Blackwell Reference Online

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Locke's metaphysics is largely determined by his theory of knowledge. While he accepted the traditional view that a genuine science must be based on knowledge of essences, he argued that we cannot know real essences in the natural domain. EXPERIENCE, our only source of information about the natural world, underdetermines essences. Still by experimentation and reasonable inference, we may construct probable hypotheses short of genuine science. Locke supposed corpuscular theory was the best hypothesis about the material world we are likely ever to have. The broad mechanist thesis that what happens in the corporeal realm is reducible to insensible particles in motion is one tenet of Locke's metaphysics. An equally important tenet is that with respect to the fundamental constitution of nature we cannot expect to have even a probable hypothesis. According to Locke, everything that exists is entirely particular and we make general ideas (universals) by abstracting from experience of particulars ( see universals ; universals and particulars ). Locke's classification of general ideas is a catalogue of sorts of beings. There are simple ideas and complex ones. Simple ideas include, not just sensations (e.g., red, pain), but also ideas of sensible qualities (i.e., powers to produce sensations), other causal powers (e.g., malleability, power to attract iron), and abilities (e.g., to think, ... log in or subscribe to read full text