John Locke's "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding"

John Locke’s “An essay concerning Human Understanding” seems to be a comprehensive argument cautioning people about the meaning of words in languages. From the beginning of the piece, Locke warns us that because of the inherent nature of words, words may not perfectly fit a particular situation, and because of the imperfect fit of words, the true meaning of the piece that is written or spoken would be lost.

                Locke gives us several ideas that seem to support his theory, the first one being that as we internalize thoughts, we will assign words to those thoughts in what we believe to be an appropriate categorization. This, Locke argues, can be flawed, in the sense that no two people think alike and that if he were to attempt to profess his thoughts to another person, the true meaning of the thoughts may be lost because of what is lost in communication.

                Another example that Locke gives us about the fallacies of human communication is that the words used to identify objects do not occur in nature, and that identifying words are fabrications of humans who interpret the new objects and name them. This can cause issues in the case of where a person can name something, however, the object is already named, and in assigning two or more names to the same thing can cause great confusion.

                One last example of the point that Locke was making was that if an explorer were to travel to a foreign land that has never been discovered. In this example, Locke explains that if an explorer were to travel to a never before seen land, the man might encounter exotic wildlife, that has never been seen before. Because the animal life has not yet been discovered, the explorer may begin to attempt to name the wildlife. The explorer will then most likely attempt to name the new animals after animals that the explorer already knows in his homeland. This is a biased conclusion, since many animals and insects may have little to anything in common with animals and insects that looks similar to it. Such “discoveries” may incorrectly evaluate animals, and may have far reaching consequences.

                Locke was explicit about his mistrust of words, and stressed the differences in how some people think certain things that cannot easily be turned into words. Failures to communicate, errors in interpreting information, and the failure to pass along accurate information fuel Locke’s arguments toward cautioning against the unquestioning use of words in our lives and showcases errors in communication that are born out of these misunderstandings.