Edward Feser's Locke is a critic's nightmare: there is nothing despicable about it at all. The book does what it says on the back cover, which is to say that it provides a good background and overview of Locke's work, especially his views on epistemology and metaphysics. On these grounds alone, one could recommend it as a text for an undergraduate course at many respectable universities. What makes the book more generally readable is that it takes the wide-ranging and disparate aspects of Locke's work and attempts to analyze them holistically. For example, Feser takes the time to elaborate on the finer points of how the bases of Locke's political philosophy rest almost entirely on his philosophy of religion, and exactly how his theory of personal identity is related to his metaphysical convictions. He displays a completist's concern for showing the whole Locke, warts and all: the Locke who advocates intellectual freedom, while at the same time asserting that atheism is not worthy of toleration; the Locke who argues against Hobbesian absolutism but, somewhat paradoxically, for the establishment of a world-state.

Some of Locke's apparently idiosyncratic stances are cashed out via biographical detail: his support for William and Mary's accession to the throne of England during the Glorious Revolution, for instance, is cited by Feser as his motivation for justifying revolution generally in principle, despite the fact that his social contract theory seems to put his thought in line with the conception of a normatively ineradicable state. Other sore spots, such as Locke's fervent anti-Catholicism, are explained away by Feser as he provides the reader with a wider historical context wherein it is clear that in Locke's time church affairs and matters of state were intertwined in ways which most contemporary liberals would recognize as detrimental to the practices of good governance. Still other quirks, like Locke's somewhat conflicted relationship with the Scholastic tradition–he rejects many of their doctrines whilst his own work can only be fully understood in their light–are not excused but rather even-handedly assessed by Feser. Exegesis is balanced with analysis and critique in good measure throughout the work.

Feser himself shows some passing signs of being infected with the ambivalence characteristic of his subject. He begins with the opening mission statement that "Locke, as I aim to show, is as clearly relevant to our time as he was to the time in which he wrote" (p. vii), and finishes with the modest concession that "[p]robably no contemporary philosopher would rank Locke among the top five greatest philosophers of all time, or even among the top ten" (p. 163). This is not to suggest in any way that the work is inconsistent or lacks methodology–quite the contrary. The book is obviously carefully done. It is a labor of love, but it is no innocent crush: Feser is all too aware of Locke's deficiencies, but chooses to champion him regardless, finding in him a central intellectual figure of late modernity who is too often denied the theoretical credit owed him.

© 2008 Christopher Yorke

Christopher Yorke is currently writing his PhD dissertation in Philosophy at the University of Glasgow.

Keywords: philosophy