Locke, John (1632-1704), was an English philosopher. His writings have influenced political science and philosophy. Locke’s book Two Treatises of Government (1690) strongly influenced Thomas Jefferson in the writing of the Declaration of Independence.
His life.
Locke was born on Aug. 29, 1632, in Wrington in Somerset County. He attended Oxford University. In 1666, he met Anthony Ashley Cooper, who later became the first Earl of Shaftesbury. The two men became close friends. In 1679, the earl became involved in plots against the king, and suspicion also fell on Locke. The philosopher decided to leave England. In 1683, he moved to the Netherlands, where he met Prince William and Princess Mary of Orange. William and Mary became the rulers of England in 1689, and Locke returned to England as a court favorite. Until his death, on Oct. 28, 1704, he wrote widely on such subjects as educational reform, freedom of the press, and religious tolerance.
His philosophy.
Locke’s major work was An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690). It describes his theory of how the mind functions in learning about the world. Locke argued against the doctrine of innate ideas, which stated that ideas were part of the mind at birth and not learned or acquired later from outside sources. Locke claimed that all ideas were placed in the mind by experience. He declared that there were two kinds of experience, outer and inner. Outer experience was acquired through the senses of sight, taste, hearing, smell, and touch, which provide information about the external world. Inner experience was acquired by thinking about the mental processes involved in sifting these data, which furnished information about the mind.
Locke believed that the universe contained three kinds of things–minds, various types of bodies, and God. Bodies had two kinds of properties. One kind was mathematically measurable, such as length and weight, and existed in the bodies themselves. The second kind was qualitative, such as sound and color. These properties were not in the bodies themselves but were simply powers that bodies had to produce ideas of colors and sounds in the mind.
According to Locke, a good life was a life of pleasure. Pleasure and pain were simple ideas that accompanied nearly all human experiences. Ethical action involved determining which act in a given situation would produce the greatest pleasure—and then performing that act. Locke also believed that God had established divine law. This law could be discovered by reason, and to disobey it was morally wrong. Locke thought that divine law and the pleasure principle were compatible.
Locke believed that people by nature had certain rights and duties. These rights included liberty, life, and ownership of property. By liberty, Locke meant political equality. The task of any state was to protect people’s rights. States inconvenience people in various ways. Therefore, the justification for a state’s existence had to be found in its ability to protect human rights better than individuals could on their own. Locke declared that if a government did not adequately protect the rights of its citizens, they had the right to find other rulers.
See also Civil rights (Natural rights) ; Democracy (Democracy in England) ; Empiricism ; Philosophy (Empiricism) .
