History of Philosophy in the 17th & 18th Centuries

Locke Resources

Locke's texts

His most influential work on the topics we focus on is:

John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 1690.

It came out in Locke's time in several editions, and there have been millions since ("million" in the mediaeval sense of a lot). The standard modern edition is:

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Clarendon Edition of the Works of John Locke) by John Locke, edited by Peter H. Nidditch Oxford, 1989, Clarendon.

Cheaper and more convenient modern editions include:

Everyman edition, London, 1961

Second hand copies of all editions are generally available via Abebooks, which accesses most serious second-hand bookshops world-wide.

Locke's Essay is is available free on the web of course.

I have downloaded plain copies to our own server so that I can mark them up for our specific purposes. These might be the best things to use for printing off hardcopies - hardcopies of bits I am thinking of - the printing costs of running off the whole thing would be bigger, surely, than buying a second-hand pre-e copy.

The version on our server, which I have messed with, is here.

If you prefer the purity of plain text, the Gutenberg e-text is here.

Scholarly web editions are generally available, for example:

ILT edition of Locke's Essay

Chinese University of Hong Kong online edition of the Essay

Introductions to Locke's thought include:

Mabbot, J. D. John Locke. Macmillan, 1973.

O'Connor, D. J. John Locke. Penguin, 1952.

General introductions available on-line include:

Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy entry

The article on Locke in the Routledge Encyclopaedia of Philosophy is an authoritative outline and has an appropriate bibliography attached. This will take you further in various specialist directions.

There are also:

Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy entry

Good introductory notes on Locke by

Convenient collections of articles taking specific topics deeper are:

Commentaries

Aaron, R. I. John Locke, rev. ed. Oxford University Press, 1955.

Mackie, J. L. Problems from Locke. Oxford University Press, 1976.

Ayers, Michael. Locke (Vol.1: Epistemology; Vol.2: Ontology). Routledge, 1991.

Ways into Locke stuff on the web

Best is probably the outstanding Episteme site.

Roland Hall, distinguished Locke scholar, has a site here.

Locke Bibliography by John C. Attig.

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