JOHN LOCKE

JOHN LOCKE

 John Locke  29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704) was an

English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the

"Father of Liberalism.

 In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, Locke's Two Treatises were rarely cited. Historian Julian Hoppit said of the book, "except among

some Whigs, even as a contribution to the intense debate of the 1690s it

made little impression and was generally ignored until 1703 (though in

Oxford in 1695 it was reported to have made 'a great noise')«(Julian

Hoppit, A Land of Liberty? England. 1689–1727 (Oxford: Clarendon

Press, 2000), p. 195.)

Major Works;

 Two Treatises of Government

 An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

 Some Thoughts Concerning Education

 Locke's political theory was founded on social contract theory. Unlike Thomas Hobbes, Locke believed that human nature is characterised by reason and

tolerance. Like Hobbes, Locke believed that human nature allowed people to be selfish. This is apparent with the introduction of currency. In a natural state all people were equal and independent, and everyone had a natural right to defend his "life, health, liberty, or possessions".,( John Locke (1690), Second Treatise of Government(10th ed.), 

 Like Hobbes, Locke assumed that the sole right to defend in the state of nature

was not enough, so people established a civil society to resolve conflicts in a civil

way with help from government in a state of society. However, Locke never refers

to Hobbes by name and may instead have been responding to other writers of the

day. (Skinner, Quentin, Visions of Politics, Cambridge)

Locke's general 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 Considerations on the Consequences of the Lowering of Interest and the Raising of the Value of Money.

(

Locke, John (1691), Some Considerations on the consequences of the Lowering of Interest and the Raising of the Value of Money, Marxists.)

 Locke defines the self as "that conscious thinking thing, (whatever substance, made up of whether spiritual, or material, simple, 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 far as that consciousness extends". (Locke, John

(1997), Woolhouse, Roger (ed.), An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, New York: Penguin Books. P.307) He does not, however, ignore "substance", writing that

"the body too goes to the making the man. (Locke, John (1997), Woolhouse, Roger

(ed.), An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, New York: Penguin Books. P.306)