JOHN LOCKE

John Locke FRS, widely recognized as the Father of Classical Liberalism, was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the mainly influential of Enlightenment thinkers. Measured one of the first of the British empiricists, following the custom of Francis Bacon, he is equally significant to social contract theory. His work had a great impact upon the development of epistemology and political philosophy. His writings influenced Voltaire and Rousseau, several Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, as well as the American revolutionaries. His contributions to classical republicanism and liberal theory are reflected in the United States Declaration of Independence. Locke's theory of mind is often cited as the origin of contemporary conceptions of identity and the self, figuring prominently in the work of later philosophers such as Hume, Rousseau and Kant. Locke was the first to describe the self through a stability of consciousness. He postulated that the mind was a blank slate or tabula rasa. Contrary to pre-existing Cartesian philosophy, he maintained that we are born without innate thoughts, and that knowledge is instead determined only through experience derived from sense perception.

BIOGRAPHY

Locke's father, also described John, 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 throughout the early part of the English Civil War. His mother was Agnes Keene. Both parents were Puritans. Locke was born on 29 August 1632, in a small thatched cottage through the church in Wrington, Somerset, in relation to the twelve miles from Bristol. He was baptised the similar day. Soon after Locke's birth, the family moved to the market town of Pensford, in relation to the seven miles south of Bristol, where Locke grew up in a rural Tudor home 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 his father's former commander. After completing his studies there, he was admitted to Christ Church, Oxford. The dean of the college at the time was John Owen, vice-chancellor of the university. Although a capable student, Locke was irritated through the undergraduate curriculum of the time. He establish the works of contemporary philosophers, such as René Descartes, more motivating than the classical material taught at the university. 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 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. He obtained a bachelor of medicine in 1674, having studied medicine extensively throughout his time at Oxford and worked with such noted scientists and thinkers as Robert Boyle, Thomas Willis, Robert Hooke and Richard Lower. In 1666, he met Lord Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, who had come to Oxford seeking treatment for a liver infection. 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 house at Exeter Home 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 effect on Locke's natural philosophical thinking – an effect that would become apparent in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.

Locke's medical knowledge was put to the test when Shaftesbury's liver infection became life-threatening. Locke coordinated the advice of many physicians and was almost certainly instrumental in persuading Shaftesbury to undergo an operation to remove the cyst. Shaftesbury survived and prospered, crediting Locke with saving his life.

It was in Shaftesbury's household, throughout 1671, that the meeting took lay, described in the Epistle to the reader of the Essay, which was the genesis of what would later become the Essay. Two extant Drafts still survive from this era. It was also throughout this time that Locke served as Secretary of the Board of Trade and Plantations and Secretary to the Lords Proprietor of Carolina, helping to form his thoughts on international trade and economics.

Shaftesbury, as a founder of the Whig movement, exerted great power on Locke's political thoughts. Locke became involved in politics when Shaftesbury became Lord Chancellor in 1672. Following Shaftesbury's fall from favour in 1675, Locke spent some time traveling crossways France as tutor and medical attendant to Caleb Banks. He returned to England in 1679 when Shaftesbury's political fortunes took a brief positive turn. Approximately this time, mainly likely at Shaftesbury's prompting, Locke composed the bulk of the Two Treatises of Government. While it was once thought that Locke wrote the Treatises to defend the Glorious Revolution of 1688, recent scholarship has shown that the work was composed well before this date, and it is now viewed as a more common argument against absolute monarchy and for individual consent as the foundation of political legitimacy. Though Locke was associated with the influential Whigs, his thoughts in relation to the natural rights and government are today measured quite revolutionary for that era in English history.

Locke fled to the Netherlands in 1683, under strong suspicion of involvement in the Rye Home Plot, although there is little proof 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 house until after the Glorious Revolution. Locke accompanied William of Orange's wife back to England in 1688. The bulk of Locke's publishing took lay upon his return from exile – his aforementioned Essay Concerning Human Understanding, the Two Treatises of Civil Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration all appearing in quick succession.

Locke's secure friend Lady Masham invited him to join her at the Mashams' country home in Essex. Although his time there was marked through variable health from asthma attacks, he nevertheless became an intellectual hero of the Whigs. Throughout this era he discussed matters with such figures as John Dryden and Isaac Newton.

He died on 28 October 1704, and is buried in the churchyard of the village of High Laver, east of Harlow in Essex, where he had existed in the household of Sir Francis Masham since 1691. Locke never married nor had children.

Events that happened throughout Locke's lifetime contain the English Restoration, the Great Plague of London and the Great Fire of London. He did not quite see the Act of Union of 1707, though the thrones of England and Scotland were held in personal union throughout his lifetime. Constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy were in their infancy throughout Locke's time.

POWER

Locke exercised a profound power on political philosophy, in scrupulous on contemporary liberalism. Michael Zuckert has argued that Locke launched liberalism through tempering Hobbesian absolutism and clearly separating the realms of Church and State. He had a strong power on Voltaire who described him "le sage Locke". His arguments concerning liberty and the social contract later influenced the written works of Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and other Founding Fathers of the United States. In information, one passage from the Second Treatise is reproduced verbatim in the Declaration of Independence, the reference to a "extensive train of abuses." Such was Locke's power that Thomas Jefferson wrote: "Bacon, Locke and Newton... I consider them as the three greatest men that have ever existed, without any exception, and as having laid the base of those superstructures which have been raised in the Physical and Moral sciences". Today, mainly modern libertarians claim Locke as an power.

But Locke's power may have been even more profound in the realm of epistemology. Locke redefined subjectivity, or self, and intellectual historians such as Charles Taylor and Jerrold Seigel argue that Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) marks the beginning of the contemporary Western conception of the self.

Theories of Religious Tolerance

Locke, writing his Letters Concerning Toleration (1689–92) in the aftermath of the European wars of religion, formulated a classic reasoning for religious tolerance. Three arguments are central:

Earthly judges, the state in scrupulous, and human beings usually, cannot dependably evaluate the truth-claims of competing religious standpoints;

Even if they could, enforcing a single "true religion" would not have the desired effect, because belief cannot be compelled through violence;

Coercing religious uniformity would lead to more social disorder than allowing diversity.

With regard to his location on religious tolerance, Locke was influenced through Baptist theologians like John Smyth and Thomas Helwys, who had published tracts demanding freedom of conscience in the early seventeenth century. Baptist theologian Roger Williams founded the colony Rhode Island in 1636, where he combined a democratic constitution with unlimited religious freedom. His tract The Bloody Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience (1644), which was widely read in the mother country, was a passionate plea for absolute religious freedom and the total separation of church and state. Freedom of conscience had had high priority on the theological, philosophical and political agenda, since Martin Luther refused to recant his beliefs before the Diet of the Holy Roman Empire at Worms in 1521, unless he would be proved false through the Bible. Locke was part of this Protestant custom. He was also influenced through the liberal thoughts of Presbyterian politician and well-known poet John Milton, who was a staunch advocate of freedom in all its shapes. As assistant to Oliver Cromwell, Milton took part in drafting a constitution of the Independents (1647) that strongly stressed the equality of all humans as a consequence of democratic tendencies.

Constitution of Carolina

Appraisals of Locke have often been tied to appraisals of liberalism in common, and also to appraisals of the United States. Detractors note that (in 1671) he was a major investor in the English slave-trade through the Royal African Company, as well as through his participation in drafting the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina while Shaftesbury's secretary, which recognized a feudal aristocracy and gave a master absolute power in excess of his slaves. For instance, Martin Cohen notes that as a secretary to the Council of Trade and Plantations (1673–4) and a member of the Board of Trade (1696–1700) Locke was, in information, "one of presently half a dozen men who created and supervised both the colonies and their iniquitous systems of servitude". Some see his statements on unenclosed property as having been planned to justify the displacement of the Native Americans. Because of his opposition to aristocracy and slavery in his major writings, he is accused of hypocrisy and racism, or of caring only for the liberty of English capitalists.

Theory of Value and Property

Locke uses the word property in both broad and narrow senses. In a broad sense, it covers a wide range of human interests and aspirations; more narrowly, it refers to material goods. He argues that property is a natural right and it is derived from labour.

Locke argues that the individual ownership of goods and property is justified through the labour exerted to produce those goods or utilize property to produce goods beneficial to human society.

Locke stated his belief, in his Second Treatise, that nature on its own gives little of value to society; he gives the implication that the labour expended in the creation of goods provides them their value. This is used as supporting proof for the interpretation of Locke's labour theory of property as a labour theory of value, in his implication that goods produced through nature are of little value, unless combined with labour in their manufacture and that labour is what provides goods their value.

Locke whispered that ownership of property is created through the application of labour. In addition, he whispered property precedes government and government cannot "dispose of the estates of the subjects arbitrarily." Karl Marx later critiqued Locke's theory of property in his own social theory.

Political Theory

Locke's political theory was founded on social contract theory. Unlike Thomas Hobbes, Locke whispered that human nature is characterized through cause and tolerance. Like Hobbes, Locke whispered that human nature allowed men to be selfish. This is apparent with the introduction of currency. In a natural state all people were equal and self-governing, and everyone had a natural right to defend his ―Life, health, Liberty, or Possessions". Mainly scholars trace the phrase "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," in the American Declaration of Independence, to Locke's theory of rights, though other origins have been suggested.

Like Hobbes, Locke assumed that the sole right to defend in the state of nature was not enough, so people recognized a civil society to resolve conflicts in a civil method with help from government in a state of society. Though, Locke never refers to Hobbes through name and may instead have been responding to other writers of the day. Locke also advocated governmental separation of powers and whispered that revolution is not only a right but an obligation in some circumstances. These thoughts would come to have profound power on the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.

Limits to Accumulation

Labour creates property, but it also does contain limits to its accumulation: man‘s capability to produce and man‘s capability to consume. Just as to Locke, unused property is waste and an offence against nature. Though, with the introduction of ―durable‖ goods, men could exchange their excessive perishable goods for goods that would last longer and therefore not offend the natural law. The introduction of money marks the culmination of this procedure. Money creates possible the unlimited accumulation of property without causing waste through spoilage. He also comprises gold or silver as money because they may be ―hoarded up without injury to anyone,‖ since they do not spoil or decay in the hands of the possessor. The introduction of money eliminates the limits of accumulation. Locke stresses that inequality has come in relation to the through tacit agreement on the use of money, not through the social contract establishing civil society or the law of land regulating property. Locke is aware of a problem posed through unlimited accumulation but does not consider it his task. He presently implies that government would function to moderate the disagreement flanked by the unlimited accumulation of property and a more almost equal sharing of wealth and does not say which principles that government should apply to solve this problem. Though, not all elements of his thought form a constant whole. For instance, labour theory of value of the Two Treatises of Government stands face through face with the demand-and-supply theory urbanized in a letter he wrote titled Some Thoughts on the Consequences of the Lowering of Interest and the Raising of the Value of Money. Moreover, Locke anchors property in labour but in the end upholds the unlimited accumulation of wealth.

On Price Theory

Locke‘s common theory of value and price is a supply and demand theory, which was set out in a letter to a Member of Parliament in 1691, titled Some Thoughts on the Consequences of the Lowering of Interest and the Raising of the Value of Money. Supply is quantity and demand is rent. ―The price of any commodity rises or falls through the proportion of the number of buyer and sellers.and ―that which regulates the price... [of goods] is nothing else but their quantity in proportion to their rent. The quantity theory of money shapes a special case of this common theory. His thought is based on ―money answers all things (Ecclesiastes) or ―rent of money is always enough, or more than enough, and ―varies extremely little... Regardless of whether the demand for money is unlimited or constant, Locke concludes that as distant as money is concerned, the demand is exclusively regulated through its quantity. He also investigates the determinants of demand and supply. For supply, goods in common are measured valuable because they can be exchanged, consumed and they necessity be scarce. For demand, goods are in demand because they yield a flow of income. Locke develops an early theory of capitalization, such as land, which has value because ―through its constant manufacture of saleable commodities it brings in a sure yearly income. Demand for money is approximately the similar as demand for goods or land; it depends on whether money is wanted as medium of exchange or as loanable funds. For medium of exchange ―money is capable through exchange to procure us the necessaries or conveniences of life. For loanable funds, ―it comes to be of the similar nature with land through yielding a sure 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. He believes that silver and gold, as opposed to paper money, are the appropriate currency for international transactions. Silver and gold, he says, are treated to have equal value through all of humanity and can therefore be treated as a pledge through anyone, while the value of paper money is only valid under the government which issues it.

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. Since the world money stock grows constantly, a country necessity constantly seek to enlarge its own stock. 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. The latter is less important and less volatile than commodity movements. As for a country‘s money stock, if it is big relative to that of other countries, it will cause the country‘s exchange to rise above par, as an export balance would do.

He also prepares estimates of the cash necessities for dissimilar economic groups (landholders, laborers and brokers). In each group the cash necessities are closely related to the length of the pay era. He argues the brokers – middlemen – whose behaviors enlarge the monetary route and whose profits eat into the earnings of laborers and landholders, had a negative power on both one's personal and the public economy that they supposedly contributed to.

The Self

Locke defines the self as "that conscious thinking thing, (whatever substance, made up of whether spiritual, or material, easy, or compounded, it matters not) which is sensible, or conscious of pleasure and pain, capable of happiness or misery, and so is concerned for itself, as distant as that consciousness extends". He does not, though, ignore "substance", writing that "the body too goes to the creation the man." The Lockean self is so a self-aware and self-reflective consciousness that is fixed in a body.

In his Essay, Locke explains the gradual unfolding of this conscious mind. Arguing against both the Augustinian view of man as originally sinful and the Cartesian location, which holds that man innately knows vital logical propositions, Locke posits an "empty" mind, a tabula rasa, which is shaped through experience; sensations and reflections being the two sources of all our thoughts.

Locke's Some Thoughts Concerning Education is an outline on how to educate this mind: he expresses the belief that education market the man, or, more fundamentally, that the mind is an "empty cabinet", with the statement,

"I think I may say that of all the men we meet with, nine parts of ten are what they are, good or evil, useful or not, through their education."

Locke also wrote that "the little and approximately insensible impressions on our tender infancies have extremely significant and lasting consequences." He argued that the "associations of thoughts" that one creates when young are more significant than those made later because they are the base of the self: they are, put differently, what first spot the tabula rasa. In his Essay, in which is introduced both of these concepts, Locke warns against, for instance, letting "a foolish maid" convince a child that "goblins and sprites" are associated with the night for "darkness shall ever afterwards bring with it those frightful thoughts, and they shall be so joined, that he can no more bear the one than the other."

"Associationism", as this theory would come to be described, exerted a powerful power in excess of eighteenth-century thought, particularly educational theory, as almost every educational writer warned parents not to allow their children to develop negative associations. It also led to the development of psychology and other new disciplines with David Hartley's effort to discover a biological mechanism for associationism in his Observations on Man (1749).

RELIGIOUS BELIEFS

Some scholars have seen Locke's political convictions as deriving from his religious beliefs. Locke's religious trajectory began in Calvinist trinitarianism, but through the time of the Reflections (1695) Locke was advocating not presently Socinian views on tolerance but also Socinian Christology; with veiled denial of the pre-subsistence of Christ. Though Wainwright notes that in the posthumously published Paraphrase (1707) Locke's interpretation of one verse, Ephesians 1:10, is markedly dissimilar from that of Socinians like Biddle, and may indicate that close to the end of his life Locke returned nearer to an Arian location.

Locke was at times not sure in relation to the subject of original sin. So he was accused of Socianism, Arianism, or Deism. But he did not deny the reality of evil. Man was capable of waging unjust wars and committing crimes. Criminals had to be punished, even with the death penalty. With regard to the Bible Locke was extremely conservative. He retained the doctrine of the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures. The miracles were proofs of the divine nature of the biblical message. Locke was influenced that the whole content of the Bible was in agreement with human cause. Although Locke was an advocate of tolerance, he urged the authorities not to tolerate atheism, because the denial of God's subsistence would undermine the social order and lead to chaos. That excluded all atheistic diversities of philosophy and all attempts to deduce ethics and natural law from purely secular premises, for instance, man's "autonomy or dignity or human flourishing". In Locke's opinion the cosmological argument was valid and proved God's subsistence. His political thought was based on "a scrupulous set of Protestant Christian assumptions." Locke's concept of man started with the belief in creation. We have been "sent into the World through [God's] order, and in relation to the his business, [we] are his Property, whose Workmanship [we] are, made to last throughout his, not one another Pleasure." Like the two other extremely influential natural-law philosophers, Hugo Grotius and Samuel Pufendorf, Locke equated natural law with the biblical revelation, since in their view both had originated in God and could so not contradict each other. "As a philosopher, Locke was intensely interested in Christian doctrine, and in the Reasonableness he insisted that mainly men could not hope to understand the detailed necessities of the law of nature without the assistance of the teachings and instance of Jesus." Locke derived the fundamental concepts of his political theory from biblical texts, in scrupulous from Genesis 1 and 2 (creation), the Decalogue, the Golden Rule, the teachings of Jesus, and the letters of (Paul). The Decalogue (Ten Commandments) puts a person's life, his or her honorable reputation (i.e. honor and dignity), and property under God's protection. Freedom is another major theme in the Old Testament. For instance, God's actions in liberating the Israelites from Egyptian slavery in the Decalogue's prologue were the precondition for the following commandments. Moreover, Locke derived vital human Equality, including the equality of the sexes ("Adam and Eve") from Genesis 1:26–28, the starting point of the theological doctrine of Imago Dei. To Locke, one of the consequences of the principle of equality was that all humans were equally free and so governments needed the consent of the governed. Only when Locke had derived the fundamental characteristics of his concept of man and ethics from the biblical texts – life, equality, private property, etc. Following Locke, the American Declaration of Independence founded human rights on the biblical belief in creation: "All men are created equal, (...) they are endowed through their Creator with sure unalienable rights, (...) life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Locke's doctrine that governments require the consent of the governed is also central to the Declaration of Independence.