Locke, Ayers, and Abstraction

Berkeley famously took Locke’s account of abstraction to be a process of mental separation that creates incomplete ideas which represent many individuals. A number of scholars have more recently tried to rehabilitate Locke’s theory of abstraction and save it from Berkeley’s criticisms. The most steadfast and sophisticated of these scholars is Michael Ayers, who, in a number of publications, has argued that Locke’s theory of abstraction is one of ‘partial consideration’, where a thinker merely considers certain aspects of ideas to form universal representatives. I have written two papers discussing Ayers’s interpretation. The first of these was concerned directly with Ayers’s arguments for his reading of Locke’s views on this subject, the second an account of the evolution of Locke’s theory in the drafts of the Essay, supporting the arguments made in the first. In 2008, Ayers published a response to these articles, revisiting his earlier views, refining them in places, and sketching his own account of the development of Locke’s theory of abstraction. This paper will review Ayers’s new arguments to determine the further support they provide to his contention that Locke’s theory of abstraction was one of ‘partial consideration’. This discussion will also provide an occasion to touch on other recent scholarship on this matter.