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Although Locke was born into a family of modest means, he was able to obtain an excellent education by way of his father's connections. In 1647, at the age of fifteen, he began studies at Westminster School, considered London's best. At twenty, he began studies at Christ Church College, Oxford. His studies focused on logic, metaphysics, and languages taught within the framework of '''Aristotelian scholasticism''', for which he developed an intense dislike. [[CiteRef::Uzgalis (2016)| pp. 3-4]][[CiteRef::Milton (1994)]] This was more than a century after Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543) had posited his '''heliocentric cosmology''' in 1543, and forty years after Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) published his observations with the telescope in 1610. Both were strong challenges to Aristotelianism. [[CiteRef::Westfall (1980)|p. 6]] Like many ambitious students of the time, Locke doubted Aristotelian scholasticism and sought alternative resources outside the formal curriculum. Such resources were abundant at Oxford. He became involved with a discussion group organized by John Wilkins (1614-1672). In the Wilkins group, Locke was exposed to the '''experimental philosophy''' and the ideas of Francis Bacon (1561-1626) who argued for an '''inductive methodology''' for science. The Wilkins group was the nucleus of what would later become the 'Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge', known simply as the '''Royal Society'''. England's main society for the promotion of natural philosophy, the Royal Society became a formal institution in the 1660's. The society would set itself in opposition to the Aristotelian scholasticism of the universities, advocating the study of nature rather than of ancient texts. [[CiteRef::Uzgalis (2016)|p. 4]] Natural philosophy and medicine were considered closely related, and Bacon's call for a 'great instauration' of knowledge included medicine. Locke's notebooks indicate a strong interest in medicine and chemistry. He attended the lectures of the great anatomist Thomas Willis (1621-1675) and took careful notes. [[CiteRef::Rogers (1982)|p. 217]][[CiteRef::Anstey (2011)|ppp. 6]]

Locke received his bachelor's degree in 1656. He was elected a senior student of Christ Church College and decided to study medicine. When John Wilkins left Oxford, the new leader of the scientific group became Robert Boyle (1627-1691), which Locke met in 1660. Boyle ascribed to the '''corpuscular mechanistic philosophy''' associated with [[Rene Descartes]] (1596-1650), which held that the visible properties of the natural world were due to interactions between invisibly small particles or corpuscles. He is noted for his physical experiments. Boyle became Locke's scientific tutor. Locke read Boyle's works and those of Descartes, though he also learned from his experimentalist associates to be skeptical of Descartes' rationalism. Locke became a physician, and was personal physician to Lord Ashley during the 1670's and 1680's. He was an early member of the Royal Society and knew most of the major English natural philosophers, including [[Isaac Newton]] (1643-1727) and some continental ones as well. This community was concerned with arguing for the reliability of observation and experiment as means of acquiring knowledge as opposed to Aristotelian intuition or Cartesian rationalism. Locke's most important contribution to this argument was his ''An Essay Concerning Human Understanding'', published in 1689. While preparing this essay, Locke read Newton's ''Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica'' and found little need to revise his essay, since Newton's epistemological views were rather similar to his own. Both had absorbed the views current in the Royal Society. Locke and Newton became directly acquainted in 1689. [[CiteRef::Rogers (1982)]]