1. Locke on Power & Substance
From Edwin McCann: Locke’s Corpuscular Theory of Body
Democritus/Boyle/Gassendi
Matter is extended solid substance
All bodies are individual atoms or indivisible, with the following qualities: Extension, solidity, shape, location, motion, rest, number, or aggregates of atoms.
Compound bodies have “texture” arrangement of atoms various sizes, shapes, relative situations, and relative motions.
All changrew of states of bodies are due to a change of” texture”
Secondary Qualities:
“nothing in the Objects themselves, but Powers to produce various sensations in
us by their primary qualities…”
Grain of wheat example
Locke: “the ideas of primary Qualities of Bodies, are Resemblances of them, and their
Patterns do really exist in the Bodies themselves; but the ideas produced in us by these
Secondary Qualities, have no resemblance of them at all.”

2. Locke’s Theory of Sensation
Secondary Qualities are caused by bodies primary qualities
MIND
Secondary Qualities: Hot, Red, Sweet, Loud, Sharp
Threshold of Sensation
Aggregate State 2
Aggregate State 1
BODY
Atoms & Insensible aggregates have primary qualities of extension, solidity, shape,
location, motion, rest, and number. Large aggregates reach threshold of Sensation.

3. Substance (things in themselves)“A something I know not what”
Locke’s Empiricism All knowledge ultimately derived from experience vs. koinai ennoiai (common in minds/innate ideas)
Sensation
Insensible
Mind=Tabula Rasa-blank slate
Reflection=‘ideas the mind gets by reflecting on its own operations within itself’
Understanding can ‘repeat, compare, and unite simple ideas.’
Secondary
Sensible
Qualities:
Sweetness
Redness
Hot
Loud
Hard
Primary Qualities:
solidity
extension
figure (shape)
mobility
number
Substance (things in themselves)“A something I know not what”
Complex ideas
simple
ideas

4. Locke’s Theory of Consciousness
Simultaneous S1 S2 S3 C1 C2 C3
Sequential
“For as far as any intelligent being can repeat the idea of
any past action with the same consciousness it had of it at
first, and with the same consciousness it has of any present
action; so far it is the same personal self.”
Sleep, insanity, fever, etc.

5. Substance(things in themselves)“A something I know not what”
Locke’s Epistemology
Sensation
Mind=Tabula Rasa-blank slate
1. Sensation
2. Reflection
Secondary
Qualities:
sweetness
redness
hot
loud
Primary Qualities:
solidity
extension
figure(shape)
mobility
number
Substance(things in themselves)“A something I know not what”
Complex ideas
simple
ideas