The “thinking matter” hypothesis and its metaphysical import in Locke’s Essay concerning human understanding

Locke’s thinking matter hypothesis, besides illustrating our epistemic limitations, raises important metaphysical questions. As it is clear that it is not the mere invocation of a miracle, it raises questions for the coherence of the Essay’s metaphysical underpinning, and in particular for the compatibility between Locke’s presumed ‘mechanism’ and the existence of properties that God is ‘superadding’ to the essential properties of matter.