Perspectives on Experience-Based Critical Ontology. A New Interpretation of Lockean Gnoseology

Abstract

Starting from the examination of the gnoseological method suggested by John Locke in his Essay concerning Human Understanding and from the study of the psychich contents such as pleasure/delight and pain/uneasiness and their place in the taxonomy of the ideas, I hereby aim to re-consider the Lockean conception of consciousness and self-consciousness, trying to bring some unprecedented aspects to light, aspects which seem to leave an opening for a genuine critical ontology of the human person. These outcomes, although distancing themselves from the traditional historico-philosophical interpretation of the Lockean thought (which focused on Hume and underlined the genealogical relationship between Locke and the Scottish empiricist), are in full consistency with the theses of both the Essay and the correspondence between Locke and Stillingfleet. Thus, Locke’s reflections, by virtue of their critico-experimental nature, can be rather useful for the present-day revival of realism.