Abstract
This chapter examines John Locke’s conceptions of the soul, the understanding and the self in order to shed light on his preoccupation with his own mental and bodily wellbeing. A practitioner of both philosophy and physic, Locke provides a fascinating case study of early modern self-diagnosis. His rich and innovative account of the self, with its focus on the moral self, the conscience and having a property in one’s own person, provide the backdrop from which we can understand his concerns and prescriptions for the health of the body and the mind.
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Notes
- 1.
For Locke’s self-diagnosis and treatment for his tertian ague in his journal, see Dewhurst 1963, 80–82.
- 2.
For further discussion, see Anstey 2015, 221–225.
- 3.
For a thorough treatment, see Stuart 2013, chaps 9 and 10.
- 4.
See Anstey 2015, 229–234.
- 5.
See, for example, Second Reply to the Bishop of Worcester, Locke Works, 4: 301–334.
- 6.
See Weinberg 2016, 147 n. 7.
- 7.
The best survey and analysis is in Thiel 2011, Parts II and III.
- 8.
For further discussion, see Coventry and Kriegel 2008.
- 9.
- 10.
As Locke himself pointed out. See E II. xxvii. 20.
- 11.
Reid 2002, 276.
- 12.
See Mattern 1980.
- 13.
Locke never revised his notion of what it is to have a property in one’s person in the light of his concept of person introduced in the second edition of the Essay. Nor does he seem to have made any attempt to incorporate his concept of property into the Essay. See Shimokawa 2006, 180.
- 14.
Actually, in the first four editions of the Essay Locke had written ‘rational Creatures’. The fact that he changed this to ‘rational Beings’ in the fifth (posthumous) edition is most likely an attempt to conform this passage more closely to the chapter on personal identity, E II. xxvii.
- 15.
- 16.
See Anstey 2013a, 321–325.
- 17.
Locke uses the term ‘real knowledge’ in a more constrained and technical sense in E IV. iv.
- 18.
See Yeo 2009.
- 19.
I should like to thank Sorana Corneanu, Gideon Manning, Kiyoshi Shimokawa and the participants at the ‘Testimonies: States of Mind and States of the Body in the Early Modern Period’ at Caltech in May 2014 for comments on an earlier version of this paper.
Abbreviations
- Corr. :
-
Locke, John. The Correspondence of John Locke, 8 vols, ed. Esmond S. de Beer. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976–1989.
- E :
-
Locke, John. An Essay concerning Human Understanding, ed. Peter H. Nidditch. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975.
- Locke Works :
-
Locke, John. The Works of John Locke, 10 vols. London: Tegg, 1823.
- STCE :
-
Locke, John. Some Thoughts Concerning Education, eds John W. Yolton and Jean S. Yolton. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989.
Bibliography
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Anstey, P.R. (2020). Lockean Self-Diagnosis. In: Manning, G. (eds) Testimonies: States of Mind and States of the Body in the Early Modern Period. Archimedes, vol 57. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39375-5_8
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