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John Locke was hug believer in the idea of Natural Law. Natural Law is "Life, Liberty, and property" which are naturally given rights in which hold power towards who they are. If a person of high power like a king or ruler was to try revoking these rights or go against the said rights they can be over thrown and a new form of government must be formed.

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The "Two Treaties of Government" was published by John Locke in the 1960s. He had made this to describe his idea that everyones is born with the equality of natural rights which is  sacred to the point that whoever is in the executive power loses their hierarchy by not being able to take them away. The people are able to live within the means of nature freely from outside rulings. As described in the spark notes of his essay one is able to take away from earth with ones own needs, keep an amount to themselves, then trade off the extras as a development of common currency.

https://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/locke/summary/

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Introduction | Life | Work | Books

(Portrait by Sir Godfrey Kneller, 1697)
John Locke

John Locke (1632 - 1704) was an English philosopher of the Age of Reason and early Age of Enlightenment. His ideas had enormous influence on the development of Epistemology and Political Philosophy, and he is widely regarded as one of the most influential early Enlightenment thinkers.

He is usually considered the first of the British Empiricists, the movement which included George Berkeley and David Hume, and which provided the main opposition to the 17th Century Continental Rationalists. He argued that all of our ideas are ultimately derived from experience, and the knowledge of which we are capable is therefore severely limited in its scope and certainty.

His Philosophy of Mind is often cited as the origin for modern conceptions of identity and "the self". He also postulated, contrary to Cartesian and Christian philosophy, that the mind was a "tabula rasa" (or "blank slate") and that people are born without innate ideas.

Along with Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, he was also one of the originators of Contractarianism (or Social Contract Theory), which formed the theoretical groundwork of democracy, republicanism and modern Liberalism and Libertarianism. He is sometimes referred to as the "Philosopher of Freedom", and his political views influenced both the American and French Revolutions.

Locke was born on 29 August 1632 in the small rural village of Wrington, Somerset, England. His father, also named John Locke, was a country lawyer and clerk to the Justices of the Peace in the nearby town of Chew Magna, and had served as a captain of the cavalry for the Parliamentarian forces during the early part of the English Civil War. His mother, Agnes Keene, was a tanner's daughter and reputed to be very beautiful. Both parents were Puritans, and the family moved soon after Locke's birth to the small market town of Pensford, near Bristol.

In 1647, Locke was sent to the prestigious Westminster School in London (sponsored by the local MP Alexander Popham) as a King's Scholar. After completing his studies there, he was admitted to Christ Church, Oxford. Although a capable student, Locke was irritated by the largely classical ( Aristotelian) undergraduate curriculum of the time, and found more interest in the works of modern philosophers such as Ren Descartes, and the more experimental philosophy being pursued at other universities and within the embryonic Royal Society.

Locke was awarded a bachelor's degree in 1656, and a master's degree in 1658. He was elected lecturer in Greek in 1660 and then in Rhetoric in 1663, but he declined the offer of a permanent academic position in order to avoid committing himself to a religious order. During his time at Oxford, he also studied medicine extensively, and worked with such noted scientists and thinkers as Robert Boyle, Thomas Willis, Robert Hooke and his friend from Westminster School, Richard Lower. He later obtained a bachelor of medicine qualification in 1674.

It was through his medical knowledge that he obtained the patronage of the controversial political figure, Lord Anthony Ashley Cooper (the 1st Earl of Shaftesbury), and in 1667 he moved to Shaftesbury's London home to serve as his personal physician. He was credited with saving Shaftesbury's life after a liver infection became life-threatening. In London, Locke continued his medical studies under the tutelage of Thomas Sydenham, who also had a major influence on Locke's natural philosophical thinking.

During the 1670s, Locke served as Secretary of the Board of Trade and Plantations and Secretary to the Lords and Proprietors of the Carolinas, helping to shape his ideas on international trade and economics. Locke became more involved in politics (and further developed his political ideas) when Shaftesbury, a founder of the Whig movement in British politics, became Lord Chancellor in 1672. It was also during this time in London that he worked on early drafts of his "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding", eventually published in 1690 and considered one of the principal sources of Empiricism in modern philosophy.

After some time traveling across France following Shaftesbury's fall from favor in 1675, he returned to England in 1679 (when Shaftesbury's political fortunes took a brief positive turn), and began the composition of his famous work of Political Philosophy, the "Two Treatises of Government", which was published anonymously (in order to avoid controversy) in 1689, and whose ideas about natural rights and government were quite revolutionary for that period in English history.

In 1683, Locke fled to Holland, under strong (but probably unfounded) suspicion of involvement in the Rye House Plot. He did not return to England until 1688's Glorious Revolution and the overthrow of King James II by the of the Dutchman William of Orange ( King William III of England), which Locke saw as the ultimate triumph of his revolutionary cause. The publication of "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding", the "Two Treatises of Civil Government" and "A Letter Concerning Toleration" all occurred in quick succession upon his return from exile. His "Essay" in particular brought great fame, and Locke spent much of the rest of his life responding to admirers and critics by making revisions in later editions of the book.

In 1691, he moved to his close friend Lady Masham's country house at Oates, Essex. During this period, he became something of an intellectual hero of the Whigs, and he discussed matters with such figures as John Dryden and Sir Isaac Newton. He continued to work at the Board of Trade from 1696 until his retirement in 1700.

However, his health deteriorated, marked by regular asthma attacks, and he died on 28 October 1704, and was buried in the churchyard of High Laver. He never married, and had no children.

Locke wrote on philosophical, scientific and political matters throughout his life, in a voluminous correspondence and ample journals, but the public works for which he is best known were published in a single, sudden burst in 1689 - 1690.

The fundamental principles of Locke's Epistemology are presented in his monumental "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding" of 1690, the culmination of twenty years of reflection on the origins of human knowledge. In it he argued the empiricist approach that would be adopted by the British Empiricism movement: that all of our ideas, whether simple or complex, are ultimately derived from experience and sensory input. The knowledge of which we are capable is therefore severely limited in its scope and certainty, in that we can never know the inner nature of the things around us, only their behavior and the way in which they affect us and other things (a kind of modified Skepticism). One of the ways in which they affect us is through our senses, giving us experiences (or representations or images) of their properties or qualities.

Locke saw the properties of things as being of two distinct kinds. Their real inner natures derive from the primary qualities, which we can never experience and so never know. Our knowledge of material substances, therefore, depends heavily on their secondary qualities (by reference to which we also name them), which are mind-dependent and of a sensory or qualitative nature. He therefore believed in a type of Representationalism, that these primary qualities are "explanatorily basic" in that they can be referred to as the explanation for other qualities or phenomena without requiring explanation themselves, and that these qualities are distinct in that our sensory experience of them resembles them in reality.

He claimed that "the mind is furnished with ideas by experience alone" (an idea being something within the mind that represents things outside the mind). However, he also argued that a proper application of our cognitive capacities is enough to guide our action in the practical conduct of life, and that it is in the process of reasoning that the mind confronts the raw ideas it has received (an approach not dissimilar to the Dualism of Descartes). His definition of knowledge might be stated, then, as the perception of the relationship between ideas.

Where Locke differed markedly from Descartes and other predecessors, though, was in the status he granted to the senses. Descartes held that the senses incline us to have certain beliefs, but that this alone does not amount to actual knowledge (which requires interpretation and explanation by reason and the intellect). For Locke, however, the senses themselves are a basic and fundamental faculty which deliver knowledge in their own right. Indeed, his whole conception of an idea differed from that of Descartes: for Descartes, an idea was fundamentally intellectual; for Locke it was fundamentally sensory, and all thought involved images of a sensory nature.

In later editions of the treatise, he also included detailed accounts of human volition and moral freedom, the personal identity on which our responsibility as moral agents depends, and the dangers of religious enthusiasm.

With his "Two Treatises of Civil Government", published anonymously in 1690 in order to avoid controversy, Locke established himself as a political theorist of the highest order. The "First Treatise" was intended merely to refute Sir Robert Filmer's support of the Divine Right of Kings, arguing that neither scripture nor reason supports Filmer's contentions. The "Second Treatise", however, offered a systematic account of the foundations of political obligation. In Locke's view, all rights begin in the individual property interest created by an investment of labor. The social structure (or "commonwealth") depends for its formation and maintenance on the express consent of those governed by its political powers (the so-called Social Contract or Contractarianism). He believed that majority rule thus becomes the cornerstone of all political order, although dissatisfied citizens reserve a lasting right to revolution.

Like Thomas Hobbes before him, Locke started from a belief that humans have absolute natural rights, in the sense of universal rights that are inherent in the nature of Ethics, and not contingent on human actions or beliefs (a kind of Deontology). However, much of his political work is characterized by his opposition to authoritarianism, and particularly to the tendency towards Totalitarianism advocated by Hobbes. Locke believed that no one should be allowed absolute power, and introduced the idea of the separation of powers, whereby the Church and the judicial system operate independently of the ruling class. In particular, he defined our civil interests (those which the State can and should legitimately protect) as life, liberty, health and property, specifically excluding religious concerns, which he saw as outside the legitimate concern of civil government. If much of this seems familiar from the American Declaration of Independence, that is no coincidence as the American founding fathers freely admitted their debt to Locke's Political Philosophy.

His "Letter Concerning Toleration" of 1689 came in the wake of King Louis XIV of France's revocation of the Edict of Nantes (and the religious persecution which followed it). It argued for a broad (though not limitless) acceptance of alternative religious convictions, as well as a strict separation between Church and State. In his 1695 "The Reasonableness of Christianity", he argued that the basic doctrines of Christianity are relatively few and entirely compatible with reason.

In 1693, Locke produced his contribution to the Philosophy of Education, his influential "Some Thoughts Concerning Education". In it, he claimed (influenced by Avicenna and the Medieval Avicennist movement) that a child's mind is a tabula rasa (or blank slate) and does not contain any innate ideas, nor anything that might be described as human nature. Thus, all men are created equal, and each of us can be said to be the author of our own character. These ideas flowed logically and seamlessly from Locke's underlying belief in Empiricism, that all human knowledge derives from the senses and that therefore there can be no knowledge that precedes observation.

According to Locke, the mind was to be educated by a three-pronged approach: the development of a healthy body; the formation of a virtuous character; and the choice of an appropriate academic curriculum. He maintained that a person is to a large extent a product of his education, and also pointed out that knowledge and attitudes acquired in a child's early formative years are disproportionately influential and have important and lasting consequences.

See the additional sources and recommended reading list below, or check the philosophy books page for a full list. Whenever possible, I linked to books with my amazon affiliate code, and as an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Purchasing from these links helps to keep the website running, and I am grateful for your support!

The Works Of John Locke
by John Locke (Author)

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Clarendon Edition of the Works of John Locke)
by John Locke (Author), Peter H. Nidditch (Editor, Introduction)

Some Thoughts Concerning Education and of the Conduct of the Understanding (Hackett Classics)UK ed. Edition
by John Locke (Author), Ruth W. Grant (Editor), Nathan Tarcov (Editor)

Locke: Two Treatises of Government (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought) 3rd Edition
by John Locke (Author), Peter Laslett (Editor)

A Letter Concerning Toleration (Hackett Classics) Paperback July 1, 1983
by John Locke (Author), James H. Tully (Author)

Locke: His Philosophical Thought 1st Edition
by Nicholas Jolley (Author)

Locke and the Way of Ideas (Key Texts) Paperback Facsimile, 1993
by John W. Yolton (Author)

The Cambridge Companion to Locke (Cambridge Companions to Philosophy)
by Vere Chappell (Editor)

Locke on Human Understanding (Oxford Readings in Philosophy)Paperback October 20, 1977
by I. C. Tipton (Editor)

Locke's Philosophy: Content and Context Reprint Edition
by G. A. J. Rogers (Editor)

Locke: Epistemology and Ontology (Arguments of the Philosophers) 1st Edition
by Michael Ayers (Author)

Problems from Locke 1st Edition
by J. L. Mackie (Author)

Locke (The Great Philosophers Series) 1st Edition
by Michael Ayers (Author)

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Hackett Classics) Abridged Edition
by John Locke (Author), Kenneth P. Winkler (Editor)

Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Locke on Government (Routledge Philosophy GuideBooks)
by David Lloyd Thomas (Author)

God, Locke, and Equality: Christian Foundations in Locke's Political Thought by Jeremy Waldron (2002-12-23) Paperback 1638
by Jeremy Waldron (Author)

Hobbes, Locke, and Confusion's Masterpiece: An Examination of Seventeenth-Century Political Philosophy by Ross Harrison (2002-12-16) Paperback 1656
by Ross Harrison (Author)

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Introduction | Life | Work | Books (Portrait by Sir Godfrey Kneller, 1697) John Locke John Locke (1632 - 1704) was an English philosopher of the Age of Reason and early Age of Enlightenment. His ideas had enormous influence on the development of Epistemology and Political Philosophy, and he is widely regarded as one of the most influential early Enlightenment thinkers.

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John Locke was born August 29, 1632 in Wrington , U.K. and passed on October 28, 1704 at the age of 72. Since his father was a lawyer helping the "Roundhead" side during the English Civil War of 1640s he was able to attend an "elite Westminster School".  He became well rounded as a Lecturer at the Christ Church Oxford, studying logic and metaphysics , as well as medicine staying there for 15 years.

https://www.history.com/topics/british-history/john-locke

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During the Enlightenment John Locke was one of the many philosophers who built it up. He was the first empiricist from the Britain Regions which defined him to support "the theory that all knowledge is based on experience derived from the sense" - Dictionary . He at this time built many ideas such as "All mankind...being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions" , John Locke. As it was the 17th and 18th century the Enlightenment movement was at its high point bringing focus towards rational thinking and individualism, steering away from the old tradition.

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John Locke had multiple influences through Liberalism but one of his largest influences was one The Declaration of Independence. John Lockes works of natural and positive law theory was a huge factor within Thomas Jeffersons signing. President Jefferson would use his ideas to express the need for freedom.  Locke also had his influence because of the idea of separation between government and religion.

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