John Locke (29 Aug 1632 - 28 Oct 1704) was an English physician and philosopher and a key Enlightenment influence. After Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes, Locke developed Empiricism as a strong response to Cartesian Dualism and Rationalism, and a new Contract Theory in response to the Machiavellian Prince and Hobbsian Leviathan. Locke's theory of Mind based on Experience is, with Descartes' focus on Innate Ideas, part of the origin of modern conceptions of Identity and Self, figuring prominently in the work of David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant. Locke's contributions to classical notions of Republicanism and Liberalism were a strong influence on Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Jefferson, and thus, the French and American Revolutions.

Life and Works

Locke's Father, also John Locke, was a country lawyer and clerk to the Justices of the Peace in Chew Magna, England, serving as a Captain of Cavalry for Parliamentarian Forces during the English Civil War. Locke's Mother, Agnes Keene, was a tanner's daughter and reputed to be very beautiful. Both were Puritan, and Locke was born in a small thatched cottage by the Church in Wrington, Somerset, near Bristol, baptized the same day. Locke was sent to the prestigious Westminster School in London, and later admitted to Christ Church, Oxford.

Locke found the works of "modern" philosophers, such as Descartes, more interesting than the Classics taught at University, was introduced to Medicine and was awarded a Bachelor Degree in 1656, a Master's in 1658, a Bachelor of Medicine later, in 1674. In 1666, Locke met Lord Anthony Ashley Cooper, First Earl of Shaftesbury, who was impressed with Locke and persuaded him to move into his home at Exeter House in London, serving as Lord Ashley's personal physician. Shaftesbury survived an operation under Locke's care, and credited Locke with saving his life.

During this time, Locke served as Secretary of the Board of Trade and Plantations, and Secretary to the Lords and Proprietors of the Carolinas, helping shape ideas on International Trade and Economics. Around this time, most likely at Lord Ashley's prompting, Locke composed the bulk of the Two Treatises of Government. Locke wrote the Treatises to defend the Glorious Revolution of 1688, but also to counter the "absolutist" Political Philosophy of Hobbes and others. Though Locke was associated with the influential Whigs, his ideas about Natural Rights and Government are considered nothing short of revolutionary for the period.

The bulk of Locke's publishing took place upon his return from a short period of political exile, his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, the Two Treatises of Civil Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration all appearing in quick succession. Locke became an intellectual hero of the Whigs, and discussed such matters with John Dryden and Isaac Newton. John Locke died on 28 October, 1704, and was buried in the churchyard of the village of High Laver, having witnessed the English Restoration, the Great Plague and Great Fire of London. His epitaph reads:

Near this place lies JOHN LOCKE. If you are wondering what kind of man he was, he answers that he was contented with his modest lot. Bred a scholar, he made his learning subservient only to the cause of truth. You will learn this from his writings, which will show you everything about him more truthfully than the suspect praises of an epitaph. His virtues, if indeed he had any, were too slight to be lauded by him or to be an example to you. Let his vices be buried with him. Of virtue you have an example in the gospels, should you desire it; of vice would there were none for you; of mortality surely you have one here and everywhere, and may you learn from it.

Lockean Philosophy

Experience and the Self

Locke was the first to define the Self through a continuity of consciousness, and postulated that the Mind was a "blank slate", a tabula rasa. Locke argued persuasively against the Cartesian notion of Innate Ideas, showing that all Knowledge instead arises by Experience, derived from Sense Perception. In Epistemology, Locke redefined Subjectivity as empirical, and thus with Descartes' Mediations on First Philosophy (1641), Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) helps mark the beginning of the our current conceptions of Consciousness, Self, Perception and Subjectivity.

The Self, for Locke, is a conscious "thinking thing" which is aware of pleasure and pain, and thus capable of happiness and misery. The Lockean Subjectivity is a self-aware and self-reflective consciousness fixed in a body, a conscious Mind shaped by its own Experience, rather than being formed from birth as is. Associations of Ideas we make when young are more important than those made later, because they are the very foundation of the Self. This seems to directly allow for individuality and unique life experiences, rather than forcing us all into "innate" categories and types, and thus, Diversity is a part of Locke's Philosophy.

Property and the State

Political Philosophy and Modern Liberalism are rooted in Locke, a rejection of Hobbesian Absolutism with a clear separation of Church and State. His arguments concerning Liberty and the Social Contract were so persuasive that passages taken from Locke's Second Treatise are reproduced verbatim in the United States Declaration of Independence. Locke formulated the classic case for religious tolerance, citing that we cannot dependably evaluate the truth of competing religious standpoints, that enforcing a single "true religion" would be forcing belief by violence, and that coercing religious uniformity leads directly to social disorder.

Detractors note that in 1671, Locke was an investor in the English slave-trade through the Royal Africa Company, as well as being draftsman of the Fundamental Constitution of the Carolinas while Lord Ashley's Secretary, which established a Feudal Aristocracy based on Slavery. Such apparent hypocrisy is especially pointed against Locke's Philosophy, as based on "property" in both broad and narrow senses, relating to Human interests and aspirations, but also material goods. Property, for Locke, is a Natural Right derived from Labour, and ownership is created by the application of that Labour. However, Locke's Philosophy indicates both that those working on property are individuals, and that they would naturally aquire its ownership, rather than the property being owned by those who "own" those who work on it. Karl Marx later critiqued this use of property as particularly insidious, in his social theory, Dialectical Materialism.

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John Locke

Life and Works

Lockean Philosophy

Experience and the Self

Property and the State

Further Reading

Works by Locke

Secondary Literature

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