ABSTRACT
While Locke only developed his theory of the association of ideas in the last decade of his life, habit always played a central role in his epistemology and his developmental psychology. A concern with both the promises and perils of habit is the central theme of his pedagogical treatise Some Thoughts Concerning Education, where he describes habituation as a potent force for shaping childrens’ intellect and character. More generally, Locke employs habit to account for the efficiency of the understanding. Simple ideas are connected into complex ones through the active faculties of the understanding, but these connections, once formed, can become habituated to allow for thinking to happen outside of the full ambit of attention. In contrast with such habits, Locke argues, associated ideas form when ideas become conjoined without an act of judgment. Unlike bad habits, which can be rectified through the exercise of a contrary, positive habit, associated ideas cannot be healed through the use of reason and thus constitute, for Locke, the most dangerous sort of mental pathology – dangerous for both the individual, and for society. A key responsibility of any parent or guardian, therefore, is the inoculation of their children against associative thought.
