John Locke

Born: 1632

Died: 1704, at the age of 72

Country of origin: England

Major Books written by John Locke:

• "Two Treatises of Government" (1689)
  
• "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding" (1689)
  
• "The Reasonableness of Christianity" (1695)

Cocktail summary of John Locke's main ideas:

There are two John Lockes. There was one man, but he pursued two largely indepedent philosophical roads, and his contribution to each of these roads stand large in the history of philosophy. On the one hand, he was a philosopher of Knowledge, arguing for a vision of how the human mind aquires knowledge. On the other hand, he was a political philosopher, with ideas of how government should be defined and on what moral grounds governments exist at all, and what the boundaries are that define the relationship between those who govern and those who are governed. The result is that Locke is like a 2-headed snake, with each head thinking different thoughts, with each head influencing the other to some extent, with each one heavily influencing later thinkers and politicians.

Locke is probably most often studied for his ideas of government. As a political philosopher, he was concerned with the idea of Natural Rights. This is connected to the earlier ideas of Natural Law, which stretch back at least as far as Thomas Aquinas 400 years earlier. Locke argued that there exists both a law and innate rights that all humans possess independent of any relationship to civil governmet. In the "state of nature", which basically means living in the jungle, all men have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of property. These rights are God-given to all humans that have ever lived.

But since life in the state of nature is difficult, communities of men will gather together and give up some of their rights and transfer them to a government whose purpose is to protect and promote these rights. This social contract requires that those who govern live up to their end of the bargain, and those who are governed bahve in a civil manner and don't impose on their fellow-man's natural rights. If a government fails in it's terms of this contract, the governed have the ethical right to rebel and, in extreme situations, overthrow that government and create a new one.

His ideas were famously applied by Thomas Jefferson when he wrote the Declaration of Independence. The very opening words of this document echo Locke's words when Jefferson wrote, "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness". These are Locke-ian words through and through, and it is has been the success of the so-called "American experiment" that has been the standard by which much of Locke's ideas have been judged.

Locke's political ideas are often contrasted against those of his contemporary, Thomas Hobbes. They agreed on certain ideas like social contracts, but they had very different ideas about the hypothetical "state of nature" and what exactly is dictated in the social contract. Locke viewed the human state of nature optimistically, being a state where humans pursue property and self-fulfilment, but possessing an innate desire to cooperate and help their fellow-man. Hobbes, on the other hand, viewed the state of nature much more pessimistically, seeing it as basically a constant state of war and suffering. Locke argued that social contracts are agreed to by groups of humans in order to pool their resources to better gain self-fulfilment. Hobbes argued that social contracts are agreed to out of a desperate effort at self-preservation. Locke argued for a much more "horizontal" view of government, with the governors and the governed basically being equalled. Hobbes argued for the traditional "vertical", or "tribal" view of government where all power is held by a single monarch, who can more efficiently guarantee mutual survival.

Hobbes was the grumpy philosopher, and Locke was the cheery philosopher. Locke is usually portrayed as the winner in this debate, since his ideas have been implemented by most Western governments instead of Hobbes'. However, most non-Western governments in the developing world can be accurately described as Hobbesian, so the 2 world-views continue to compete on the world stage to this day.

Aside from his political ideas, Locke is also famous for his "blank slate". He was interested in how the human mind aquires knowledge. Do ideas appear within the mind all by themselves, or are all ideas originally a result of input by the 5 senses? He argued that, at birth, the human mind is a "tabula rasa" - a blank slate - with absolutely no innate ideas. We are born devoid of even a single idea. The infant mind is a sponge that absorbes sensory data at a furious rate, and it the gradual processing of this data that forms all of our ideas, both philosophical and trivial.

This was basically an optimstic view of human nature, reflecting his political views to some extent, since it implied that human behavior and attitudes could be changed. If governments of his time were Hobbesian in their absolute rule, and most people accepted this status quo, these attitudes were the result of initially blank slates being filled with bad data. Over time, new blank slates could be filled with new, more altruistic data, and human nature could be improved.

Locke is often used as an example of the branch of philosophy called "Empiricism", being the idea that all ideas are sensory in origin. This is contrasted with the other major branch of philosophy called "Rationalism", which argues that there are other sources for knowledge beyond the senses, and that some ideas occur purely within the mind as a result of induction. "Naked ideas" are created in the mind of the Rationalist, whereas the Empiricist is a bundle of senses. These 2 parallel views of the origin of ideas would bring philosophy to a crisis a generation later, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

John Locke praised & criticized:

• Since Locke is either viewed as a political philosopher or as a philosopher of Knowledge, any criticisms or praises depends on which Locke is being referred to.
  
  As a political philosopher he has been the most highly praised for being one of the primary influences behind Thomas Jefferson in writing the American Declaration of Independence. His views of the nature of government, social contracts, and Natural Rights saw their clearest application in the ideals of the United States, and the French Revolution to a certain extent. Therefore, many of his political ideas have been judged on the success of the past 230 since the US was founded. Since the US is still going strong, this validates Locke's political ideas, many argue.
  
  But his political ideas have also had their fair share of critics, particularly regarding his theories of property. Locke argued that there are limits to how much property can be owned by any one person, and these limits are mainly defined by whether or not all of it can be utilized. If property is large enough that parts of it go un-tended, then this extra property can be legally claimed by someone else. Any man can only claim as much property as he can maintain, and any claims beyond this can harm the efforts of someone else seeking to own property. However, this limitation doesn't apply to money. Since money isn't a physical resource with physical limits, the requirement that all of it be maintained doesn't apply, so money can be collected indefinitely, but not property.
  
  This idea was used by many early settlers in America to justify the seizure of land claimed by Native American Indians. Abstract concepts of property-laws didn't exist amongst the Indians, at least in the European sense, beyond traditional claims by various tribes. But European settlers often argued that a tribe's claim over a plot of land was invalid since they obviously weren't using all of it, and therefore their claim exceded Locke's definition of the outer boundaries of property rights. The Indians usually argued that land was a commodity available to all men and was not to be partitioned (Indians usually didn't build fences) but this usually fell on deaf European ears. Many settlers didn't necessarilly quote Locke regarding land, but their defenders often did. Therefore, Locke had very few fans amongst Native American Indians, then and now.
  
  Regarding Locke's philosophy of Knowledge, his idea of the human mind being a blank slate at birth served as a link in the larger chain of Empiricism which would reach an intellectual crisis about 50 years after his death. His argument that there is no such thing as a "naked idea" would create problems when trying to account for purely Rationalistic knowledge. If all of our knowledge come from our senses, where do our ideas of Number come from? Or morality, or God, or metaphysical ideas? Some ideas appear to be "lit from within the mind", so to speak, independent of input from the 5 senses. This conflict would reach a climax with the Scottish philosopher David Hume a generation later, and then be resolved by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant shortly after. So the limits of Locke's blank-slate idea are not so much a limit of Locke himself, but a limit of Empiricism as a discipline. So John is basically off the hook on this one.

Notable Facts about John Locke:

• Religious affiliation:
  John Locke's religious views are hard to pin down. He is often described as a Deist, much like his followers like Thomas Jefferson. He argued that the Natural Rights of all mankind are God-given, but what exactly he meant by God was never spelled out. He was raised in a Puritan household but was educated in an Anglican environment. The English Civil War, with its religious overtones, made him wisely cautious about expressing religious opinions that were too specific.
  
  He argued that Natural Law and Natural Rights are entirely rational in nature, and since these are God-given therefore Christianity is rational. He described these views in his book "The Reasonableness of Christianity" in the later years of his life. But even this didn't answer exactly where Locke stood on religion. The best description of his views might be to say that he was something of a Unitarian in outlook. He believed in God and he argued that God was the source of the Natural Rights he was interested in, but God was in the background in his arguments, safely far enough away to avoid scandal. Locke was more interested in how societies should be constructed, than delving into anything too spiritual. He was basically the model on which the suspected-atheist Thomas Jefferson based his own image on, for better or worse.
  
  
• Locke never married nor had any children. Romance and child-rearing are inconvenient for most philosophers, so big ideas are often best thought in the state of bachelorhood.
  
  
• Locke published his philosophical books under his own name, but he wisely published his political views anonymously. Political dissent was tolerated in theory during his lifetime, but often not in practice, and he thought it best to assume the worst, so he kept his name out of his politics.
  
  
• Locke was friends with Isaac Newton and participated in scientific research with him.
  
  
  

Quotes:

• "No man's knowledge here can go beyond his experience."
  
  
• "Logic is the anatomy of thought."
  
  
• "The reason why men enter into society is the preservation of their property."
  
  
• "Government has no other end than the preservation of property."
  
  
• "All wealth is the product of labor."
  
  
• "The people cannot delegate to government the power to do anything which would be unlawful for them to do themselves."
  
  
• "New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common."
  
  
• "Education begins the gentleman, but reading, good company and reflection must finish him."
  
  
• "Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge. It is thinking that makes what we read ours."