John Locke on the Abuses of Words & Their Remedies

The paper consists in an analytical examination of a well-known section of John Locke’s philosophical classic An Essay concerning Human Understanding. As the selection itself of the section under examination suggests, the paper attempts to preserve the gains drawn from the search for guidance from philosophical readings that have been already well sanctioned beyond their narrow contexts in the light of the recent advances of the historicization of the study of authors of this kind and of the consequential restrictions of present-day academic horizons as a result of the greater pressures in the obtainment of specialized knowledge. This being so, the paper aims to take into consideration the recent advances in the historicization of Locke in the form of the latter providing a more proper framing for the section under main discussion that may allow us to maintain an extent of persisting relevance for a more satisfying resolution of present-day problems in the academic study, such as those that are nowadays examined through the lens of the variants of conceptual history and the history of ideas. In these respects, the paper also ends up suggesting that John Dunn’s apparent practical adoption of Locke’s advice under examination could allow for a chance of seeing such gains in practice.