7 - Locke and Nietzsche
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 November 2009
Summary
This Enlightenment [Aufklärung] we must now carry further forward, – unconcerned with the ‘great revolution’ and the ‘great reaction’ against it which have taken place, indeed, which still exist: they are no more than ripples in comparison with the truly great tide in which we drift, in which we want to drift!
Nietzsche, MorgenröteThe point of the previous chapter is not that Book III of the Essay does not implicitly describe some terms and linguistic usages as tropes, but that de Man misrepresents this description; Locke's implicit understanding of specific usages and terms as tropes is more accurately explained by Leibniz. As was observed in chapter 5, Leibniz' spokesman in New Essays on Human Understanding, Theophile, straight-forwardly identifies Locke's account of the sensible origins of abstract terms as a history of tropological usage. Theophile similarly comments on Locke's observations concerning the use of one term to mean different sets of ideas:
this abuse being so common not only amongst the schoolmen [savans] but also in high society, I think it is committed more out of bad custom and inadvertence than malice. Ordinarily, the different meanings [significations] of the same word have some affinity; this allows one to pass for the other, and we do not take the time to consider what we say as carefully as might be wished. We are accustomed to tropes and figures, and some elegance or false brilliance easily imposes upon us. (341)
This is only a version of Theophile's earlier claim in connection with the application of a name to undetermined and variable ideas:
The affectation of elegance and bons mots has also contributed a lot to this problem with language.[…]
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- Information
- Locke, Literary Criticism, and Philosophy , pp. 156 - 186Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1994