John Locke was an English philosopher and political theorist who was born in 1632 in Wrington, Somerset, England, and died in 1704 in High Laver, Essex. He is recognized as the founder of British empiricism and the author of the first systematic exposition and defense of political liberalism.
2. WHAT IS POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY ?
Political philosophy is the study of fundamental questions about the state,
government, politics, liberty, justice and the enforcement of a legal code by
authority. It is Ethics applied to a group of people, and discusses how a
society should be set up and how one should act within a society.
Branch of philosophy that is concerned, at the most abstract level, with the
concepts and arguments involved in political opinion. The central problem of
political philosophy is how to deploy or limit public power so as to maintain
the survival and enhance the quality of human life.
3. John Locke was an English philosopher and political theorist who was
born in 1632 in Wrington, Somerset, England, and died in 1704 in High
Laver, Essex. He is recognized as the founder of British empiricism and
the author of the first systematic exposition and defense of political
liberalism.
Contradicting Thomas Hobbes, Locke believed that the original state of
nature was happy and characterized by reason and tolerance. In that state
all people were equal and independent, and none had a right to harm
another's "life, health, liberty, or possessions.“
In political theory or philosophy, John Locke refuted the theory of the
divine right of kings and argued that all persons are endowed with natural
rights to life, liberty, and property and that rulers who fail to protect those
rights may be removed by the people, by force if necessary.
INTRODUCTION
4. JOHN LOCKE (1632-1704)
John Locke, born on August 29, 1632, in Wrington, Somerset,
England, went to Westminster school and then Christ Church,
University of Oxford. At Oxford he studied medicine, which would
play a central role in his life. He became a highly influential
philosopher, writing about such topics as political philosophy,
epistemology, and education. Locke's writings helped found modern
Western philosophy.
Locke examines the nature of the human mind and the process by
which it knows the world. Repudiating the traditional doctrine of
innate ideas, Locke believed that the mind is born blank, a tabula
rasa upon which the world describes itself through the experience of
the five senses.
6. JOHN LOCKE'S PHILOSOPHY
“A Letter
Concerning
Toleration”
“Two Treatises of
Government”
“An Essay Concerning
Human Understanding”
“Some Thoughts
Concerning
Education”
7. A Letter Concerning Toleration
In his famous piece “A Letter Concerning Toleration”
(1689), John Locke argued that tolerance is indeed a
Christian virtue and that the state as a civic association
should be concerned only with civic interests, not spiritual
ones.
John Locke states that in order to have a civilised society
there must be a unity of religion and people.
It argues the new understanding of the relationship between
government and religion.
His hatred spawned from a fear that Catholicism might take
over England, therefore, suggesting that tolerations for all
religions should be allowed.
8. Two Treatises Of Government
Two Treatises of Government is a work of political philosophy
published anonymously in 1689 by John Locke.
In the Two Treatises of Government, he defended the claim
that men are by nature free and equal against claims that God
had made all people naturally subject to a monarch.
Two Treatises of Government Locke rejects the idea of the
divine right of kings, supports the idea of natural rights
(especially of property), and argues for a limited constitutional
government which would protect individual rights.
The duty of the state is to protect the natural rights of
individual liberty and private property.
9. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) is one of the first
great defenses of modern empiricism and concerns itself with
determining the limits of human understanding in respect to a wide
spectrum of topics.
Locke divides his theory’s simple ideas into two categories:
i. ideas we get from a single sense, such as sight or taste.
ii. ideas created from more than one sense, such as shape and size.
He argues that people are not born with innate knowledge, but rather
that their mind is a tabula rasa, a blank slate, on which the thread of
experience writes.
All of humanity is born equal in the realms of natural intelligence.
10. Some Thoughts Concerning Education
Some Thoughts Concerning Education is a 1693 treatise on the education of
gentlemen written by the English philosopher John Locke. For over a century,
it was the most important philosophical work on education in England.
Locke believed the purpose of education was to produce an individual with a
sound mind in a sound body so as to better serve his country.
Locke thought that the content of education ought to depend upon one's
station in life. The common man only required moral, social, and vocational
knowledge.
Some Thoughts Concerning Education explains how to educate that mind
using three distinct methods:
i. The development of a healthy body.
ii. The formation of a virtuous character.
iii. The choice of an appropriate academic curriculum.
11. “The improvement of understanding is for two ends: first, our own
increase of knowledge; secondly, to enable us to deliver that
knowledge to others.”
- John Locke
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