An Essay Concerning Human Understanding Book II: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding Book II, credited to John Locke, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding Book II by John Locke. Read in English by Pamela Nagami; franklinvios; Brian C. Rideout; garybclayton; Patrick Munoz; enz2103; Joseph; Craig Campbell; Larry Wilson; ChadH94; realisticspeakers; Kathleen Nelson; Leon; Mayah; Ryan Bassette John Locke wrote four essays on human (or humane) understanding. Here are a few quotes from the book: "I see no reason to believe, that the soul thinks before the senses have furnished it with ideas to think on. The dreams of sleeping men are, as I take it, all made up of the waking man's ideas, though for the most part oddly put together. Can the soul think, and not the man, or a man think, and not be conscious of it? Suppose the soul of Castor separated, during his sleep, from his body, to think apart. Let us suppose too, that it chooses for its scene of thinking the body of another man, v. g. Pollux, who is sleeping without a soul. Nobody can imagine that his soul can think, or move a body at Oxford, whilst he is at London. The question is, whether if the same substance which thinks, be changed, it can be the same person; or, remaining the same, it can be different persons? Whiteness and coldness are no more in snow than pain is." John Locke wrote four essays on human (or humane) understanding. The first and second have been recorded into LibriVox. This recording is a repetition of the second of Locke's Essays. All of his essays were, and are, very influential. Edward Stillingfleet 1635-1699 (Bishop of Worcester) wrote a Critique of Locke’s ideas and many letters to him. Locke’s Essays inspired Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716) to write his New Essays Concerning Human Understanding and Victor Cousin analyzed all four books in his 1834 Elements of Psychology. - Summary by Craig Campbell

Recording facts

• Recording title: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding Book II
• Author credits: John Locke
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 32
• Listed recording duration: 14:39:36

Catalogue topics

• philosophy
• religion
• psychology
• thinking
• ideas
• perception

Opening tracks: first 24 of 32

1. 01 - Chapter 1 Of Ideas in general, and their Original — 40:00
2. 02 - Chapters 2-7 Of Simple Ideas, Of Ideas of one Sense, Of Solidity, Of Simple Ideas of diverse Senses, Of Simple Ideas of Reflection, Of Simple Ideas of both Sensation and Reflection — 32:58
3. 03 - Chapter 8 Some farther Considerations concerning our Simple Ideas — 27:16
4. 04 - Chapter 9 Of Perception — 15:33
5. 05 - Chapter 10 Of Retention — 14:32
6. 06 - Chapter 11 Of Discerning, and other Operations of the Mind — 18:11
7. 07 - Chapter 12 Of Complex Ideas — 8:39
8. 08 - Chapter 13 Of Simple Modes, and first of the Simple Modes of Space — 34:05
9. 09 - Chapter 14 Of Duration, and its simple Modes — 35:50
10. 10 - Chapter 15 Of Duration and Expansion, considered together — 32:54
11. 11 - Chapter16 Of Number — 11:22
12. 12 - Chapter 17 Of Infinity — 44:25
13. 13 - Chapters 18-19 Of Other Simple Modes, Of the Modes of Thinking — 13:38
14. 14 - Chapter 20 Of Modes of Pleasure and Pain — 13:10
15. 15 - Chapter 21 Of Power Part 1 — 28:21
16. 16 - Chapter 21 Of Power Part 2 — 46:07
17. 17 - Chapter 21 Of Power Part 3 — 45:50
18. 18 - Chapter 21 Of Power Part 4 — 32:03
19. 19 - Chapter 22-Of Mixed Modes — 18:58
20. 20 - Chapter 23 Of our complex Ideas of Substances Part 1 — 27:05
21. 21 - Chapter 23 Of our complex Ideas of Substances Part 2 — 41:34
22. 22 - Chapters 24-26 Of Collective Ideas of Substances, Of Relation, Of Cause and Effect and other Relations — 33:37
23. 23 - Chapter 27 Of Identity and Diversity Part 1 — 33:09
24. 24 - Chapter 27 Of Identity and Diversity Part 2 — 19:02

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This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.