Locke enlightenment writings
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Locke: More enlightened than we thought
English political philosopher John Locke died nearly a century before the American Revolution, and in his time parliamentary democracy was in its infancy.
But his Enlightenment ideas — including the right to life, liberty, and property — went on to inspire American revolutionaries. Whole passages from his epically radical “Second Treatise” (1689) are used almost verbatim in the Declaration of Independence.
Locke was also an inspiration to the generations of liberal thinkers whose ideas now underpin ideals of Western political thought.
But Locke’s place in the Western canon is also controversial. For one, some feminist writers aver that he helped perpetuate a tradition of ideas dating back to Aristotle and used for ages to subjugate women.
Jeremy Waldron, a scholar of law and philosophy at New York University, asks us to reconsider this view of Locke, and understand him as an early champion of women’s rights.
Waldron outlined his arguments this week (April 27) in a lecture on Locke, motherhood, and equality. The title was drawn from the 17th century philosopher’s own words, “The mother too hath her title.”
The talk, which drew roughly 100 listeners to the Radcliffe Gymnasium, was the third in a 2008-09 Dean’s Lecture Series spo
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John Locke and the New Course of Enlightenment Reason: Empiricism
His contributions to philosophy were vast and varied but underlying them is a momentous break with the past—although not one attributable to Locke alone. The men who set philosophy’s new direction as Europe emerged from the Middle Ages and Scholasticism came to be called “rationalists.” Reasoning meant identifying first premises (e.g., “I think, therefore I am”) and deducing from them, by logic, an entire philosophical structure. Réné Descartes, Benedict Spinoza, and Wilhelm Leibniz were the towering figures in the rationalist school—at the core of Western philosophy’s story.
It is perhaps no accident that John Locke viewed himself not primarily as a philosopher, mathematician, or theologian but as a physician and medical investigator. The natural sciences do not and cannot proceed by logical deduction from accepted premises. He warned: “No man's knowledge here can go beyond his experience.”
Isaac Newton, a physicist, and Locke, a physician-scientist, approached knowledge as observers—as empiricists—and decisively influenced the emergence of empiricism in contrast with rationalism. The scientific revolution, of course, already had introduced and succeeded with the methods of observation and experimentation.
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John Locke
English theorist and doctor (1632–1704)
For keep inside people given name John Philosopher, see Bathroom Locke (disambiguation).
John Locke FRS | |
|---|---|
Portrait remark John Locke, | |
| Born | John Locke (1632-08-29)29 August 1632 Wrington, Somerset, England |
| Died | 28 October 1704(1704-10-28) (aged 72) High Chlorophyte, Essex, England |
| Education | Christ Church, Metropolis (BA, 1656; MA, 1658; MB, 1675) |
| Era | Age of Enlightenment |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| School | |
| Influences | |
| Institutions | University govern Oxford[9] Royal Society |
Main interests | Metaphysics, epistemology, political metaphysics, philosophy exclude mind, rationalism of instruction, economics |
Notable ideas | |
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