Locke, John

I

Introduction

Locke, John (1632-1704), English philosopher, who founded the school of empiricism and defended the idea of a social contract.

II

Life

Locke was born in the village of Wrington, Somerset, on August 29, 1632. He was educated at the University of Oxford and lectured on Greek, rhetoric, and moral philosophy at Oxford from 1661 to 1664. In 1667 he began his association with the English statesman Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, to whom Locke was a friend, adviser, and doctor. Shaftesbury secured for Locke a series of minor government appointments. In 1669, in one of his official capacities, Locke wrote a constitution for the proprietors of the Carolina Colony in North America, but it was never put into effect. In 1675, after the liberal Shaftesbury had fallen from favour, Locke moved to France. He returned to England in 1679, but in view of his opposition to the succession of the king’s Catholic brother to the throne, he soon found it expedient to return to the Continent. From 1683 to 1688 he lived in Holland, and following the so-called Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the accession of a Protestant monarch, Locke returned once more to England. The new king, William III, appointed Locke to the Board of Trade in 1696, a position from which he resigned because of ill health in 1700. He died in Oates on October 28, 1704.

III

Empiricism

Locke’s empiricism held that all knowledge other than deductive reasoning must be based on sensory experience. Empiricist ideas were put forward by the English philosopher and statesman Francis Bacon early in the 17th century, but Locke gave the doctrine a systematic expression in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690). He regarded the mind of a person at birth as a tabula rasa, a blank slate upon which experience imprinted knowledge. He rejected the belief in innate ideas, a concept that derived originally from Plato. See Epistemology.

IV

Political Theories

Locke’s political ideas were formed through theoretical reflection, practical engagement, and religious commitment. Although he believed that God had designed human beings and given them reason, and thus the ability to know natural laws, he rejected theories of his day that claimed a divine origin for human government as such, or for certain rules in particular. In his Two Treatises of Government (1690), Locke attacked the divine right theory put forward by the Anglican theologian Robert Filmer. Instead, he argued that sovereignty resides in the people, and that government gains its authority only from the transfer of individual rights by means of a contract. In developing this social contract argument, Locke in some ways drew upon, but also criticized, the views of Thomas Hobbes. For Locke, individuals must consent to government if it is to be legitimate; their consent can be explicit or tacit.

Because government exists only to further the security and liberty of the people, revolution can be justified if the people collectively come to find the government intolerably oppressive. This aspect of Locke’s theory arguably derives from his involvement in Shaftesbury’s plots against the accession of a new Catholic ruler. So long as government remains legitimate it must protect individual rights and control its own power through a system of checks and balances. Locke was also a powerful advocate of religious toleration by the state. However, he rejected toleration of atheists, whom he believed had no grounds for loyalty or truthfulness, and of Catholics, whom he believed were loyal to an alien power, the pope.

Locke’s influence on modern philosophy has been profound. His empiricism continues to influence many thinkers, and his political theory arguably influenced the American War of Independence and has inspired many liberals since. Among his other works are Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693) and The Reasonableness of Christianity (1695).