Locke: Ontology (The Arguments of the Philosophers)

John Locke's complex masterpiece, "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding", was a sustained attack on the dogmatism of his day and one of the last great works of philosophical realism before the onset of idealism in European philosophy. Michael Ayers undertakes a dual task: to reconstruct its meaning as a decisive contribution to 17th-century debates; and to recognize in Locke's arguments, entwined as they are with what is irremediably past, fundamental insights now lost or obscured. The result is both a comprehensive, historically based reinterpretation of the "Essay" and a systematic critique, from a realist point of view, of currently fashionable approaches to epistemology and ontology. This book should be of interest to advanced students and teachers of philosophy and scholars of Locke.