Named source · 1690

An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I Quotes by John Locke: Context & Meanings

1 quotation linked to An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I by or associated with John Locke, with source notes, explanations and related topics.

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John Locke’s 1690 inquiry into the origin, extent and limits of human knowledge

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Knowledge, belief, intellectual limits, judgment, inquiry, certainty, education and responsible use of the understanding.

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“Our business here is not to know all things, but those which concern our conduct.”

John Locke

Meaning & context

Locke places useful limits around intellectual ambition: human inquiry need not comprehend everything in order to guide life well, and knowing where understanding stops is part of using it responsibly.

Source details

An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Book I, Chapter I, section 6, Project Gutenberg #10615. Locke follows his sounding-line analogy by saying that our business is not to know all things but those concerning conduct. The passage belongs to seventeenth-century epistemology and moral reflection, not a modern cognitive-science finding.

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John Locke’s 1690 inquiry into the origin, extent and limits of human knowledge

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