ABSTRACT
Locke is a skeptic about both causation and the laws of nature, though for different reasons. His skepticism about causation (including correlative notions like power and impulse) is based on the dubious metaphysical intelligibility of real connection. Locke shares with, and perhaps derives from, Descartes the fundamental intuition that an efficient cause gives or transfers reality to its effect. But, as Locke observes, in nearly all causal connections we find it inconceivable how such a transfer can obtain: we know that C causes E, but we don’t know how or why. In contrast, Locke’s scepticism about the laws of nature is based on the recognition of our own epistemic limitations: although we can sometimes obtain good inductive warrant to believe or judge that a certain law of nature (such as the pendulum law or universal gravitation) will obtain in the future, we cannot know that it will. Locke’s nomological scepticism does not arise from any suspicion about the intelligibility of laws, but rather from his steadfast empiricism and theological voluntarism, each of which demand epistemic humility.
