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An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Clarendon Edition of the Works of John Locke)

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The Nidditch edition of Locke's Essay is commonly considered the authoritative version of the text. This in mind, the Nidditch text is to be avoided for the beginner to Locke. This is not due to any oversights or editorial intrusion that corrupts the work. Considering Nidditch restored the text and avoided the common editorial tendency to use paragraph introductions for each section (which Locke did not), atop of not having to contend with translation liberties, it stands as the only scholarly edition of the work. However, because it is restored to its original state, one must remember that capitalization for any and all (deemed) pertinent terms or phrases was a common practice during Locke's time. As such, readers in the 21st century typically associate a capitalized letter (unless it is a proper name or title) with a new sentence, thus a new thought. Having to continuously reorganize one's thoughts to conform to Locke's now archaic prose style (which occurs anywhere from one to six or more times in a typical sentence) distracts from the overall content of the work. As such, the reader may be well advised to obtain another critical edition of the work and use the Nidditch text as a reference tool.

The most important book in the History of Western Philosophy. Anyone wishing to understand the western tradition will have to grapple with this work eventually.

Its not that Locke got everything right, but he does at least point us in the right direction.