Abstract

John Loke is often referred to as the first of a triumvirate of major British Empiricists, and sometimes even as the father of British Empiricism. In many cases the reference is extremely guarded, and at times the word ‘empiricist’ is being used merely as a convenient label for organising university courses, amounting to little more than a synonym for ‘Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, and to some extent Bacon, Hobbes, Reid, and Mill’. Given that ‘empiricist’ is being used in a philosophically interesting way, however, there is some question as to just how guarded its application to Locke should be