Seminar on John Locke, ‘Epistle to the Reader’ from 'An Essay Concerning Human Understanding'

In 1660, John Locke wrote ‘An essay concerning human understanding’, it is one of his two most famous works; consisting of 4 books. The essay concerns the topics of human knowledge and understanding.

In his first Treatise Locke attacks the divine right of kings, the idea that God gave Adam the right to rule; quoted in the bible… “Let them rule over the fish of the sea and birds of the air and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Locke opposed to James II and Hobbes he wrote “men are so foolish that they take care to avoid what mischiefs may be done them by polecats or foxes, but are content, nay, think it safety, to be devoured by lions.” Basically meaning because of the divine right of kings the power which comes from the people is given all to the ruler, seen as a ‘mortal god’. Locke held a strong belief that religion should be a private thing as it tears countries apart; it should be separate from politics and shouldn’t influence it and the divine right of kings will be the downfall of all governments.  Hobbes, Locke and Russo all focus of the idea of the state of nature before politics was prevalent. 

In his second treatise he expresses that he sees the mind as a blank slate in which we learn everything we know in life from experience alone and we discover natural laws. Locke didn’t believe in any innate ideas, he says the natural laws we discover we learn instinctively; the knowledge between ‘right and wrong’ was “interwoven in the constitution of the human mind which was given to us by God”. This led to conflict with the Catholic Church as they believe that everyone is born with original sin which was completely dismissed in Locke’s beliefs .However Locke did believe in god but wholly believed our brains had be placed in our head by God giving us the ability to think. Locke claims ‘Taking away false foundations is not to the prejudice but advantage of truth, which is never injured or endangered so much as when mixed with, or built on, falsehood.’

This week however we are just focusing on one part of the book; ‘The Epistle to the Reader’. The Essay originated in 1671, it was the genesis on the Books which followed. Locke expanded his comments repeatedly before publishing the book nearly twenty years later and continued to add to them with more material for the four further editions. It was originally written only for Locke himself and a few of the friends he had talked about these concepts with, however Locke merely wanted his ideas to be known ‘I desire it should be understood by whoever gives himself the pains to read it’.

 Locke records in his epistle to the reader that a group of five or six friends met to discuss a point in philosophy and when they got stuck with their ideas, Locke came to realise that people struggle with the pursuit of knowledge mainly because they are completely unaware of their own limits of understanding. Locke wanted to figure out more; ‘it was necessary to examine our own abilities, and see what objects our understandings were, or were not, fitted to deal with’.  Locke goes on to explain how he studied the foundations of rational thought in his own mind, and so generated instructions for the possibility of a reasonable treatise. Locke understood everyone grasped things differently, purely because of our own meanings and personal understanding; ‘but everything does not hit alike upon every man’s imagination. We have our understandings no less different than our palates; and he that thinks the same truth shall be equally relished by every one in the same dress, may as well hope to feast every one with the same sort of cookery.’ This inspired Locke to consider the limits of understanding and the dangers of going past our limit, causing our thoughts to ‘wander into those depths where they can find no sure footing.’

Personally I think Locke makes an important point which should be considered by all journalists ‘for it is truth alone I seek, and that will always be welcome to me, when or from whencesover it comes’ Locke shows the importance of basing all our beliefs and understandings on the aspect of truth, although Locke does admit ‘I know there are not words enough in any language to answer all the variety of ideas that enter into men’s discourses and reasonings’.

History and Context Journalism Lecture 1 - Renaissance - From Scientific Revival to Descartes' Cogito

The first lecture for the module History and Context Journalism was on the subject of the Renaissance period in which we familiarised ourselves with several philosophers; Plato, Aristotle and Descartes to name a few and formed a very brief understanding of the Renaissance period itself. 

Florence coat of arms

The Renaissance period began in the 14th century in Florence, Italy and later spread throughout Europe when Scholars in both North and South Europe became more interested in the world around them. There are three main divisions in the periods of history during the middle ages; the classical period, the medieval period, and the modern period. During this time it is thought that there was a huge deviation from classical learning, the Renaissance was the beginning of its rebirth; hence the translation of the French word 'Renaissance' meaning 'rebirth'. You could argue that the Renaissance was the beginning of modern history itself; it was a desperate attempt to combine the classical world with Christian teachings, it completely revolutionised politics, literature, science, philosophy, art and religion, it was the self-conscious rejection of tradition and scholastic-ism, it argued more for a humanist world view. The idea that "Man is the measure of all things" (Protagoras) up until this point man and the body was seen as a fallen creature, in need of salvation. 


The North of Europe was much more pessimistic, unlike the south who were hostile to scholasticism, the north tried to combine Christianity and classical learning.Although the scientific renaissance held other opinions, Gallielo argued that the bible shouldn't influence science. He followed Pythagoras who put the idea of numbers at the centre of understanding, he believed you could understand the universe through numbers. Gallielo believed that "nature was the book of god and it is written in the language of mathematics". 

Portrait of Galileo Galilei by Giusto Sustermans

Machiavelli however, were representative of southern Renaissance humanism, he formed the beginning of political science.He was fascinated with political rarity and had an intense ambition to see the Medici family assume a similar role in Italy as former royalty. Machiavelli used a ration approach avoiding getting involved in ethics and morals to write 'the prince' a guide to the Medici rulers of Florence. He claims 'It is better to be feared than loved, for fear is constant and love is fickle'.In 1527, Machiavelli died which was followed by the end of the Italian Renaissance.

Portrait of Niccolò Machiavelli by Santi di Tito

During the Renaissance we see the age of discovery begin when Christopher Columbus departed Spain on August 2nd 1942 on a voyage in which the 'new world' was sighted on 2am on 12th October later that year. Columbus' contract, with conformation of his discovery, was abided by he was made Admiral of the Ocean Sea and began the owner of 10% of any new found wealth, however this never really worked out as he planed. Travel tales became a mundane tradition; one example is Moore's 'Utopia', a fantasy in which he describes the 'ideal' society. It is based on an imaginary island where all work is for the common good, in forming this country of Utopia, Moore points out many problems that he has seen in society. In the story Moore brings in the idea of dualism proposed by Descartes; "They (the Utopians) reckon up several sorts of pleasures, which they call true ones: some belong to the body and others to the mind."

Portrait after Frans Hals, 1648

Descartes despised Aristotle, he believed his system was full of errors. Descartes is often credited as the "father of modern philosophy"; the basis of his philosophy was to consider anything untrue if it falls to the slightest bit of doubt, this is know as 'the method of doubt' (Cartesian doubt). He came to the conclusion that if he was not to life life under false ideas then he would need to dismantle his entire belief system to begin at an epistemological ground-zero and build it up again. He believed he couldn't rely on anything he has learned from custom or example as it is only relevant to the context it occurs in, the place and the time. 


Descartes believes there is no truth in the presumption that the material universe exists. It was from this point he set out to discover something that lied beyond all doubt. Descartes claimed to only be trying to reinstate his opinions and was not trying to reform or change society, however this seems a little unconvincing and may only have possibly been as attempt to avoid the wrath if the church. He began with the idea of the perfect being, he saw this a proof of God; he claimed if you have a plan for some extremely complicated machine in your head - it would either mean you were genius of someone had give you the plan. He believed his idea of the perfect being can't come from him but only from a being that is of higher power, he began to except his faculties because they were given to him by god who wasn't a deceiver.Whilst overhauling his ideas he simply went along with the most moderate ideas around at the time. 


Descartes' idealism lead the the idea of dualism; the belief that the body is one thing and the mind is another. According to Descartes, the pineal gland in the brain is where the body and mind interact.Finally he reach the conclusion was "I think, therefore I am". Russell claims "this was insanity, and from this extreme philosophy has been attempting ever since to escape the world of everyday common sense".




For me, I found Descartes the most interesting; I enjoyed his argument for the existence of God, it was compelling and in wanting to understand more I have begun to read a book...'Descartes: A very short Introduction by Tom Sorell'