Locke Likes Binaries.

I was intrigued by Locke's division of communication into civil and philosophical (817). I just thought them to be rather odd choices. Why not divide communication into common and elegant. Or spoken and literary. Or communal and universal. The more I thought about other ways to divide communication and the further I read into the article, I began to realize that those other binary options are exactly was Locke was pointing at. Ironically, it all hit me right at about "obscurity in ancient authors" (820). Locke isn't ancient, but he was writing a couple hundred years ago and language has certainly changed a bit since then. The words he chose for his binary most likely made more sense then than now. Only through the explanations of the "simple ideas" did I understand (823).

After working through that binary, I noticed another. He seemed to have divided all words into two (three-ish) categories. He called these "mixed modes" and "substances" (818, 820). Once again, the ideas he was referring to didn't fully formulate in my mind until he explained further and offered examples. I came to understand these categories more to mean concrete and abstract. Or tangible and intangible. Now, he almost sets up a third category, but I see it more as Locke dissecting the building blocks of words/ideas. I'm referring to his short blurbs on "simple ideas" and "simple modes" (823). At first, I thought this to be a third kind of word, but I came more to understand it as the words and ideas within other words. In their simplicity lies their strength which is why Locke calls them "the least doubtful" (823).

Personally, I hate binaries. I feel like they are crutches created to help categorize the world (and language). Locke seems like a writer who has a deep understanding of communication. I would like to think that he only used these flaw-infested binaries as a teaching mechanism, and not that he actually believes these things to be this easy to divide.