From the 1930s, Luce became interested in the Irish philosopher George Berkeley. Luce felt many of the previous studies of Berkeley were in many ways inadequate and sometimes wrong. His unearthing of new sources on Berkeley as well as better ways of interpreting existing sources guided Luce's work in this direction. Luce stressed the role of the French monk Malebranche on influencing the thought of the young Berkeley. Prior to Luce's "Berkeley and Malebranche" (1934) Berkeley had been seen almost solely in the patrimony of John Locke and empiricism.