ABSTRACT
Although a foundationalist accepting a commonsensical view of the world will naturally suppose that classical empiricism must rest on impossible foundations, it is important for impartial investigators to keep the actual arguments of Locke, Berkeley, and Hume in clear perspective. It is particularly important to realize that, in spite of their evident attraction to the foundationalist ideal of rational opinion, these empiricists did not put themselves on the road to solipsism by a naive and unreasoning commitment to a private or sUbjective foundation for empirical knowledge. In fact, each of them began with a commonsensical view of himself and the world around him, and then, as the result of difficulties forced upon him by critical reflections on that view, each drew conclusions that led to a theoretical outcome which only in Hume's case was admittedly skeptical. The difficulties they found in a commonsensical view were plausible and serious, and the problems raised with Locke's alternatives by Berkeley and Hume cannot reasonably be dismissed by Wittgenstein's critical observations on supposed private languages.
