John Locke and personal identity: an impasse concerning justice

Locke on Consciousness, Personal Identity and the Idea of Duration

It is as undeniable as it is unhelpful to say that for Locke personal identity consists in the identity of consciousness. It is undeniable because he just comes out and says as much in passages like the following: “[T]he same consciousness being preserv’d. . .the personal Identity is preserv’d.” (II.xxvii.13)1 It is unhelpful, however, for two reasons: First, it is unclear what consciousness is...

John Locke and Modern Life

John Locke on Respiration

During the early part of his career as an academic in 1660s Oxford, John Locke trained as a physician. Acquainted with some of the most brilliant researchers of his day— Robert Boyle, Thomas Willis, Richard Lower and Robert Hooke—and an active member of the scientific community, Locke was part of a generation that revolutionized natural philosophy. He never published a natural philosophical wor...

John Locke on Respiration JONATHAN WALMSLEY

During the early part of his career as an academic in 1660s Oxford, John Locke trained as a physician. Acquainted with some of the most brilliant researchers of his day— Robert Boyle, Thomas Willis, Richard Lower and Robert Hooke—and an active member of the scientific community, Locke was part of a generation that revolutionized natural philosophy. He never published a natural philosophical wor...

Chapter 15 John Locke : Theory of knowledge

In the previous chapter we have outlined some fundamental doctrines of Locke’s empiricism. We have examined his concepts of simple and complex ideas which are the archetypes of knowledge according to empiricist epistemology. The ideas of substances, modes and relations are the three types of complex ideas our mind forms by combining the simple ideas received from multiple sources. Before we pro...