Locke's conception of God's manner of being present everywhere is unclear. He seemed to agree with the Cambridge Platonist Henry More that spirits were present in space not merely operationally-a position which More labelled "nullibism"-but substantially; however, it is not clear whether he endorsed More's view of God as an infinitely extended being, filling space with His amplitude of presence or rather the alternative, scholastic conception, which may be called "holenmerianism" (from More's "holenmerian") and which affirmed that God was substantially present everywhere as a whole in the whole and a whole in each part. The paper attempts to explore this question in detail by focusing on an episode in Locke's later correspondence, which suggested that he was not committed to holenmerianism. The episode focused on the dispute which Locke had entered into with Johannes Hudde in 1697 on how to prove God's uniqueness; the "physical" proof he provided to settle the dispute did not rely on a holenmerian conception of God's presence in space. Locke's proof was based on a principle he had established in the Essay, which determined the impenetrability of spirits by other spirits; the paper shows that, although More did not accept this principle, he might have agreed with Locke's proof. Finally, the paper suggests that further evidence coming from the Essay, taking into account Locke's reading of Newton's De gravitatione, seems to indicate that he was not committed to holenmerianism.
A review of Luisa Simonutti's recent book John Locke: Les idees et les choses. Avec les manscript inedit "Notes upon Mr. John Lock's Essay concerning Human Understanding" de William Whiston fils (Milan: Editions Mimesis, 2019).
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.