Although it is quite difficult to read, one of the first things one notices about Locke and his Essay is that he starts with an "Epistle to the Reader." In this he explains how the understanding arose for a need to systematically analyze human understanding in him. He also encourages ordinary readers to use their capacities of judgments instead of accepting what the intellectual society has already accepted. Locke explains that in everyday life, we all depend on some guidelines for our lives, and there are some forces that might be encouraging us t accept these guidelines blindly. According to Locke, this is wrong. Blind acceptance of borrowed principles leaves us in a situation whereby we accept some other absurd doctrines that are the effect of following such guidelines. The solution is to think independently.
What is interesting in this is that, if we accept this, we have to doubt everything that Locke said and come to our own conclusion about the matter. This is interesting not because it would go against what Locke wants, for it doesn't, but because Locke is being most unlike other "intellectuals". Others might want us to accept whatever they have said based on the fact that they are considered as "intellectuals", even though they are fallible human beings and that it is possible that they do not know all the implications of what they have said. Locke, although an odd case, is doing something that not only do I believe is right, but also something that is the main forte and reason for knowledge. I do not think that knowledge is not just the accumulation of information, but rather it is the processing of information that strengthens ones own thinking and analyzing capabilities and leads one to a conclusion based on the information gained. Based on this definition, what most "intellectuals do" is against the very principle of knowledge, and it is this same principle that Locke is trying to defend.
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