This book is a study of John Locke's metaphysics of organisms and persons, with particular emphasis on his theory of identity through time and his conventionalism with respect to kinds and essences. After presenting three arguments for thinking that the organisms and persons in Locke's ontology have both spatial and temporal extent, the author argues that on a four-dimensional ontology there is no contradiction between Locke's theory of identity and his rejection of essentialism.

Inhalt

Preface. Introduction. I. Substances, Essences, and Kinds. 1. Substances and the Spatiotemporal World. 2. Substances and their properties. 3. Essential properties and natural kinds. II. Identity and Persistence. 1. Identity. 2. Persistence. 3. Identity, persistence and Lockean anti-essentialism. 4. A brief look ahead. Lockes's Critique of Essentialism. I.Locke on the Accidental/Essential Property Distinction. 1. The sortal relativity of essential properties. 2. Unsorted particulars and accidental properties. 3. Real essences of sorted and unsorted particulars. II. Locke on the Nature and Existence of Natural Kinds. 1. The 'second opinion' regarding natural kinds. 2. The 'first opinion' regarding natural kinds. 3. Locke's epistemological and semantic arguments against real kinds. 4. Locke's appeal to monsters and changelings. III. Locke on the Classification of Corporeal Substances. 1. Sorting particulars into kinds. 2. Forming sortal concepts. IV. Locke on Kinds and Particulars. Locke's Theory of Identity. I. Locke's concept of identity. 1. The psychological origin of this concept. 2. Diachronic and synchronic identity-statements. II. Locke's Principle of Individuation. 1. Locke's argument for the principum individuationis. 2. Three objections. III. Identity and Ideas of Things. 1. General ideas and persistence conditions. 2. A metaphysical dilemma. Locke on the Persistence of Organisms and Persons. I. Organismsand their Material Parts. 1. Atoms and masses. 2. Organisms, masses and lives. II. Locke's Organismic Theory of Personal Identity. 1. Persons, consciousness, and the nature of thinking substances. 2. Consciousness as the 'life' of persons. 3. What consciousness might do. 4. The temporal extent of Lockean organisms. 5. The temporal extent of human persons. 6. Organisms, persons, and their temporal stages. III. Locke's Thought Experiments and Problem Cases. 1. Cases involving lapses of memory. 2. Cases involving two persons and one man. 3. Cases involving one person and two men. 4. The case of the conscious, severed finger. IV. Conclusion. Objections and Replies. I. The Charge of Anachronism. 1. Initial response. 2. Some historical counterexamples to the charge of anachronism. 3. Locke's views on space and time. II. Four-Dimensional Bodies and the Corpuscularian Hypothesis. 1. The temporal extent of Lockean atoms and masses. 2. Locke and Newton on the creation of material corpuscles. 3. The temporal extent of Newtonian bodies. 4. The mobility of temporally extended bodies. III. Conclusion. Relativistic Anti-Essentialism and a Four-Dimensional Lockean Ontology. I. The anti-essentialist implications of a four-dimensional Lockean ontology. 1. The sortal relativity of four-dimensional persistence conditions. 2. Four-dimensional persistence conditions and the relative identity thesis. 3. Four-dimensional persistence conditions and Lockean anti-essentialis