Abstract

Considering the argument that words are signs of the speaker’s ideas, Locke seems to assign meaning to an individual origin. However, at the beginning of Book III of the Essay Concerning Human Understanding, he defines language as the common tie of society: far from constituting a simple introductory formula, this definition is illustrated and confirmed throughout the book. Language is a common link because it fixes not only ideas but also the relationships between ideas in a way which determines the minds of men and organizes their representations. Rather than seeing Locke as a thinker of interiority, for whom language is only exteriorization by the sign of thoughts which without words would remain locked in the mind of Man, we must consider the role of practices and uses in the constitution of the relationship between ideas. Locke criticizes the imperfection of the words, but, following on from Arnauld and Nicole, he strives to think of the links between logic and civil life.