Locke
Name: John Locke
Achievements: An initiator of the Enlightenment in England and France, who inspired the US Constitution.
Born: August 29, 1632; Wrington, Somerset, England
Died: October 28, 1704; Oates, Essex, England (Aged 72)
Field & Discipline: Philosophy; Philosopher
Language: English
Father: John Locke
Mother: Agnes Keene
Siblings: Thomas (1637-62)
Spouse: None
Children: None
Education: Westminster School, London (1647-52); Christ Church College, University of Oxford (1652-58)
Major Work:
“Essay Concerning Human Understanding” (1690)
Life & Times:
Locke graduated with a BA in 1656 and an MA two years later, then was elected a Fellow of Christ Church College, where he began to lecture on Greek, rhetoric and moral philosophy, particularly the work of [lectured on] William of Ockham*. In 1660, now a Tutor at the college, Locke enthusiastically welcomed the end of the Puritan Commonwealth and the restoration of [welcomed] Charles II* to the throne.
During the early 1660s, he began to think about political authority and toleration, and wrote two papers, “Two Tracts on Government” which went unpublished, and “Essays on the Law of Nature,” lectures that were delivered in 1664.
He began to study and experiment in medicine and science, meeting, among others, [a pal of] Wilkins* and [a pal of] Boyle*, who became a lifelong friend. In 1665, Locke went on a diplomatic mission to Brandenburg, then returned to Oxford, where he began to study the recent work of philosophers [studied] Hobbes*, [studied] Descartes*, [studied] Gassendi*.
In 1666, Locke met Lord Ashley, the statesman who, six years later, was to become the first Earl of Shaftesbury, Chancellor of the Exchequer at the court of Charles II and the most forceful politician of the Left, as well as the most prominent champion of free trade and religious toleration.
Locke immediately became friends with Ashley and within a year Locke had left Oxford to become his personal doctor, moving into his house in the Strand, London. He soon became Ashley’s personal adviser on medical, scientific and political matters and on his general affairs.
Through Ashley, Locke regularly met the leading intellectuals in London to discuss philosophical and scientific problems. These meetings would lead to the earliest drafts, in 1671, of his famous “Essay Concerning Human Understanding.” In 1668, he was elected to the Royal Society.
In London, Locke met one of the great physicians of the day, [met] Sydenham*, who was a pioneer in the treatment of infectious diseases, and taught Locke the latest clinical methods in medicine.
In 1675, Locke, who suffered badly from asthma, began to find the polluted air of London unhealthy, so he went to France, where he spent the next few years in Paris and Montpellier.
When Locke returned to England in April 1679, he found the country split between support and opposition to Charles II's brother, the Roman Catholic Duke of York, who in 1685 was to become King James II. In 1681, the libertarian Lord Ashley, now the Earl of Shaftesbury, was arrested, tried, and finally acquitted by a London jury, and in 1682, he went to Holland, where, two years later, he died.
Few of Shaftesbury's left-wing friends were safe in Great Britain and in September 1683, Locke followed his patron to Holland, where he joined the supporters of the Protestant [supporter of] William of Orange*, who was to become William III of England in 1689. Locke stayed in Holland until after William's successful invasion of England and the flight of James II, in 1688.
In February 1689, Locke was a member of the group that accompanied the Princess of Orange, now to be crowned Queen Mary II of England, and he attended the dual coronation in the company of the historian of the Royal Society, [a pal of] Sprat*.
Locke now began publishing work that he had prepared while he was in Holland. In 1689, the first work, “A Letter Concerning Toleration,” was published. In it he maintained that the state should leave every man, with the exception of Catholics and atheists, free to work out their salvation in their own way, because true faith and true morality could not be enforced by a secular power.
This work caused such controversy that Locke was led to publish a Second Letter in 1690, then a Third Letter two years later. In 1690, he published “Two Treatises on Government” as well, in which he proposed a justification of natural rights, constitutional law, the liberty of the individual and the rule of the majority, based on the concept of the social contract.
In “Two Treatises,” which became a classic work, Locke argued that the consent of the people was the only true basis of any sovereign's right to rule, as opposed to the traditional idea of the divine right of kings advocated by Sir Robert Filmer and the absolutist Hobbes.
At the basis of Locke's works lay the idea that if the ruling body offended against natural law, it must be deposed. This sanctioning of rebellion had a powerful influence on the American and the French revolutions. Many of Locke’s political ideas, particularly
relating to natural and property rights, the duty of the government to protect these rights, and majority rule, were later embodied in the American Constitution.
For two decades, Locke had been working on a major philosophical work concerned with human knowledge. Late in 1690, he finally published “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.” The essay was a systematic enquiry into the nature and scope of human reason, reflecting current scientific thinking that “all knowledge is founded on and ultimately derives from sense . . . or sensation.”
Locke regarded the mind at birth as a blank slate onto which experience wrote knowledge, and he refused to believe in intuition or theories of innate conceptions. He also believed that all people were born good, independent, and equal. His essay is now regarded as the first and probably the most important statement of an empiricist theory of knowledge in the British tradition.
In 1691, Locke retired to live at the home of his friends Sir Francis and Lady Masham, in Oates, in the county of Essex, where he was regularly visited by the most notable intellectuals of the day, including [visited by] Newton*.
Other issues occupied Locke during the years following the publication of his great work. The financial difficulties of the new government led, in 1691, to his publication of “Some Considerations of the Consequences of Lowering of Interest, and Raising the Value of Money,” and of “Further Considerations” on the same question four years later. In 1693, he published his influential “Some Thoughts Concerning Education.”
In 1695, Locke published a controversial plea for a less dogmatic Christianity, “The Reasonableness of Christianity,” and later two “Vindications.”
Extra Connections: He influenced the French philosophers and scientists of the Enlightenment, in particular [influenced] Condillac*, [influenced] de La Mettrie* and [influenced] Buffon*.
He knew [knew] Dampier*, the English navigator and hydrographer and [knew] Whiston*, the English mathematician.
At school with [schoolfellow was] Dryden*.
[theories rejected by] Emerson* rejected his philosophy
Assessment: His works had a great impact on the empiricist theory of knowledge in the British tradition.
Oneliner: John Locke, major English philospher
Bibliography:
- Dunn, John, Locke, Oxford & New York, Oxford University Press, 1984.