What is modern in Locke's account of substance

Abstract

In this paper Locke's account of substance is interpreted. Locke analyzes different meanings of the notion of substance, the origin of the ideas of substances and problems concerning their justification and function within our knowledge. Two meanings of the notion of substance appear to be most important and at the same time confronted with each other: the complex idea of substance and the idea of substratum. Bennett's claim that Locke didn't decide whether to keep or discard the idea of substratum is refuted. Locke discards only the scholastic concept of substratum as an indeterminate support in which accidents inhere, due to its inutility as an explanatory model. The idea of substratum is kept because it is indispensable for explanation of the necessary coexistence of simple ideas in complex idea of substance. This feature differentiates ideas of substances from ideas of mixed modes. The importance of this distinction in Locke's epistemology validates the use of the idea of substratum. Ayers' claim that Locke identifies ontologically substratum and real essence is confirmed. But, it is claimed that this identification cannot be applied to the issues of origin and justification of these ideas. In the course of the interpretation it is shown that Locke's account of substance is modern insofar as it contains anticipations of Berkeley's, Hume's and Kant's arguments and claims, as well as contemporary philosophical topics such as multiple realizability explanatory gap and logico-linguistic argumentation.