...Enlightenment Philosopher Research - John Locke John Locke was an English political philosopher who was one of the most influential Enlightenment thinkers and inspired the world with his ideas about the government and natural rights. He was also known as the “Father of Liberal Philosophy” because of his belief in Liberalism, which is a government whose authority is justified by its respect for human rights. Liberal government must treat individuals with respect, and pass laws that assure people freedom and liberty. He was not a follower for absolutism since he believed that all men are “equal and independent,” so no body should not ever “harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions.” Locke expanded the idea that the purpose of government is to protect the natural rights of the citizens. He believed that all men should be given three natural rights such as life, liberty and property, and that people naturally receive these rights simply by being born. Therefore, the role of government was to maintain these rights and if a government fails to preserve these rights, then the people have the right to change their government. Locke’s ideas were spread to the American thinkers when two of the English writers, John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon popularized Locke’s political ideas in a famous series of articles published in London newspapers, and these had the most direct impact on American philosophers. Locke’s influence was most apparent in the Declaration of Independence...
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...Locke’s property Locke was born in 1632, when king Charles 1 was in his throne. What we learn about Locke is his ideas about religion, natural law, Social contract, etc but he was also a doctor and a revolutionist. In his famous writing, “Second treatise of government”, he appealed his idea about property. According to the chapter 5, property, he is saying that property is a right that is given by god to human beings. And property can be owned when it is mixed by own person’s labour. But simultaneously, Locke said that there should be consent of the other people. Also he said that there is a limitation on property. For example, by picking apples and through that labour apples become my property. However, if anyone possesses more than he or she could get, then it is the violation of the natural law. Therefore people started to barter of their surplus properties. Also money had invented such as gold and silver that are never gonna rot in a short time, which made barter more easily. So, human mankind could expand their property and can be free within the boundary of natural law. If the property is robbed by another person then the owner of the property have right to punish the thief. But, protect own indivisual’s property more secure, people came to the idea of Social contract. The important point here is that Locke’s government made by citizen’s contract can never deprive property out of the citizen’s pocket. Even one penny. In other words, government can deprive life of...
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... John Locke John Locke was more than just an ordinary man. He was the son of a country attorney and born on August 29, 1632. He grew up during the civil war and later entered the Church of Christ and remained there as a student and teacher for many years. With a wide variety of political and religious views, John expressed most of his personnel views on education, social, political and philosophies. Many of John’s views both political and religious were found to be famous though-out history in many countries. Locke was one of the first people who thought religion and state should be separated. Locke published anonymously the “Two Treaties of Government” and an essay “Concerning Human Understanding.” These writings were immediately successful and both influenced Rousseau and Voltaire along with many other scholars. John Locke’s Two Treatise of Government is a well-known and respected document. In the paper, John attacked the theory of the divine right of kings and maintained that all men are free and equal in the state of nature to posses certain rights. He did not believe that a king should become king because “God told him to,” but rather he was qualified for the position and the people felt he should be there. Locke argued that sovereignty did not reside in the state, but with the people and that, the state is supreme, but only if civil and “natural” law binds it. The task and duty of the government of any state was to protect mans rights. Locke believed...
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...John Locke John locke was a English liberalist, believing that no man is without liberty or equality. He also supported the rights to which a man could have. His philosophy was to believe that man could not be controlled by another man; only you can control yourself and the power of nature. Locke was born in august 29, 1632. In 1647, he attended the Westminster school of London, later earning his bachelor’s degree and master’s degree. In oxford he had earned a bachelor of medicine in 1674. One day a man named Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st earl of Shaftesbury to get his liver treated. He apparently met Locke and was thoroughly impressed at his skill in medicine, asking John to later become an attendant for the earl, earning his right to be called a doctor of sorts to Cooper. Later Locke had performed surgery with several others and saved Cooper from a life-threatening liver infection. This later influenced his life as “thinker”. Shaftesbury later became lord chancellor in 1672, After that John Locke spent a lot of years traveling around Europe and came back to England in 1679, and having written the Two Treatises of government, which argued that absolute monarchy is unjust and wrong, but these views and ideas of his proved to be revolutionary. Later being spied and questioned for the assassination attempt of the current king – King Charles II of England, he fled to the Netherlands in 1683 and then continued his writings and revised quite a large sum of it, including the letter...
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...Notes: John Locke, 1632-1704, Essay on Human Understanding • a British philosopher • Oxford academic and medical researcher • his association with Anthony Ashley Cooper (later the First Earl of Shaftesbury) led him to become o a government official charged with collecting information about trade and colonies, o An economic writer, opposition political activist, and o finally a revolutionary whose cause ultimately triumphed in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. • Much of his work is characterized by opposition to authoritarianism. • This opposition is both on the level of the individual person and on the level of institutions such as government and church. • Locke's monumental An Essay Concerning Human Understanding concerns itself with determining the limits of human understanding in respect to God, the self, natural kinds and artifacts, as well as a variety of different kinds of ideas. • It thus tells us in some detail what one can legitimately claim to know and what one cannot. • Locke also wrote a variety of important political, religious and educational works including the Two Treatises of Government, the Letters Concerning Toleration, The Reasonableness of Christianity and Some Thoughts Concerning Education. Essay on Human Understanding • Locke is often classified as the first of the great English empiricists (ignoring the claims of Bacon and Hobbes). • This reputation rests on An Essay Concerning...
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...Subjects to Citizens: Locke, the Enlightenment and the French Revolution The idea of people as citizens rather than as subjects originates in 16th century Europe, during the Early Modern Period. During this period, European social order was in a state of flux as the rule of kings was confronted with a persistent and determined challenges defined by social forces that were pushing for more secular and democratic governments. There were both individuals and events that today may be seen as powerful drivers of those forces, and among them are John Locke, the Enlightenment, and the French Revolution. As such a force, the Enlightenment, which began during the mid-17th century and remained a major political and philosophical phenomenon until approximately 1800, had tremendous impact in the rise and triumph of democracy over monarchy. The Enlightenment was catalyzed by the persistent discourse of a number of philosophers and historians, one of the foremost of which was John Locke. The magnitude of change introduced by the Enlightenment is rendered more clearly when viewing that period in context of the preceding era—the Medieval Period, during which the rule of kings prevailed, sustained by an embedded religious institutions that qualified the lineages of kings for ruler ship through divine ordainment. The Church enjoyed considerable reciprocity from the crowns by doing so, because rulers recognized the equity that religion held in the minds of their “subjects”...
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...sensory experience or any religious teachings as the source of knowledge or justification. Thus, it holds that some propositions are knowable by us by intuition alone, while others are knowable by being deduced through valid arguments from intuited propositions. It relies on the idea that reality has a rational structure in that all aspects of it can be grasped through mathematical and logical principles, and not simply through sensory experience. The most famous rationalists were Descartes and Spinoza. Empiricism is a philosophical perspective to counter the rationalism of the 17th century. Empiricists were philosophers who felt that everything in our mind comes from our experience through the senses. They heavily critiqued the rationalists. Locke, Berkeley and Hume were the most famous empiricists. Throughout this age, the Philosophers evolved all thinking of different ways of understanding our purpose in life and how we work along with various other explanations involving the world around them. Rene Descartes (1596 - 1650) was a French philosopher, mathematician, scientist and writer of the Age of Reason. He had a desire to achieve insight into the nature of man and the universe. He has been called the "Father of Modern Philosophy" and he was one of the most influential philosophers in modern philosophy and many believe he was very ahead of his time. Many think he was similar to Socrates because he was convinced that certain knowledge is gained through reason. He second guessed...
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...John Locke - Biography John Locke (1632-1704) John Locke was born on August 29, 1632, in Warington, a village in Somerset, England. In 1646 he went to Westminster school, and in 1652 to Christ Church in Oxford. In 1659 he was elected to a senior studentship, and tutored at the college for a number of years. Still, contrary to the curriculum, he complained that he would rather be studying Descartes than Aristotle. In 1666 he declined an offer of preferment, although he thought at one time of taking up clerical work. In 1668 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1674 he finally graduated as a bachelor of medicine. In 1675 he was appointed to a medical studentship at the college. He owned a home in Oxford until 1684, until his studentship was taken from him by royal mandate. Locke's mentor was Robert Boyle, the leader of the Oxford scientific group. Boyle's mechanical philosophy saw the world as reducible to matter in motion. Locke learned about atomism and took the terms "primary and secondary qualities" from Boyle. Both Boyle and Locke, along with Newton, were members of the English Royal Society. Locke became friends with Newton in 1688 after he had studied Newton's Principia Mathematica Philosophiae Naturalis. It was Locke's work with the Oxford scientists that gave him a critical perspective when reading Descartes. Locke admired Descartes as an alternative to the Aristotelianism dominant at Oxford. Descartes' "way of ideas" was a major influence on Locke's...
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...and the human understanding that led to governmental and social improvements. John Locke believed in political reform. John Locke is one of the most influential authors and political philosophers in history. His ideas and views have influenced such momentous commodity such as the American constitution. Many of Locke’s ideas were used in the creation of the United States Constitution. John Locke was a British philosopher and medical researcher. Locke was born to Agnes Keene and John Locke on August 29, 1632, in Somerset, England. His father was a Puritan lawyer, who served as a Captain during the English civil war. Locke’s schooling began at Westminster School in 1647. He earned the title of King’s Scholar, which prepared him for the next phase of his education at the Christ Church in Oxford in 1652. He studied literature, physical science, medicine, politics, and natural philosophy. In 1656 he continued for his Master of Arts degree. In 1665 at Oxford, Locke encountered Lord Ashley, a notable statesman looking for medical treatment. After a friendship formed, Ashley invited Locke to join him in London as his personal physician. Locke agreed and left for London in 1667, where he lived for the next eight years. This was the beginning of Locke’s deep political interests, which was no surprised considering that Ashley was one of England’s most skilled politicians. While in London, Locke took a job in Government researching the relationship between trade possibilities and...
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...JOHN LOCKE Summary The First Treatise is a criticism of Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha, which argues in support of the divine right of kings. According to Locke, Filmer cannot be correct because his theory holds that every man is born a slave to the natural born kings. Locke refuses to accept such a theory because of his belief in reason and in the ability of every man to virtuously govern himself according to God’s law. The Second Treatise is Locke’s proposed solution to the political upheaval in England and in other modern countries. This text laid the foundation for modern forms of democracy and for the Constitution of the United States. The Second Treatise consists of a short preface and nineteen chapters. In chapter i, Locke defines political power as the right to make laws for the protection and regulation of property. In his view, these laws only work because the people accept them and because they are for the public good. In chapter ii, Locke claims that all men are originally in a state of nature. A man in this original state is bound by the laws of nature, but he is otherwise able to live, act, and dispose of his possessions as he sees fit. More important, human beings, free from the arbitrary laws of other men, have an obligation to protect the interests of each other, since they are all equally children of God. They also have an obligation to punish those who go against God’s will and attempt to harm another by compromising his life, liberty, or possessions. In chapters...
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...Jhon Locke: Mercados Libre y Derechos “El Mercado y los Negocios”: John locke afirma que el mercado debe ser libre del poder coercitivo del gobierno ya que los seres humanos poseen “ Derechos Naturales” con los cuales pueden disponer libremente de una propiedad e intercambiar bienes de forma voluntaria y libre, estos son el derecho a la libertad y a la propiedad privada. Según el pensamiento del Filosófo, “la razón” es una ley natural innata del hombre, que lo llevara a concluir que para ser todos iguales nadie debe dañar a otro en su vida, salud, libertad y posesiones; y deberá tratar a los demás como esa persona quiera ser tratada. La ley natural también dicta que el hombre tiene derechos sobre sus cuerpos, su trabajo y todo lo que provenga de este; por lo tanto los hombres tienen derecho a poseer lo que trabajaron, modificando lo que obtuvieron de la naturaleza mediante su esfuerzo. Sin embargo los hombres inevitablemente se organizaran en un cuerpo político y crearan un gobierno para proteger sus derechos naturales, ya que el estado natural es muy inseguro, debido a que no todos tienen el mismo punto de vista de equidad y justicia. Este gobierno solo debe limitarse a preservar estos derechos y no debe interferir a menos que sea para proteger estos. Los derechos naturales implican que en las sociedades deben incorporar en el mercado instituciones de propiedad privada y los mercados de libre intercambio. Las críticas de los derechos lockeanas se han concentrado...
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...The pure state of nature or "the natural condition of mankind" was deduced by the 17th century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, in Leviathan. Hobbes argued that all humans are by nature equal in faculties of body and mind. From this equality and other causes in human nature, everyone is naturally willing to fight one another: so that "during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man". In this state every person has a natural right or liberty to do anything one thinks necessary for preserving one's own life; and life is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short" (Leviathan, Chapters XIII-XIV). In short Hobbes believes is self-preservation, even if something was someonelse's, if you felt the need for it you had the right to fight for it and claim it as your own. Hobbes described this natural condition with the Latin phrase bellum omnium contra omnes (meaning war of all against all), in his work De Cive. Within the state of nature there is neither private property nor injustice since there is no law, except for certain natural precepts discovered by reason ("laws of nature"): the first of which is "that every man ought to endeavor peace, as far as he has hope of obtaining it" (Leviathan, Ch. XIV); and the second is "that a man be willing, when others are so too, as far forth as for peace and defense of himself he shall think it necessary, to lay down this...
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...John Locke, Thomas More, and Thomas Hobbes were all political philosophers of their time. Thomas More, would be the least of a philosopher out of the three. Thomas More, a respected statesmen and prominent political figure and advisor to Henry VIII, was best known for authoring Utopia which depicts the social, religious, and political customs of a fictional island and attempts to define an ideal society. More’s Utopia portrays a humanist ideal world, where there is freedom and harmony between individuals and Sovereign themselves. The difficulty with Utopia is that it does not consider actual human behavior patterns. A society can accept the idea of perfect society, there is no need for “thank you” or “I’m sorry” in a society that runs on perfection and generosity runs like a spectacular waterfall. The problem is that Utopia wouldn’t work, a society would become susceptible to negative behavior, once one individual abuses the generosity of others, others will see the advantage and start to follow...
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...The Key to Locke Born in 1632, John Locke is known as one of the most famous philosophers from the 17th century. Not only known as an esteemed philosopher, Locke was also a physician and political theorists. Locke believed in “The Enlightenment,” which is the theory that reason is more important than faith and science is more important than religion. Perhaps one of Locke’s most famous works was An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. In this essay, Locke began to analyze the human mind and how we acquire knowledge. Within this essay, Locke established the “Tabula Rasa” theory or “blank slate” theory, which is that every human is a “white paper, void of all characters, without any ideas.” (Locke 1). Published in 1690, “this paper considers...
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...Philosophy Essay (Descartes vs. Locke) Socrates once said, “As for me, all I know is that I know nothing.” Several philosophers contradicted Socrates’ outlook and believed that true knowledge was in fact attainable. This epistemological view however had several stances to it, as philosophers held different beliefs in regards to the derivation of true knowledge. Rationalists believed that the mind was the source of true knowledge, while in Empiricism, true knowledge derived from the senses. Rene Descartes, a rationalist, and John Locke, an empiricist, were prime examples of epistemologists who were seen to differentiate greatly within each of their philosophies. However, although Descartes and Locke’s ideas did contrast in that sense, they both shared common concepts that helped mould the basis of their ideas. Descartes and Locke both agreed that there were things in life that exist that we can be certain of. For Descartes, human experiences did not provide sufficient proof of existence. He indicated that through his Dream Conjecture and his Evil-Demon Theory (Paquette 205). Descartes stated that we cannot be certain if reality is a dream or not, thus questioning our existence (Paquette 205). In his Evil-Demon Theory, Descartes claimed that for all he knew, an evil demon could be putting thoughts into his head, making him think that reality was true when it was in fact false (Paquette 205). Ultimately, all this thinking resulted in Descartes coming to the conclusion that...
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