From the library
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
John Locke, 1689
In one paragraph
Locke's influential work on the nature of human knowledge and understanding that laid the foundation for empiricism.
Also tagged
Where this sits in the operating system
Mental Models & Decision Frameworks
Mental Models & Decision Frameworks
Key insights
No innate ideas: everything you know arrived through experience, which makes the quality of your inputs the ceiling on your judgement.
The distinction between what a thing is and how it appears to you underlies every later argument about mental models.
Locke's account of personal identity as continuity of memory is still the live question, now asked of institutions as well as people.
Recognise it early
The failure and the correction sit side by side deliberately. Read the left column asking whether any of it is already true of you.
Relying on theory without experience
Dismissing resistance to new ideas
Information without reflection
Assuming people learn through telling
Ignoring organizational "sensory" information
The same idea, argued differently
Adam Smith
Shane Parrish
The full breakdown
Before you close this
Naming the specific moment you will act roughly doubles the odds you do.
Reference
- Author
- John Locke
- Published
- 1689
- Category
- Philosophy
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