LOCKE'S CRITERION FOR THE REALITY OF IDEAS: UNAMBIGUOUS BUT UNTENABLE (original) (raw)

When his. Essay Concerning Human Understanding is nearly finished, Locke suddenly comes to realize that his doctrine of ideas leaves him with no means to distinguish reality from fiction. In this paper I examine Locke's reaction to this problem, and argue against the charge, made by several commentators, that Locke commits himself to a double standard when determining whether an object we think of is real. As I will show, this charge results from a confusion of Locke's criterion of reality with its application. For Locke, there is only one criterion upon which something we think of is real, namely, when it conforms with its archetype. It is only when this criterion is applied to the different types of ideas that Locke distinguishes, that it works out differently.