John Locke and the Limits of Scientia

Abstract

Locke uses the word “science”, with the force of the Latin word scientia, over twenty times in the Essay Concerning Human Understanding. It is a very important concept in his account of knowledge and its limitations and his understanding of it stands in interesting contrast with other major philosophers in the seventeenth century. In many ways his account seems very straightforward but it also contains some perhaps surprising aspects which call into question the picture of Locke as the commonsense philosopher of standard exegesis. Before we reach those latter points, however, we need to outline his central claims and see them in relation to his predecessors and contemporaries.