Locke & The Significations of Words in Context: What Does the Word Love Mean?

According to John Locke, “the very nature of words makes it almost unavoidable for many of them to be doubtful and uncertain in their significations” (Locke, 817). Locke’s idea then makes communication between people using any particular form of discourse difficult and almost unreliable. If there is a word with more than one meaning how can we know what we are actually saying to a person if the person we are talking to will not receive our meaning with the same intentions we were giving? Locke does not delve specifically into discourse, but focuses on words that have simultaneous meanings, words he calls “mixed modes”. In this blog I will be focusing on one word, which may seem to have a variable amount of meanings to it; this is the word love. I will look at various concepts of love defined by Plato in his dialogue Phaedrus to have a base root for the word as Plato defines. Through these definitions I will prove the point that Locke is right in conveying that words have “mixed modes”, but also I will argue that despite the mixed significations of the word, one usage is superior than the other usage in the context of discourse, which gives the word signification.

Plato defines love as a, “desire… one is the natural desire of pleasure, the other is an acquired opinion which aspires after the best; and these two are sometimes in harmony and then again at war, and sometimes the one, sometimes the other conquers” (Plato), from this we can ascertain that there are two kinds of love in Plato’s definition; one is the natural want for pleasure and the other is self-controlled. Often love is thought and portrayed to be a passion: the want for desire. This passion is, “the irrational desire which overcomes the tendency of opinion towards right, and is led away to the enjoyment of beauty, and especially of personal beauty, by the desires which are her own kindred-that supreme desire, I say, which by leading conquers and by the force of [this] passion is reinforced, from this very force, receiving a name, [which] is called love." (Plato), let me ask you, is this really your sense of love, an excess of desire? It depends on the context that we are speaking in.

For Example:

I love chocolate so much, the taste is something I cannot live without, and if I cannot have chocolate every day I become grumpy and make myself and others have a bad day just in spite of my lack of chocolate intake because I love it so much.

The context here shows that love is really a want and desire, even almost an addiction. There is nothing to be controlled within the person. They make themselves have a bad day because of their lack of chocolate. We can see that the one definition over powers the other definition just by placing the word in its context.

Let us look at the other definition of love as defined by Plato.

For Example:

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish, but may have eternal life” (John 3:16)

Right off the bat within the context of this sentence it is easily seen that this love is theological in the Christian sense. However, it fits Plato’s definition of the self-controlled love rather nicely. This kind of love in the context of the sentence reveals what type of love this is: sacrificial and selfless. This love gives and does not seek pleasure within itself, “when opinion by the help of reason leads us to the best, the conquering principle is called temperance; but when desire, which is devoid of reason, rules in us and drags us to pleasure, that power of misrule is called excess” (Plato). This kind of love is reasonable and does not want to gain in excess or just for mere pleasure. This love is very different from the other love within its context.    

Locke says, “names… that stand for collections of ideas which the mind makes at pleasure must needs be of doubtful signification, when such collections are nowhere to be found in nature” (Locke, 818), this is very true. These words are imperfect within the words themselves and can lead to confusion. However, Locke forgets to show that context in the communication is what gives meaning to the word being used. Without a definition there would there be no understanding of the word, even if men in the constant shifting of language used the word love for a different signification than already known, within the communication through discourse the new context in which the word is being used would be of full understanding to the hearer. There is always a context, even though Locke is right in saying that one word can hold many different meanings (“mixed modes”) and upon learning that word it maybe difficult to understand it, but when placed in context the meaning is thus revealed and gives the word signification.

Works Cited

Holy Bible: NRSV. Harper Collins P. 2007. Print.

 Locke, John. “From An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.” The Rhetorical             Tradition: Readings from Classical Times to the Present, Second Edition. Ed.             Patricia Bizzel and Bruce Herzberg. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2001. 814-            827.

Plato. Phaedrus. Trans. Benjamin Jowett. The Internet Classics Archive. 2009.             http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/phaedrus.html