Locke on knowledge of our own existence and the subjective constitution of the self

John Locke claims in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding that every act of thinking yields (or can yield) intuitive knowledge of our own existence. This chapter develops a new interpretation of this claim, the “Winklerian” interpretation, so called because of the way in which it takes seriously what Ken Winkler famously termed “the subjective constitution of the self.” Locke’s view on the Winklerian interpretation is that, whenever I perceive an idea, my consciousness of that perception makes it a part of my self. Therefore, supposing that I can have intuitive knowledge of the existence of my perception, since this perception is a part of my self, I can thereby have intuitive knowledge of the existence of a part of my self and, consequently, intuitive knowledge of my own existence.