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Articles

Locke’s Question to Berkeley

Alessandro Colarossi imagines a perceptive conversation about reality.

Imagine Locke and Berkeley enjoying a stroll together around Oxford’s Christ Church Meadow, talking philosophy. Biting into an apple from one of the trees, Locke asks, “George, the taste of this apple right now tells me more about myself than about the apple. And isn’t there a lot about the apple that I am simply not getting, and am unable to get, from my tasting it?”

John Locke (1632-1704) and George Berkeley (1685-1753) never actually met, although both believed that all our knowledge originally comes from our senses. However, they had very different views about the nature of the reality our experiences reveal.

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