Ebook: A Second Vindication of Mr Locke

In 1736 Perronet had published his first "Vindication of Mr Locke" defending Locke against the charge, levelled by Browne and others, of giving encouragement to sceptics and infidels. In the same year Butler published his famous "Analogy of Religion", which contained, as an appendix, the "Dissertation on Personal Identity". Here Butler makes the famous objection that memory presupposes personal identity and therefore cannot constitute it. In this second "Vindication", Perronet replies to Butler, and to similar criticisms by Andrew Baxter and Isaac Watts. Perronet here shows himself to be one of the few thinkers of his age able to grasp and appreciate the radical nature of Locke's account, and the sheer irrelevance of the traditional metaphysical concept of substance to Locke's central concerns of personal responsibility and accountability. There is a new introduction to the book by John Yolton.