Scholars Discover Original Locke Manuscript in Greenfield Library

Re:Scholars Discover Original Locke Manuscript in Greenfield... by abeppu on Tuesday August 20, 2019 @05:49PM (#20752575)

I see this kind of story occasionally, and have to wonder what it means to "discover" something in this sense. Clearly there's some level at which informed people are surprised by a finding, so awareness of this manuscript is new. On the other hand, he basically saw a reference in a book catalogue from the 1920s, so there's some broader definition of "we" and "knew" which includes written records in which we already knew of its existence.

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Re:Scholars Discover Original Locke Manuscript in Greenfield... by meejaboy on Tuesday August 27, 2019 @04:45AM (#20807464)

Here is an answer to your question:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/i-discovered-new-john-locke-m...

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Re:Scholars Discover Original Locke Manuscript in Greenfield... by lbeziaud on Tuesday August 20, 2019 @06:16PM (#20752762)

The same could be said about archaeologists discovering a lost city, since it wasn't always "lost" and was certainly discovered many times before. I guess the timescale gives the impression of a "fake discovery".

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Re:Scholars Discover Original Locke Manuscript in Greenfield... by numismatex on Wednesday August 21, 2019 @11:23AM (#20758087)

Yeah, but we're talking a new work by a prolific author with more than 8,000 articles of writing known. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding and reading about the empiricists (berkeley, hume, locke) shook my world as a teenager. The works and letters of his contemporary philosophers and brilliant people made me a better person, giving things a great deal more of critical thinking. I love how in some of this he's saying that if tolerating catholics helps the prince and commonwealth then he's for tolerating catholics. That's ridiculously apt and healthy.

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