ABSTRACT
Locke’s polemic against innateness is often treated as the opening salvo in an ongoing war between empiricists and rationalists. But were these categories salient in 1690? I examine Locke’s reasons for attacking innate ideas and principles, by identifying where Locke’s argument is leading in the entirety of Book 1. I will propose that Locke’s motives emerge as largely epistemological and that he considered the arguments against innateness, not as getting rid of a rival but as a foil against which he developed an outline account of human mental faculties, expanded at much greater length in the rest of the Essay.
