John Locke, an English philosopher in the 17th century offers an in-depth study on the essence of things in his book An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. In his book, he recommends that there are two meanings of word “essence”: nominal essences and real essences.
Simply speaking, everyone has his or her particular characteristics - short or tall, black or white skin. But they also have some things in common, like two arms, two legs, a head, no tail, etc. These properties can be collected together to define the term “human”. On the one hand, John Locke (1959) writes referring to animals and things propagated by seed that “the sorting of them under names is the workmanship of understanding, taking occasion from the similitude it observes …show more content…
However, from the previous paragraphs, people do not have the abilities to attain the real essence of a substance, so how do people experience essence? Meanwhile, it is not necessary to believe in the existence of something that we cannot have the knowledge of. Hence, as the statement “Locke argues that things do not have essence” from this assignment, the answer of this question is quite clear: there is no essence of things. But when John Locke’s writes “as to the real essences of substances, we only suppose their being” (Locke, J., 1959), he assumes that real essence might exist and “cannot be the essences of the species we rank things into” (Locke, J., 1959). This means that although real essence is not the source of general ideas in people’s minds and is impossible to understand, it is supposed to exist. What’s more, John Locke thinks the real essences of individual substances can have their sorts and “are constantly found to coexist with the nominal essence” (Locke, J., 1959). The properties which belong to one sort can not only be collected together into one kind by nominal essence but also real essence. Though John Locke states that “internal constitution… is unknown to us” (Locke, J., 1959) and people “in vain pretend to range things into sorts” (Locke, J., 1959), he does not deny that there is no real essence inside substances. In other words, John Locke does not certainly argue that things do not have essences, which include nominal essences and real essences. Hence, from my perspective, the title “Locke argues that things do not have essence” of this assignment is considered a false
Simply speaking, everyone has his or her particular characteristics - short or tall, black or white skin. But they also have some things in common, like two arms, two legs, a head, no tail, etc. These properties can be collected together to define the term “human”. On the one hand, John Locke (1959) writes referring to animals and things propagated by seed that “the sorting of them under names is the workmanship of understanding, taking occasion from the similitude it observes …show more content…
However, from the previous paragraphs, people do not have the abilities to attain the real essence of a substance, so how do people experience essence? Meanwhile, it is not necessary to believe in the existence of something that we cannot have the knowledge of. Hence, as the statement “Locke argues that things do not have essence” from this assignment, the answer of this question is quite clear: there is no essence of things. But when John Locke’s writes “as to the real essences of substances, we only suppose their being” (Locke, J., 1959), he assumes that real essence might exist and “cannot be the essences of the species we rank things into” (Locke, J., 1959). This means that although real essence is not the source of general ideas in people’s minds and is impossible to understand, it is supposed to exist. What’s more, John Locke thinks the real essences of individual substances can have their sorts and “are constantly found to coexist with the nominal essence” (Locke, J., 1959). The properties which belong to one sort can not only be collected together into one kind by nominal essence but also real essence. Though John Locke states that “internal constitution… is unknown to us” (Locke, J., 1959) and people “in vain pretend to range things into sorts” (Locke, J., 1959), he does not deny that there is no real essence inside substances. In other words, John Locke does not certainly argue that things do not have essences, which include nominal essences and real essences. Hence, from my perspective, the title “Locke argues that things do not have essence” of this assignment is considered a false