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5 - Locke's philosophy of language

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 May 2006

By
Paul Guyer
Edited by
Vere Chappell
Vere Chappell
Affiliation:
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
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Summary

Locke's first reference to language in the “Epistle to the Reader” at the outset of his Essay concerning Human Understanding suggests merely a pragmatic, Baconian insistence that we must strive for clarity in language because obscurity of speech is a frequent but avoidable source of theoretical confusion: “The greatest part of the Questions and Controversies that perplex Mankind [depend] on the doubtful and uncertain use of Words, or (which is the same) indetermined Ideas, which they are made to stand for” (E Epis: 13). Such a statement does not imply that one needs any theory about language in order to avoid such problems, but just a special degree of care in its ordinary use. Later passages might also be taken to suggest such a Baconian stance, free of any specific linguistic theory:

Some gross and confused Conceptions Men indeed ordinarily have, to which they apply the common Words of their Language, and such a loose use of their words serves them well enough in their ordinary Discourses and Affairs. But this is not sufficient for philosophical Enquiries. Knowledge and Reasoning require precise determinate Ideas. . . . The multiplication and obstinacy of Disputes, which has so laid waste the intellectual World, is owing to nothing more, than to this ill use of Words. (E III.x.22: 503-4)

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Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to Locke , pp. 115 - 145
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1994

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