Abstract

More than any other philosopher except Descartes, Locke has seemed a man without an intellectual environment. Yolton's monograph performs the important task of shedding light into this corner of the history of ideas. By his perceptive selection of passages from Locke's contemporaries, Yolton makes clear the context of theological and philosophical debate into which the Essay must be fitted. And in the course of his investigations into the doctrine of innate ideas and the epistemological and religious scepticism its denial seemed to entail, he reveals an interesting side of Locke's character and the character of his opponents and allies. --R. T.