Lockean Mechanism

Abstract

Locke subscribed to the Mechanical Philosophy, in Gassendi’s and Boyle’s version of it. On this view, all of the powers and qualities of bodies, and all the changes in these powers and qualities which result from the actions of these bodies one upon the other, issue entirely from the “two grand principles of bodies, matter and motion” (Boyle).¹ The main points of the view, more particularly, were these: (a) all bodies are made up of matter, and only of matter; (b) the essence of matter consists in the qualities of extension and solidity; (c) bodies large enough to be perceived are compounded out of physically indivisible bits of matter too small to be perceived (the so-called minima naturalia) and have no other constituents (in particular, no immaterial constituents); (d) in consequence of being extended and finite, each body has a determinate bulk or size and figure; and finally, (e) any change in the qualities of a body is the result of the alteration of the bulk, figure, relative situation and/or motion of the solid parts of the body, the latter alteration being due to the action upon that body, perhaps through a material medium, of the mechanical affections of the solid parts of some other body or bodies.² A very strong case can be made for the ascription of these doctrines to Locke; I will not go into this here as Locke’s commitment to mechanism is so widely acknowledged.