John Locke stands as one of the towering figures in Western philosophy. His writing captures the modernity of seventeenth century, with its emphasis on empiricism, individualism and unshakeable faith in the promise of human reason. Yet, while his work is not impossible to read, his thought is sufficiently subtle, complex and intricate that he can be very hard to follow, presenting readers with a number of challenges. No wonder, he is the topic of the Continuum Guides for the Perplexed. Concentrating specifically on what it is that makes the subject difficult to grasp, the Continuum Guides for the Perplexed series have provided an excellent source for the readers in explaining and exploring the key themes and ideas of prominent thinkers and schools in Western philosophical tradition. Giving the vast influence of Locke’s work in shaping modern philosophical thought, I think, Locke A Guide for the Perplexed is a welcome addition to the Continuum Guides for the Perplexed.

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke is one of the great books of the Western world. The Essay puts forward a systematic empiricist theory of mind, detailing how all ideas and knowledge arise from sense experience. Locke was trained in mechanical philosophy, and he crafted his account to be consistent with the best natural science of his day. The Essay is the first work of its kind to appear in modern times. It is an attempt on the part of the author to make a serious and systematic inquiry in the problems of epistemology. Locke, in the Epistle to the reader, describes himself as privileged to be “employed as an under-laborer in clearing the ground a little, and removing some of the rubbish, that lies in the way to knowledge… To break in upon the sanctuary of vanity and ignorance will be, I suppose, some service to human understanding” (pp. 13-14).

True to Locke’s supposition, the Essay has been highly influential, and its rendering of empiricism would become the standard for subsequent theorists. It marked an important beginning, for once the inquiry had been brought to the attention of a reputable group of scholars, it became the central issue in the philosophical discussions that took place during the next one and one-half centuries. In fact, the movement that began with Locke was continued by Berkeley, Leibniz, and other writers of distinction. It reached in one sense a culmination in the philosophies of Hume and Kant. Although the main subject matter of the Essay is primarily a philosophical one and it is clearly motivated by Locke’s interest in modern science, it has had a direct bearing on such areas of thought as education, government, ethics, theology, and religion. In the course of the Epistle Locke famously recounts one of the main sources of inspiration for writing the Essay. He explains that his interest in writing the Essay was inspired by a discussion one evening with several of his friends, on subjects that he identifies as “very remote” although those topics of discussion have been known to be on morality and religion.

Morality and religion, therefore, also have a place beside natural science as subjects explored at significant length in the Essay. Yet, Locke states his main concern in a following manner as “that, before we set our selves upon enquiries of that nature, it was necessary to examine our own abilities, and see, what objects our understandings were, or were not fitted to deal with” (pp. 10). Although the broad outlines of his empiricist project in the Essay are clear enough, many of the specific topics he treats there, such as the source, nature and function of ideas, the workings of language, personal identity, faith and reason etc. have perplexed readers right up to the present. The Essay as a whole is a lengthy piece of work, and it is not unusual for those who read it at the present time to become lost in the detailed accounts that are included in it. The expansiveness of its subject matter, combined with the sometimes painstaking detail of its discussions, can make it a challenging work to read. Many of the words that are used are ambiguous in their meaning, and the ways in which they are used are not always consistent with one another. Further difficulties arise from the fact that words do not necessarily have the same meaning today that they did at the time when Locke wrote. Patricia Sheridan in Locke: A Guide for the Perplexed, therefore, tackles the hard task of explicating Locke’s philosophy in a detailed and comprehensible manner and she mainly aims to assist the reader of Locke to grasp the main ideas of his philosophy through a patient exposition.

In doing so, Sheridan offers a thematic review of Locke’s landmark work An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. In line with the main sections of Essay, Locke: A Guide for the Perplexed is divided into six chapters on his theory of ideas, matter, language, identity, morality and knowledge. The first two of these chapters are on Locke’s theory of ideas and matter, which mainly corresponds to Essay‘s first two chapters, where Locke’s goal is to examine the content of human consciousness and the origin of ideas. In the first chapter titled Locke’s Theory of Ideas, Sheridan asserts that Essay‘s Book I can be read as a kind of ground-clearing for Locke’s project in the subsequent three books of the Essay. In this chapter, after explicating Locke’s reasons for rejecting innate ideas, Sheridan gives a very detailed and careful analysis of the role of ideas in Locke’s empiricist epistemology and their relation with his theory of perception.

The second chapter titled Locke’s Theory of Matter aims at explicating the significance of the debate over substance in Locke’s day because as Sheridan rightly states “a thorough understanding of Locke’s position requires familiarity with” this debate (p. 33). This chapter complements the analysis of ideas in the first chapter and provides a thorough insight into Locke’s overall empiricist position as she tackles the hard question of what the substratum for Locke is.

In the third chapter titled Locke’s Theory of Language, in line with the Book III of the Essay, Sheridan gives a very detailed and careful analysis of the main concepts of his theory of language as well as its connection with his overall project. The next chapter is on Locke’s account of identity, especially of personal identity. Even though the discussion of identity is found only in one chapter of the Book II of the Essay, it has been enormously influential and has been a landmark in philosophical thinking about personal identity theory since the publication of the Essay. I think, the addition of this chapter makes this book unique among other works on the Essay.

The last two chapters are on Locke’s theory of morality and knowledge. Even though morality is not the main concern of the Essay, as Locke also points out at the beginning, the whole idea of writing the Essay was stemmed from a discussion on morality and religion. On the chapter about Locke’s theory of morality, Sheridan tries to explicate the significance of morality in the Essay and its connection with the overall project in the Essay. Last chapter is on Locke’s theory of knowledge. It might seem that the first three books of the Essay are all related to knowledge, in a way stage-setting for the investigation of knowledge itself in the Book III. Since the overall project of the Essay is mapping out the proper boundaries of knowledge, Sheridan chooses to treat Locke’s theory of knowledge in the final chapter of the book, where she also establishes the connection between Locke’s general definition of knowledge and faith.

Locke: A Guide for the Perplexed is a clear, concise and accessible introduction of Husserl’s philosophy for academicians and any philosophy student who wants to further his/her ideas about Locke’s philosophy. I also found this book very useful for a course on Locke as Patricia Sheridan provides a thorough analysis of main topics of Locke’s landmark work An Essay Concerning Human Understanding and includes a bibliography for each topic. I heartily recommend this book as an ideal companion to the study of this most influential and challenging of philosophers.

© 2011 Kamuran Gödelek

Kamuran Gödelek, Çağ University, School of Arts and Sciences, Tarsus, Mersin, Turkey