Editing John Locke (section)

=== The human mind ===
====The self====
Locke defines ''the self'' as "that conscious thinking thing, (whatever substance, made up of whether spiritual, or material, simple, or compounded, it matters not) which is sensible, or conscious of pleasure and pain, capable of happiness or misery, and so is concerned for itself, as far as that consciousness extends".{{Sfn | Locke | 1997b | p = 307}} He does not wholly ignore "substance", writing that "the body too goes to the making the man".{{Sfn | Locke | 1997b | p = 306}} In his ''Essay'', Locke explains the gradual unfolding of this conscious mind. Arguing against both the [[Augustine of Hippo|Augustinian]] view of man as [[original sin|originally sinful]] and the [[René Descartes|Cartesian]] position, which holds that man innately knows basic logical propositions, Locke posits an 'empty mind', a ''[[tabula rasa]]'', which is shaped by experience, [[Wikt:sensation|sensations]] and [[human self-reflection|reflections]] being the two sources of all our [[idea]]s.<ref>{{Citation |title=The American International Encyclopedia |publisher=JJ Little Co |place=New York |year=1954 |volume=9}}.</ref> He states in ''An Essay Concerning Human Understanding'':

<blockquote>This source of ideas every man has wholly within himself; and though it be not sense, as having nothing to do with external objects, yet it is very like it, and might properly enough be called 'internal sense.'<ref>{{Cite book|last=Angus|first=Joseph|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZDYCAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA324|title=The Handbook of Specimens of English Literature|publisher=[[William Clowes Ltd.|William Clowes and Sons]]|year=1880|location=London|page=324|language=en|author-link=Joseph Angus}}</ref></blockquote>

Locke's ''[[Some Thoughts Concerning Education]]'' is an outline on how to educate this mind. Drawing on thoughts expressed in letters written to [[Mary Clarke (letter writer)|Mary Clarke]] and her husband about their son,<ref name="MaryC">{{Cite ODNB|id=66720|title=Clarke [née Jepp], Mary}}</ref> he expresses the belief that education makes the man{{mdash}}or, more fundamentally, that the mind is an "empty cabinet":{{Sfn|Locke|1996|p=10}}

<blockquote>I think I may say that of all the men we meet with, nine parts of ten are what they are, good or evil, useful or not, by their education.</blockquote>

Locke also wrote that "the little and almost insensible impressions on our tender infancies have very important and lasting consequences".{{Sfn | Locke | 1996 | p = 10}} He argues that the "[[Association of Ideas|associations of ideas]]" that one makes when young are more important than those made later because they are the foundation of the ''self''; they are, put differently, what first mark the ''tabula rasa''. In his ''Essay'', in which both these concepts are introduced, Locke warns, for example, against letting "a foolish maid" convince a child that "goblins and sprites" are associated with the night, for "darkness shall ever afterwards bring with it those frightful ideas, and they shall be so joined, that he can no more bear the one than the other".{{Sfn | Locke | 1997b | p = 357}}

This theory came to be called ''[[associationism]]'', going on to strongly influence 18th-century thought, particularly [[education theory|educational theory]], as nearly every educational writer warned parents not to allow their children to develop negative associations. It also led to the development of [[psychology]] and other new disciplines with [[David Hartley (philosopher)|David Hartley]]'s attempt to discover a biological mechanism for associationism in his ''[[Observations on Man]]'' (1749).

====Dream argument====
Locke was critical of Descartes's version of the [[dream argument]], with Locke making the counter-argument that people cannot have physical pain in dreams as they do in waking life.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.iep.utm.edu/dreaming/#SH1b |title=Dreaming, Philosophy of – Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy |work=utm.edu |access-date=23 December 2016 |archive-date=31 January 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220131103348/https://iep.utm.edu/dreaming/#SH1b |url-status=live }}</ref>