Locke on Real Essences, Intelligibility, and Natural Kinds

Journal of Philosophical Research 35:147-172 (2010)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

In this paper I criticize arguments by Pauline Phemister and Matthew Stuart that John Locke's position in his An Essay Concerning Human Understanding allows for natural kinds based on similarities among real essences. On my reading of Locke, not only are similarities among real essences irrelevant to species, but natural kind theories based on them are unintelligible.

Categories

Keywords

Reprint years

ISBN(s)

10538364

DOI

10.5840/jpr_2010_12

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

My notes

Similar books and articles

Lockean Real Essences and Ontology.Jan-Erik Jones - 2016 - Southwest Philosophy Review 32 (2):137-162.
How Essentialists Misunderstand Locke.Nigel Leary - 2009 - History of Philosophy Quarterly 26 (3):273-292.
Essence.Matthew Stuart - 2013 - In Locke's Metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 141-198.
John Locke on Real and Nominal Essence.James P. Danaher - 1990 - Dissertation, City University of New York
Wholly Useless and Unserviceable to Knowledge.David Wörner - 2023 - Locke Studies 23:1-29.
Locke vs. Boyle: The real essence of corpuscular species.Jan-Erik Jones - 2007 - British Journal for the History of Philosophy 15 (4):659 – 684.
Locke on Essences.Allison Kuklok - 2021 - In Jessica Gordon-Roth & Shelley Weinberg, The Lockean Mind. New York, NY: Routledge.
Real Essences.Robert Pasnau - 2011 - In Metaphysical Themes 1274–1671. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 633-661.
The Corpuscular Theory and the Semantics of Natural Kind Terms in Locke's "Essay".Linda Kaye Bomstad - 1982 - Dissertation, University of California, Davis
John Locke & Natural Philosophy (review).Antonia LoLordo - 2012 - Journal of the History of Philosophy 50 (2):296-297.

Analytics

Added to PP
2011-08-19

Downloads
2,941 (#7,194)

6 months
385 (#14,196)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Citations of this work

Thomas Reid on Induction and Natural Kinds.Stephen Harrop - 2022 - Journal of Scottish Philosophy 20 (1):1-18.
Locke on Real Essence.Jan-Erik Jones - 2012 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Lockean Real Essences and Ontology.Jan-Erik Jones - 2016 - Southwest Philosophy Review 32 (2):137-162.

Add more citations

References found in this work

An essay concerning human understanding.John Locke - 1975 - Oxford: Clarendon Press. Edited by Peter Nidditch.
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.John Locke - 2008 - Cleveland,: Oxford University Press UK. Edited by P. H. Nidditch.
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.John Locke - 1979 - Revue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 169 (2):221-222.

View all 31 references / Add more references