Jonathan Edwards and “The Way of Ideas”

1966 ◽  
Vol 59 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claude A. Smith
Keyword(s):  
John Locke ◽  
Jonathan Edwards ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
History Of ◽  
Essay Concerning Human Understanding ◽  
The Way

That Jonathan Edwards was greatly influenced by the writings of John Locke scarcely needs asserting. Edwards himself regarded his reading of the Essay Concerning Human Understanding as the major intellectual event of his youth. His major writings and private notebooks abound with comments and reflections on matters discussed by Locke. What is fascinating concerning the history of Edwardsean scholarship, however, is that the decisive significance of Locke, for Edwards, has been elucidated only very recently, in the writings of the renowned Puritan scholar, the late Perry Miller.

EDITING HUME'S TREATISE

2008 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 633-641 ◽  
Author(s):  
JAMES A. HARRIS
Keyword(s):  
Critical Edition ◽  
Latin Translation ◽  
Direct Access ◽  
Dramatic Effect ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
Textual History ◽  
Critical Text ◽  
History Of ◽  
Essay Concerning Human Understanding ◽  
The Way

In 1975 the Clarendon Press at Oxford published Peter Nidditch's edition of John Locke's An Essay concerning Human Understanding. In his Introduction Nidditch says that his edition “offers a text that is directly derived, without modernization, from the early published versions; it notes the provenance of all its adopted readings (some of which are new, correcting long-established errors); and it aims at recording all relevant differences between these versions”. As Nidditch goes on to acknowledge, the “relevant differences” were many, “requiring several thousand registrations both in the case of material variants (deletions, additions, or changes of wording) and in the case of formal variants (changes of punctuation, parentheses, italics, etc.)”. The textual history of Locke's Essay is extremely complicated. While there is no manuscript of the first edition of the book, there were four editions in Locke's lifetime, each new one containing extensive and significant revisions, as well as a posthumous edition published shortly after the author's death. There was a translation into French made with Locke's cooperation and published in 1700, and a Latin translation came out a year later. Nevertheless, Nidditch managed to record all the material variants in footnotes to the text, in a way that makes it fairly easy to track the changes that Locke made to successive editions of the book, and to locate points at which judgements had to be made as a critical text was established on the basis of the chosen copy text. Sometimes a critical edition succeeds in completely changing the way that a text is read. Peter Laslett's 1960 edition of Locke's Two Treatises of Government is a good example. Nidditch's edition of the Essay did not have that kind of very dramatic effect on Locke scholarship. Rather, it made it possible for those without direct access to all the early editions to engage in careful, historically sensitive studies of Locke's account of human understanding. The result was a slow revolution in Locke studies that continues to shed new light on even the most familiar aspects of the Lockean philosophy.

JOHN LOCKE ON THE CARE OF THE NEWBORN INFANT (1684)

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1979 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-237
Author(s):  
T. E. C.
Keyword(s):  
Olive Oil ◽  
Newborn Infant ◽  
John Locke ◽  
Red Wine ◽  
Weak Condition ◽  
Newborn Baby ◽  
Almond Oil ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
Essay Concerning Human Understanding ◽  
Medical Interest

John Locke (1632-1704), physician and philosopher, is best known for his Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690). His reputation as a philosopher has overshadowed the extent of his medical interests. Locke's journals between 1678 and 1698 contain thousands of items of medical interest. An entry in his journal for September 1684 contained the following recommendations for the care of the newborn infant.1 1. Soon after birth the baby can be given 1 or 2 spoonfuls of syrup of violets with almond oil, to loosen the bowels and keep it from convulsive colic. Or else distilled olive oil can be mixed with sugar. 2. If the newborn baby is in a weak condition you can blow on it the smell of chewed onions and cloves; smear its nostrils and lips with Cinnamon water; press warm slices of meat on its head and anus; wrap in bandages soaked in red wine and place in a bath composed of water or beer and fresh butter. If the baby is lively give a little after a mixture of 1 spoonful of distilled almond oil and syrup of Cowslip flowers and ½ spoonful of wine tempered with sugar, so that it can purge itself properly. 3. As soon as it begins to feed on pap, give it for the first few days a little powder of Marchion. 4. If it is weak apply to the region of the heart a cloth coaked with warm Embryon. The best ways to stimulate its strength are baths, putting warm wine on its head, placing hot meat on its chest, smearing its nose and lips with cinnamon water, putting onions near its nostrils, etc.

A Gift from John Locke to Jean Le Clerc

Locke Studies ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 201-203
Author(s):  
Jacob Van Sluis
Keyword(s):  
John Locke ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
Essay Concerning Human Understanding

I work as a subject librarian in Tresoar, the provincial library of the Dutch province of Friesland, in Leeuwarden. I would like to report a curious experience of serendipity that is related to John Locke. Recently, while giving a tour in my library, I randomly grabbed an old book from the shelves. The back of the folio promised me a work by John Locke, and indeed, the book was a rare copy of the second edition of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, printed in 1694. But what really surprised me was an inscription on the first end-leaf. The inscription is unsigned, but none the less it was immediately clear to me: this was written by Locke himself!

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. by John Locke. Collated and annotated with Prolegomena, Biographical, Critical, and Historical. Alexander Campbell Fraser, Hon. D.C.L. Oxford, Emeritus Professor of Logic and Metaphysics in the University of Edinburgh. Two vols. Vol. 1. Oxford. 1894.

1894 ◽  
Vol 40 (170) ◽  
pp. 446-446
Keyword(s):  
John Locke ◽  
Limited Time ◽  
Emeritus Professor ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
Alexander Campbell ◽  
University Of Edinburgh ◽  
Essay Concerning Human Understanding ◽  
The University

Although we are obliged to postpone our review of this splendid work to a future number, from the limited time at our disposal before going to press, we must now record a high opinion which we entertain of the manner in which it has been edited by Professor Fraser. In the meantime every one interested in the psychology of Locke ought to possess himself of this valuable work.

LOCKE'S PARROT

Think ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 8 (23) ◽  
pp. 35-44
Author(s):  
Terence Moore
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
John Locke ◽  
Central Idea ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
Essay Concerning Human Understanding

In this their fourth conversation the 17th century philosopher, John Locke and the 21st century linguist, Terence Moore, consider a question not fully answered even today: what might count as the key distinction beween man and animals, or in Locke's phrase what ‘puts a perfect distinction between Man and Brutes.’ In the Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Locke considers two possible linguistic candidates: the ability to use language appropriately, and the ability to ‘quit Particulars’. As Locke and Moore explore these possibilities they come to see that the distinction between man and animals is not as clear-cut as previous generations have believed. Locke tentatively posits a third possible distinction based on a central idea in his Essay – one however Moore is compelled to dismiss, though he, in return, also tentatively, offers a fourth.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document