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Full Idea
'Tis necessary for me to be as I am; God and Nature has made me so: but there is nothing I have is essential to me.
Gist of Idea
Nothing about me is essential
Source
John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 3.06.04)
Book Ref
Locke,John: 'Essay Concerning Human Understanding', ed/tr. Nidditch,P.H. [OUP 1979], p.440
A Reaction
This is the aspect of Locke's critique of essentialism which Leibniz particularly disliked. Locke's view still has plenty of defenders, but I take it to be wrong, and Pinker seems to suggest that empirical research is beginning to agree with me.
| 180 | We call a person the same throughout life, but all their attributes change [Plato] |
| 181 | Only the gods stay unchanged; we replace our losses with similar acquisitions [Plato] |
| 12809 | Nothing about me is essential [Locke] |
| 24139 | A 'person' is just one possible abstraction from a bundle of qualities [Nietzsche] |
| 15803 | Bad theories of the self see it as abstract, or as a bundle, or as a process [Chisholm] |
| 21843 | People consist of many undetermined lines, some rigid, some supple, some 'lines of flight' [Deleuze] |