Travel, Philosophy, and Locke’s Openness to the Unknown

Résumé

Travel was crucial to early modern European philosophy. This note explains the case I make for this thesis in The Meaning of Travel, drawing on the importance of travel to the likes of Francis Bacon, Margaret Cavendish, and John Locke. It argues that travellers and philosophers came to share a growing awareness that much of the world is unexplored, and unknown.