John LockeNA

I cannot say much more than my title says, because I need to return this book - I bought the ebook - for a refund, toute suite. For, I need an unabriged version. There is a modern and scholarly edition of the same book - that edition being by Clarenden Press.

I read this by listening to it on Audible. When something really caught my attention, I referenced the book to highlight it so that I might return to it later. MANY times throughout this book what I wanted to highlight was not present. Locke enumerates his ideas often. This abridgement will skip 9 to 13 to 17 to 19 (for example on pages 174-175). For this reason, I was disappointed.Also, Winkler has abridged OUT every instance (Such as on p.184 and 185) where Locke talks about "what a man is and is not." I began noticing this early on, but it is quite conspicuous if this is compared to Chapter 50 of the unabridged audio book... which would seem that he is not only abridging but censoring to promote an agenda.For example this was removed: Locke says, "... wherein does his idea of man differ from that of Peter and Paul, or his idea of horse from that of Bucephalus, but in the leaving out something that is peculiar to each individual, and retaining so much of those particular complex ideas of several particular existences as they are found to agree in? Of the complex ideas signified by the names man and horse, leaving out but those particulars wherein they differ, and retaining only those wherein they agree, and of those making a new distinct complex idea, and giving the name animal to it, one has a more general term, that comprehends with man several other creatures."Without beleaguering the point, this is one of many examples, and you can compare for yourself.

This reading text was a bit difficult to follow but once you gay background knowledge it’s becomes easier.

This review concerns the Hackett edition (abridged and edited by Kenneth P. Winkler). Unfortunately, this edition has some major typographical issues.One issue concerns the use of commas. Take this sentence for example (as it appears in this edition):“What censure, doubting thus of innate principles, may deserve from men, who will be apt to call it, pulling up the old foundations of knowledge and certainty, I cannot tell:”...and contrast it with how it appears both on Wikisource and on johnlocke.net:“What censure doubting thus of innate principles may deserve from men, who will be apt to call it pulling up the old foundations of knowledge and certainty, I cannot tell;”I think it is evident that the former version is much harder to parse. This is not an isolated case; it happens constantly throughout the book.Also, apart from punctuation issues, this edition also has some straightforward typographical errors. For example, I just came across this sentence:“Whatsoever positive ideas we have in our minds of any space, duration, or number, let them be never so great, they are still finite;”I had to spend some time/effort trying to understand the meaning of this sentence, but, in the context, the word “never” just made no sense to me. Once again, here is how that same sentence appears on Wikisource:“Whatsoever positive ideas we have in our minds of any space, duration, or number, let them be ever so great, they are still finite;”This is on page 87 (out of 357) and I’ve already encountered several errors of this kind.Unfortunately, this being a philosophical text (where linguistic precision is very important), these types of issues can make it much harder to follow (when you are having trouble understanding a sentence there is always a bit of doubt whether it’s on you or on the edition) and significantly detracts from the overall reading experience.

This book is where John Locke laid down his "Tabula Rasa" and this ideology has carried on through centuries (and even up to today for those who aren't educated enough to know he's actually been proven wrong. In fact most modern philosophers have been proven wrong on most of the things they wrote). Nonetheless, this is a great book and an interesting read. There are four "books" within this book and each chapter has a lot of rich information. It's a very dense text with Locke covering a lot throughout. This is (arguably) one of the top influential philosophical texts that has been written and it's studied in modern philosophy courses at my university. I would recommend this book to anyone that's a novice to philosophy.