves the will, it does not have to be the greatest present unease.