Locke on Essence and Identity

This book is a study of John Locke's metaphysics of organisms and persons, with particular emphasis on his theory of identity through time and his conventionalism with respect to kinds and essences. Although these positions seem to be obviously incompatible-his persistence conditions for organisms and persons evidently commit him to attributing de re essential properties to these objects-the final three chapters constitute a sustained argument against this position. After presenting three arguments for thinking that the organisms and persons in Locke's ontology have both spatial and temporal extent, Conn argues that on a four-dimensional ontology (and only on such an ontology) there is no contradiction between Locke's theory of identity and his rejection of essentialism.