The Digital Locke Project is a free online database dedicated to the creation of a searchable text critical edition of the manuscripts associated with the treatise An Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke (1632‐1704). Based in the Netherlands, the project is overseen by Dr Paul Schuurman of the Department of Philosophy of Erasmus University in Rotterdam and is supported by Oxford University Press and the Editorial Board of the Clarendon Locke Edition. The database includes a transcription of the manuscript texts with critical notes, historical and philosophical information, detailed descriptions of the texts, and a comparison with other manuscripts related to the Essay. According to the project website, the database will be used as the basis for a future printed volume of the Clarendon Edition of the Works of John Locke: Volume III of the Drafts for the Essay Concerning Human Understanding and Other Philosophical Writings.
John Locke was an English empiricist philosopher, physician, political activist and Oxford academic. Although he wrote on a variety of topics, including education, economics, politics, theology and medicine, he is best known for his philosophical work An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, in which he explores the extent and limits of human knowledge. First published in December of 1689, Locke continued to refine his philosophical views on the topic, supervising three additional editions before his death in 1704. Although many of Locke's later philosophical writings on the subject made their way into these subsequent editions, other related texts, such as the intended addendum Of the Conduct of the Understanding, did not. The purpose of the Digital Locke Project is to compile in one searchable database the material Locke produced related to the Essay (i.e. that which made it into later editions and that which did not) between the publication of the first edition in 1689 and his death in 1704.
The homepage of the site includes a brief description of the project, information regarding recent updates, as well as links to the site's five main areas:
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Texts.
- 2.
Manuscripts.
- 3.
Search.
- 4.
About Us.
- 5.
About Locke.
Clicking on the Texts link presents an alphabetized list of the 34 individual texts included in the project. To the right of each entry is an About link that provides access to detailed information about each text, including the physical characteristics of the manuscripts in which they were written. Because a single text by Locke can consist of several manuscripts and a single manuscript can consist of several texts, multiple versions of some texts are included in the database.
Clicking on any one of the titles listed on the Texts page brings the user to a split screen with an unmarked (normalized) transcription of the text on the left and a marked‐up critical notes (diplomatic) version on the right. Both screens employ a separate scroll feature, allowing users to move through each version individually. However, when the user is scrolling through the text in one version, clicking on the relevant page number within that version will display the same passage in the other version on the opposite side of the screen. Navigation buttons at the top of the screen allow the user to jump to any page or section within the document. Manuscripts in the collection are encoded in XML markup language, using a project‐specific Document Type Declaration (DTD) set of encoding rules based on recommendations described by the TEI Consortium, an international organization which collectively develops and maintains a standard for the representation of texts in digital form. Locke's original spelling, grammar, punctuation and capitalization are maintained throughout the project. Tagged annotations on the diplomatic version, however, provide detailed notes regarding additions, deletions, page breaks, marginal notes, editorial comments, and unclear passages in Locke's original manuscripts. Each type of tag (addition, deletion, marginal note, etc.) employs a different colour scheme, which facilitates the location of similar tags on the diplomatic version of the page. A tag legend can be exposed or hidden at the bottom of the page by clicking on a provided link.
Documents in the project can be searched by choosing either the Simple or Advanced search links from the project's homepage. Both search options allow users to conduct phrase and proximity searches across all or within specific texts, as well as to select which version, normalized (unmarked) or diplomatic (marked), should be searched. Advanced search allows for additional phrase searching options within specific texts. Search results provide a list of the various texts that include the searched for terms and the number of instances in which the terms occur. The “results details” page includes the section number of the text in which the search terms were found, information regarding the type of text found (normalized, editorial or diplomatic), as well as a brief portion of the text with the searched for terms highlighted in yellow. Clicking on a section number then displays the complete text for that section in split screen format.
Overall, the site is well organized and easy to navigate. Access to the document texts, whether browsed or searched, is relatively straightforward for both novice and experienced searchers. Manuscript texts load quickly in both normalized and diplomatic formats. Detailed information regarding the history and technical aspects of the project is provided, as well as biographical information about Locke and the history of his manuscripts. Though the site may not be useful for lower‐level students and casual philosophers, it should provide a wealth of information for advanced students and scholars interested in the origin and evolution of this most important of works in the history of philosophy.
