John Locke’s defense of the theory of substance in the first ‘letter’ to Edward Stillingfleet
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15448/1984-6746.2024.1.43963Keywords:
History of Philosophy, Substance, relative idea, knowledge, skepticismAbstract
The paper discusses John Locke’s first ‘Letter’ to Edward Stillingfleet and attempts to show the difficulties of his replies to the criticisms of his theory of substance. Section 1 presents what appears to be the heart of Stillingfleet’s attack on his doctrine of substance, the charge that the principles of the Essay ‹almost discard substance from the reasonable part of the world.› The paper defies both of Locke›s replies to this objection: his denials that he is committed to (section 2) the principle that knowledge would depend on the acquisition of clear and distinct ideas and to a sort of skepticism or negative dogmatism concerning the existence of substances (Section 3). Section 4 states that Locke maintains in the ‘Letter’ the tension between an empirical and a rational explanation for the idea of substance as a support or substrate. Finally, section 5 sheds light on Locke’s difficulties in determining the relative character of the idea of substrate.
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