Key Ideas
1. The understanding has limits
Inquiry should first determine what human cognitive powers can and cannot reach.
2. Ideas are not innately inscribed
Universal capacities do not amount to consciously possessed principles from birth.
3. Experience supplies the materials of thought
Sensation and reflection are the two sources from which ideas arise.
4. Simple ideas are received
The mind cannot invent basic experiential contents without the relevant source.
5. The mind actively forms complex ideas
Combining, comparing and abstracting transform simple ideas into richer concepts.
6. Primary and secondary qualities differ
Some ideas are intended to resemble bodily structure; others express powers to affect perceivers.
7. Substance remains imperfectly understood
Qualities are attributed to an underlying support whose inner nature is obscure.
8. Liberty belongs to agents
Freedom concerns a person’s power to act or refrain according to choice.
9. Uneasiness motivates action
Present dissatisfaction frequently determines attention and willing.
10. Personal identity follows consciousness
A person extends across the actions and experiences appropriated through consciousness.
11. Generality is made through abstraction
The mind omits particular differences so one idea and word can apply to many things.
12. Words signify ideas
Communication depends upon public signs associated with private thought.
13. Nominal essences organise kinds
Names classify objects through abstract ideas based on observable characteristics.
14. Real essences may remain unknown
The internal constitutions producing a substance’s qualities often exceed observation.
15. Verbal confusion imitates knowledge
Unclear, unstable or empty terms can sustain disputes without settled content.
16. Knowledge perceives relations among ideas
Identity, relation, coexistence and existence are the principal forms of agreement examined.
17. Knowledge has three degrees
Intuitive, demonstrative and sensitive knowledge provide different kinds of assurance.
18. Certainty is narrower than useful belief
Human life and inquiry often proceed through probability rather than demonstration.
19. Assent should match evidence
Experience, testimony and competing reasons justify different degrees of confidence.
20. Revelation cannot make contradictions true
Reason remains necessary for identifying and interpreting claims of divine communication.
21. Enthusiasm is not evidence
Strong inward conviction cannot authenticate itself without independent grounds.
22. Intellectual humility is a discipline
Clear ideas, stable language and proportioned belief protect inquiry from dogmatism.