Lockean superaddition and Lockean humility

Highlights

• Locke's characteristic epistemic humility is analyzed in detail.

• This analysis motivates a new approach to the debate over superadded powers.

• Locke's epistemology supports agnosticism regarding the nature of superaddition.

• Alternative formulations of the debate over superaddition are considered.

Abstract

This paper offers a new approach to an old debate about superaddition in Locke. Did Locke claim that some objects have powers that are unrelated to their natures or real essences? The question has split commentators. Some (Wilson, Stuart, Langton) claim the answer is yes and others (Ayers, Downing, Ott) claim the answer is no. This paper argues that both of these positions may be mistaken. I show that Locke embraced a robust epistemic humility. This epistemic humility includes ignorance of the real essences of bodies, of the causal processes underlying the production of natural phenomena, and of God's method of creation. I show how this epistemic humility offers strong support for an agnostic response to the question of superaddition. Locke did not intend to claim that bodies either do or do not have properties unrelated to their real essences. Instead, his primary goal in discussing the topic was to emphasize the strict limits to human knowledge.

Introduction

Locke infamously wrote that God superadded powers to material objects. But what this act of superaddition entails is opaque. This has given rise to what I will call the problem of superaddition. Did Locke claim that some bodies have non-natural powers? Put differently, did Locke claim that some bodies have powers which do not flow from their nature, or real essence? This question has split commentators. Some commentators, like Margaret Wilson, Matthew Stuart, and Rae Langton have argued that the answer is yes.² Other commentators, like Michael Ayers, Lisa Downing, and Walter Ott have argued that the answer is no.³

There is a lot riding on this debate. Here is a non-exhaustive list of the pressing questions related to the question of superaddition: 1) What is Locke's position on the ontology of human beings? Our understanding of Locke's relation to Hobbesian materialism, on the one hand, and Cartesian dualism, on the other, will depend on how we interpret Locke's claims about superaddition. 2) What is Locke's relationship to the mechanist hypothesis? And, by extension, to Robert Boyle? Depending on how we read the claims about superaddition, Locke may have either abandoned mechanism or bet the family farm on it. 3) What is Locke's relationship to Newton and the Newtonian achievement? The way that Locke did or did not understand gravitation and Newton's methodology is intimately linked to his position on superaddition. 4) What were Locke's views about scientific explanation? Did all scientific explanation have to make appeal to the intelligible components of the mechanist hypothesis? Or could some explanations end in the arbitrary will of God or in irreducible quasi-Aristotelian powers? 5) How did Locke think about the role of God in the natural world? Did he offer a deist (or proto-deist) view of nature? Or did he instead have the hand of the divine pressed immediately upon many terrestrial processes?

My goal in this paper is to argue that Locke was agnostic on the question of superaddition. Locke was unsure whether God had given bodies real essences capable of generating all observed phenomena or whether something more was required. My argument, in brief, is as follows: Locke believed that the scope of human understanding was extremely limited. As a consequence of this, we have no understanding of the mechanisms underlying various natural phenomena. Put differently, reality outstrips our ability to understand it. As a result, we cannot be sure whether a given phenomenon requires anything more than the interactions between the real essences of material bodies. So Locke's epistemology offers strong support for an agnostic response to the question of superaddition.

My plan for the paper is as follows. In Section 2 I will set up the problem and introduce some of the critical texts. Section 3 will describe some features of Locke's epistemology and Section 4 will show how those features motivate an agnostic position on the question. And in Section 5 I will discuss other interpretations of Locke on superaddition and other ways of understanding the debate.