ABSTRACT
Locke famously claimed that it was possible that thinking could be ‘superadded’ to matter – at least it is in the power of God to add thought to matter. Anthony Collins takes this suggestion and naturalizes it, arguing that thinking could naturally arise from material systems. Although Locke believed that there is a high probability that humans have immaterial souls, Collins gives contrary evidence. Collins argued that material systems provided a better explanatory basis for consciousness, which changes the probability calculus. Collins’s materialist hypothesis requires adjustments to Locke’s theory of consciousness, while remaining well within the broadly Lockean project. In his correspondence with Samuel Clarke, Collins defends this view, arguing that it cannot be ruled out a priori. While his arguments are not entirely successful, his attempt is illuminating, a harbinger of later emergentist theories of mind.
