{
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    "id": "locke.essay_human_understanding",
    "canonical_url": "https://prokopton42.com/en/works/john-locke/essay-human-understanding/reference-b4-c3-s14/",
    "language": "en",
    "title": "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding",
    "author": "John Locke",
    "date": "1689-1700; revised lifetime editions",
    "summary": "The Essay examines the origin and composition of ideas, personal identity, and the limits of knowledge.",
    "learning": "Take a disputed term, trace the ideas composing it, then separate what experience warrants as knowledge from what remains probable judgment.",
    "long_summary": "This edition joins three English Gutenberg transcriptions to Pierre Coste’s historical French translation. Canonical identity follows book, chapter and section. Sections missing from one manifestation remain monolingual and are never attached to a neighbor.\n\nThe reading distinguishes sensation and reflection, simple and complex ideas, qualities, identity, knowledge and probability. The 1975 editorial PDF remains a doxographer witness outside dialogue.",
    "historical_context": "The corpus manifests do not yet establish the precise place and circumstances of composition. The images below document the author’s world or the text’s transmission. They do not claim to show the exact scene of writing.",
    "material_world_label": "World of 1989",
    "material_world": {
        "technology": "Personal computers, satellites, video, industrial robots, and expensive mobile phones exist, but the public Web does not yet.",
        "science": "Computing, genetics, climate science, cosmology, and medical imaging produce growing data and international collaboration.",
        "medicine": "CT, MRI, transplantation, vaccines, and intensive care advance; the AIDS epidemic exposes both medical capacity and its limits.",
        "transport": "Cars, high-speed rail, metros, aircraft, and containers globalize people and goods.",
        "agriculture": "Machinery, chemical inputs, breeding, and cold chains support high yields with increasingly debated social and environmental costs.",
        "communication": "Fixed telephones, fax, television, radio, and newspapers predominate. Email and computer networks remain mainly professional or academic.",
        "clothing": "Loose suits, jeans, trainers, women’s power suits, sportswear, and urban subcultures create highly varied silhouettes."
    },
    "material_world_scenes": [
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/30-1989-ce/world-01.webp",
            "title": "Technology, science, and care",
            "description": "Personal computers, satellites, video, industrial robots, and expensive mobile phones exist, but the public Web does not yet. Computing, genetics, climate science, cosmology, and medical imaging produce growing data and international collaboration. CT, MRI, transplantation, vaccines, and intensive care advance; the AIDS epidemic exposes both medical capacity and its limits."
        },
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/30-1989-ce/world-02.webp",
            "title": "Travel and communication",
            "description": "Cars, high-speed rail, metros, aircraft, and containers globalize people and goods. Fixed telephones, fax, television, radio, and newspapers predominate. Email and computer networks remain mainly professional or academic."
        },
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/30-1989-ce/world-03.webp",
            "title": "Farming and food",
            "description": "Machinery, chemical inputs, breeding, and cold chains support high yields with increasingly debated social and environmental costs."
        },
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/30-1989-ce/world-04.webp",
            "title": "Clothing, women and men",
            "description": "Loose suits, jeans, trainers, women’s power suits, sportswear, and urban subcultures create highly varied silhouettes."
        }
    ],
    "intellectual_tradition": {
        "id": "modern-philosophy",
        "label": "Modern and contemporary philosophy"
    },
    "period": {
        "id": "modern",
        "label": "Modern era"
    },
    "languages": [
        "en",
        "fr"
    ],
    "manifestations": [
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            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/john_locke/essay_human_understanding/representations/en.ndjson",
            "language": "en",
            "records": 1079,
            "role": "source_language_transcription",
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            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/john_locke/essay_human_understanding/representations/fr.ndjson",
            "language": "fr",
            "records": 1093,
            "role": "historical_translation",
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            "coverage": "fills_missing_source_attested_coverage",
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/john_locke/essay_human_understanding/representations/ai-generated/en-gpt-5-6-sol-corpus-passage-translation-v1.ndjson",
            "generated_on": "2026-09-30",
            "language": "en",
            "model": "gpt-5.6-sol",
            "official_status": "non_official",
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            "role": "ai_generated_translation_non_official",
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            "translation_type": "ai_generated_translation"
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        {
            "coverage": "fills_missing_source_attested_coverage",
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/john_locke/essay_human_understanding/representations/ai-generated/fr-gpt-5-6-sol-corpus-passage-translation-v1.ndjson",
            "generated_on": "2026-09-30",
            "language": "fr",
            "model": "gpt-5.6-sol",
            "official_status": "non_official",
            "prompt_version": "corpus-passage-translation-v1",
            "provider": "codex_subscription",
            "records": 21,
            "role": "ai_generated_translation_non_official",
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            "source_id": "prokopton42-codex-translation:gpt-5.6-sol:corpus-passage-translation-v1",
            "translation_type": "ai_generated_translation"
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    ],
    "concepts": [
        {
            "id": "constitutional_government",
            "label": "Constitutional government"
        },
        {
            "id": "degrees_of_knowledge_and_probability",
            "label": "Degrees of knowledge and probability"
        },
        {
            "id": "family",
            "label": "Family"
        },
        {
            "id": "forms",
            "label": "Intelligible forms"
        },
        {
            "id": "ideas_from_sensation_and_reflection",
            "label": "Ideas from sensation and reflection"
        },
        {
            "id": "impressions_and_assent",
            "label": "Impressions and assent"
        },
        {
            "id": "knowledge",
            "label": "Knowledge"
        },
        {
            "id": "law",
            "label": "Law"
        },
        {
            "id": "messiah",
            "label": "Messiah"
        },
        {
            "id": "necessity",
            "label": "Necessity"
        },
        {
            "id": "nominal_and_real_essence",
            "label": "Nominal and real essence"
        },
        {
            "id": "personal_identity_and_consciousness",
            "label": "Personal identity and consciousness"
        },
        {
            "id": "primary_and_secondary_qualities",
            "label": "Primary and secondary qualities"
        },
        {
            "id": "probable_judgment",
            "label": "Probable judgment"
        },
        {
            "id": "psychological_complex",
            "label": "Psychological complex"
        },
        {
            "id": "reason",
            "label": "Reason"
        },
        {
            "id": "simple_and_complex_ideas",
            "label": "Simple and complex ideas"
        },
        {
            "id": "sin",
            "label": "Sin"
        },
        {
            "id": "substance",
            "label": "Substance"
        },
        {
            "id": "truth",
            "label": "Truth"
        },
        {
            "id": "virtue",
            "label": "Virtue"
        }
    ],
    "source_work_ids": [
        "locke.essay_human_understanding"
    ],
    "passages": 1114,
    "word_count": 257071,
    "word_counts_by_language": {
        "en": 257071,
        "fr": 297020
    },
    "editorial_status": "gpt_5_6_semantic_draft_v1",
    "structure": {
        "citation_scheme": "locke-essay-book-chapter-section-v1",
        "kind": "native",
        "levels": [
            {
                "key": "book",
                "label_fr": "Livre",
                "label_en": "Book"
            },
            {
                "key": "chapter",
                "label_fr": "Chapitre",
                "label_en": "Chapter"
            },
            {
                "key": "section",
                "label_fr": "Section",
                "label_en": "Section"
            }
        ],
        "leaf_fr": "Section",
        "leaf_en": "Section"
    },
    "canonical_passage_id": "passage:locke.essay_human_understanding:B4.C3.S14",
    "canonical_ref": "B4.C3.S14",
    "canonical_parent_ref": null,
    "canonical_parent_id": null,
    "representations": [
        {
            "language": "en",
            "text": "In vain, therefore, shall we endeavour to discover by our ideas (the only true way of certain and universal knowledge) what other ideas are to be found constantly joined with that of OUR complex idea of any substance: since we neither know the real constitution of the minute parts on which their qualities do depend; nor, did we know them, could we discover any necessary connexion between them and any of the secondary qualities: which is necessary to be done before we can certainly know their necessary co-existence. So, that, let our complex idea of any species of substances be what it will, we can hardly, from the simple ideas contained in it, certainly determine the necessary co-existence of any other quality whatsoever. Our knowledge in all these inquiries reaches very little further than our experience. Indeed some few of the primary qualities have a necessary dependence and visible connexion one with another, as figure necessarily supposes extension; receiving or communicating motion by impulse, supposes solidity. But though these, and perhaps some others of our ideas have: yet there are so few of them that have a visible connexion one with another, that we can by intuition or demonstration discover the co-existence of very few of the qualities that are to be found united in substances: and we are left only to the assistance of our senses to make known to us what qualities they contain. For of all the qualities that are co-existent in any subject, without this dependence and evident connexion of their ideas one with another, we cannot know certainly any two to co-exist, any further than experience, by our senses, informs us. Thus, though we see the yellow colour, and, upon trial, find the weight, malleableness, fusibility, and fixedness that are united in a piece of gold; yet, because no one of these ideas has any evident dependence or necessary connexion with the other, we cannot certainly know that where any four of these are, the fifth will be there also, how highly probable soever it may be; because the highest probability amounts not to certainty, without which there can be no true knowledge. For this co-existence can be no further known than it is perceived; and it cannot be perceived but either in particular subjects, by the observation of our senses, or, in general, by the necessary connexion of the ideas themselves.",
            "edition": "Project Gutenberg transcription of Locke author text",
            "source_id": "gutenberg-10616",
            "translation_type": "source_language_transcription"
        },
        {
            "language": "fr",
            "text": "Ainſi quoi que ce ſoit uniquement par le ſecours de nos Idées que nous pouvons parvenir à une connoiſſance certaine & générale, c’eſt en vain que nous tâcherions de découvrir par leur moyen quelles ſont les autres idées qu’on peut trouver conſtamment jointes avec celles qui conſtituent notre Idée complexe de quelque ſubſtance que ce ſoit ; puiſque nous ne connoiſſons point la conſtitution réelle des petites particules d’où dépendent leurs ſecondes Qualitez, & que, ſi elle nous étoit connuë, nous ne ſaurions découvrir aucune liaison néceſſaire entre telle ou telle conſtitution des Corps & aucune de leurs ſecondes Qualitez, ce qu’il faudroit faire néceſſairement avant que de pouvoir connoître leur coëxiſtence néceſſaire. Et par conſéquent, quelle que ſoit notre idée complexe d’aucune eſpèce de Subſtances, à peine pouvons-nous déterminer certainement, en vertu des Idées ſimples qui y ſont renfermées, la coëxiſtence néceſſaire de quelque autre Qualité que ce ſoit. Dans toutes ces recherches notre Connoiſſance ne s’étend guere au delà de notre expérience. A la vérité, quelque peu de prémiéres Qualitez ont une dépendance néceſſaire à une viſible liaiſon entr’elles ; ainſi la figure ſuppoſe néceſſairement l’étenduë ; & la reception ou la communication du mouvement par voye d’impulſion ſuppoſe la ſolidité : Mais quoi qu’il y ait une telle dépendance entre ces idées, & peut-être entre quelques autres, il y en a pourtant ſi peu qui ayent une connexion viſible, que nous ne ſaurions découvrir par intuition ou par démonſtration que la coëxiſtence de fort peu de Qualitez qui ſe trouvent unies dans les Subſtances ; de ſorte que pour connoître quelles Qualitez ſont renfermées dans les Subſtances, il ne nous reſte que le ſimple ſecours des Sens. Car de toutes les Qualitez qui coëxiſte dans un ſujet ſans cette dépendance & cette évidente connexion de leurs idées, on n’en ſauroit remarquer deux dont on puiſſe connoître certainement qu’elles coëxiſtent, qu’entant que l’Expérience nous en aſſûre par le moyen de nos Sens. Ainſi, quoi que nous voyions la couleur jaune, & que nous trouvions, par expérience, la peſanteur, la malléabilité, la fuſibilité & la fixité, unies dans une pièce d’or ; cependant parce que nulle de ces Idées n’a aucune dépendance viſible, ou aucune liaiſon néceſſaire avec l’autre, nous ne ſaurions connoître certainement que là où ſe trouvent quatre de ces Idées, la cinquiéme y doive être auſſi, quelque probable qu’il ſoit qu’elle y eſt effectivement ; parce que la plus grande probabilité n’emporte jamais certitude, ſans laquelle il ne peut y avoir aucune véritable Connoiſſance. Car la connoiſſance de cette coëxiſtence ne peut s’étendre au delà de la perception qu’on en a, & dans les ſujets particuliers on ne peut appercevoir cette coëxiſtence que par le moyen des Sens, ou en général que par la connexion néceſſaire des Idées mêmes.",
            "translator": "Pierre Coste",
            "edition": "Pierre Mortier, Amsterdam, 1735, third edition",
            "source_id": "wikisource-rev-14176343",
            "translation_type": "historical_translation"
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}