Philosopher, born in Wrington, Somerset. He studied at Oxford, and in 1667 joined the household of Anthony Ashley Cooper, later first Earl of Shaftesbury, gaining through him a succession of official appointments and meeting the leading intellectuals of the day, including Robert Boyle. In 1672, Locke became secretary of the Board of Trade, lived in France for health reasons (16759), then moved to Holland. He returned to England in 1689, and became a commissioner of appeals, retiring in 1691 to Oates, Essex. His major work, the Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) is a systematic enquiry into the nature and scope of human reason, very much reflecting the scientific temper of the times in seeking to establish that all knowledge is founded on and ultimately derives from sense...or sensation; the work was the starting point of the British empiricist tradition which led from Locke to Berkeley and Hume. His Two Treatises of Government (1690) were also influential, and his sanctioning of rebellion in defence of natural rights and constitutional law had a powerful influence on the American and French revolutionaries.
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Western Philosophers 17th-century philosophy (Modern Philosophy) |
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| John Locke | |
| Name: | John Locke |
| Birth: | August 29, 1632 (Wrington, Somerset, England) |
| Death: | October 28, 1704 (Essex, England) |
| School/tradition: | British Empiricism, Social contract, Natural law |
| Main interests: | Metaphysics, Epistemology, Political philosophy, philosophy of mind, Education |
| Notable ideas: | tabula rasa, "government with the consent of the governed"; rights of life, liberty and property |
| Influences: | Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Grotius, Descartes, Hooker, Hobbes |
| Influenced: | Hume, Kant, and many political philosophers after him, especially the American Founding Fathers, Arthur Schopenhauer |
John Locke (August 29, 1632 – October 28, 1704) was an influential English philosopher. If such consent was not given, argued Locke, citizens had a right of rebellion. Locke is one of the few major philosophers who became a minister of government.
Locke's ideas had an enormous influence on the development of political philosophy, and he is widely regarded as one of the most influential Enlightenment thinkers and contributors to liberal theory.
Life
Locke's father, also named John Locke, was a country lawyer and clerk to the Justices of the Peace in Chew Magna, who had served as a captain of cavalry for the Parliamentarian forces during the early part of the English Civil War.
Locke was born on August 29, 1632, in a small thatched cottage by the church in Wrington, Somerset, about twelve miles from Bristol. Soon after Locke's birth, the family moved to the market town of Pensford, about seven miles south of Bristol, where Locke grew up in a rural Tudor house in Belluton.
In 1647, Locke was sent to the prestigious Westminster School in London under the sponsorship of Alexander Popham, a member of Parliament and former commander of the younger Locke's father. Although a capable student, Locke was irritated by the undergraduate curriculum of the time. Through his friend Richard Lower whom he knew from the Westminster School, Locke was introduced to medicine and the experimental philosophy being pursued at other universities and in the English Royal Society, of which he eventually became a member.
Locke was awarded a bachelor's degree in 1656 and a master's degree in 1658. Cooper was impressed with Locke and persuaded him to become part of his retinue.
Locke had been looking for a career and in 1667 moved into Shaftesbury's home at Exeter House in London, to serve as Lord Ashley's personal physician. In London, Locke resumed his medical studies under the tutelage of Thomas Sydenham. Sydenham had a major impact on Locke's natural philosophical thinking - an impact that would become evident in the An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.
Locke's medical knowledge was soon put to the test, since Shaftesbury's liver infection became life-threatening. Locke coordinated the advice of several physicians and was probably instrumental in persuading Shaftesbury to undergo an operation (then life-threatening itself) to remove the cyst. Shaftesbury survived and prospered, crediting Locke with saving his life. It was also during this time that 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.
Shaftesbury, as a founder of the Whig movement, exerted great influence on Locke's political ideas. Locke became involved in politics when Shaftesbury became Lord Chancellor in 1672. Following Shaftesbury's fall from favour in 1675, Locke spent some time travelling across France. It was around this time, most likely at Shaftesbury's prompting, that Locke composed the bulk of the Two Treatises on Government. Locke wrote the Treatises to defend the Glorious Revolution of 1688, but also to counter the absolutist political philosophy of Sir Robert Filmer and Thomas Hobbes. Though Locke was associated with the influential Whigs, his ideas about natural rights and government are today considered quite revolutionary for that period in English history.
However, Locke fled to the Netherlands in 1683, under strong suspicion of involvement in the Rye House Plot (though there is little evidence to suggest that he was directly involved in the scheme). In the Netherlands Locke had time to return to his writing, spending a great deal of time re-working the Essay and composing the Letter on Toleration. Locke did not return home until after the Glorious Revolution. The bulk of Locke's publishing took place after his arrival back in England - the Essay, the Two Treatises and A Letter Concerning Toleration all appearing in quick succession upon his return from exile.
His close friend, Lady Masham invited Locke to join her at the Masham's country house in Essex.
Events that happened during Locke's lifetime include the English Restoration, the Great Plague of London and the Great Fire of London. Constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy were in their infancy during Locke's time.
Influence
Locke exercised a profound influence on subsequent philosophy and politics, in particular on liberalism.
Appraisals of Locke have often been tied to appraisals of liberalism in general, and also to appraisals of the United States.
Theory of property
Locke uses the word property in both broad and narrow senses.
Scholars believe that Karl Marx later adapted Locke's theory on property in his philosophies. John Locke had the thought that all men had the natural rights of life, liberty, and property (the latter was replaced by "the pursuit of happiness" during negotiations of the drafting of the US Declaration of Independence, as a way to negate slaves' right to property).
Political theory
Unlike Thomas Hobbes, Locke believed that human nature is characterized by reason and tolerance. In a natural state all people were equal and independent, and none had a right to harm another’s “life, health, liberty, or possessions.” Locke never refers to Hobbes by name, however, and may instead have been responding to other writers of the day. Locke also advocated governmental checks and balances and believed that revolution is not only a right but an obligation in some circumstances.
The Labour theory of value
Locke believed that the value of property is created by the application of labor to it.
Limits to accumulation
• Labour creates property, but it also contains limits to its accumulation: man’s capacity to produce and man’s capacity to consume.
• Goods of greater durability are introduced, those exposed to quick spoilage can be exchanged for something that lasts longer, for example: plums for nuts, nuts for a piece of metal…
• The introduction of money marks the culmination of this process.
• The introduction of money eliminates the limits of accumulation and inequality. Locke stresses that inequality has come about by tacit agreement on the use of money, not by the social contract establishing civil society or the law of land regulating property. Moreover, Locke anchors property in labour but in the end upholds the unlimited accumulation of wealth.
Locke on value and price theory
• Locke’s general theory of value and price is a supply and demand theory. [of goods] is nothing else but their quantity in proportion to their rent.”
• The quantity theory of money forms a special case of this general theory. His idea is based on “money answers all things” (Ecclesiastes) or “rent of money is always sufficient, or more than enough,” and “varies very little…”
• Regardless of whether the demand for money is unlimited or constant, Locke concludes that as far as money is concerned, the demand is exclusively regulated by its quantity.
• Locke develops an early theory of capitalization, such as land, which has value because “by its constant production of saleable commodities it brings in a certain yearly income.”
• Demand for money is almost the same as demand for goods or land; For medium of exchange “money is capable by exchange to procure us the necessaries or conveniences of life.” For loanable funds, “it comes to be of the same nature with land by yielding a certain yearly income … or interest.”
Monetary thoughts
Locke distinguishes two functions of money, as a "counter" to measure value, and as a "pledge" to lay claim to goods.
Locke argues that a country should seek a favorable balance of trade, lest it fall behind other countries and suffer a loss in its trade.
Locke develops his theory of foreign exchanges, in addition to commodity movements, there are also movements in country stock of money, and movements of capital determine exchange rates.
List of major works
(1689) A Letter Concerning Toleration (1690) A Second Letter Concerning Toleration (1692) A Third Letter for Toleration (1689) Two Treatises of Government (1689) An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1693) Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1695) The Reasonableness of Christianity, as Delivered in the Scriptures (1695) A Vindication of the Reasonableness of ChristianityMajor unpublished or posthumous manuscripts
(1660) First Tract on Government (or the English Tract) (c.1662) Second Tract on Government (or the Latin Tract) (1664) Questions Concerning the Law of Nature (definitive Latin text, with facing accurate English trans. al., eds., John Locke, Questions Concerning the Law of Nature, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990). (1667) Essay Concerning Toleration (1706) Of the Conduct of the Understanding (1707) A Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistles of St. PaulLocke's epitaph
(translated from Latin)
"Stop, Traveller! Near this place lieth John Locke. Locke's Two Treatises of Government. Princeton: Princeton University Press. (Discusses the relationship between Locke's philosophy and his political activities.) Bailyn, Bernard, 1992 (1967). (Discusses the influence of Locke and other thinkers upon the American Revolution and on subsequent American political thought.) Brooks, Thom, ed., Locke and Law. (A discussion of Locke's theory of international relations.) Chappell, Vere, ed., 19nn. The Political Thought of John Locke: An Historical Account of the Argument of the "Two Treatises of Government". (Introduced the interpretation which emphasizes the theological element in Locke's political thought.) Macpherson. (Establishes from a Marxist point of view the deep affinity from Hobbes to Harrington, the Levellers, and Locke through to nineteenth-century utilitarianism). (Argues from a non-Marxist point of view for a deep affinity between Hobbes and Locke.) Strauss, Leo, "Locke's Doctrine of Natural law," American Political Science Review 52 (1958) 490-501. von Leyden's edition of Locke's unpublished writings on natural law.) Tully, James, 1980. "A Discourse on Property : John Locke and his Adversaries" Cambridge Uni. Locke Studies, appearing annually, publishes scholarly work on John Locke.
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