ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that Lockean substratum is best understood as intended to refer to the 'stuff' of which things are made, but without implying any significant commitment regarding the nature of that stuff. Locke's theory of substance has often been treated with derision, by those who have taken it to be concerned with some pseudo-problem about property instantiation. His actual theory is far reasonable, that when perceive consistent 'object-like' patterns of behaviour in the world, or are conscious of events in the minds, people presume that there is something real and 'substantial' lying behind those observed phenomena. Locke concurs with the compelling inference, but insists against Descartes, and surely correctly, that the phenomenal sensations or thoughts yield little insight into the substances concerned. Locke has little sympathy for external world scepticism, and his initial focus on sensory 'Ideas go constantly together' is best explained in terms of his interest in 'complex ideas of substances', rather than any would-be anti-sceptical inference.
