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John Locke's portrait by Godfrey Kneller, National Portrait Gallery, London. John Locke (/ l ɒ k /; 29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704 ()) [13] was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of the Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "father of liberalism".
Of Locke's influence Thomas Jefferson wrote: "Bacon, Locke and Newton I consider them as the three greatest men that have ever lived, without any exception, and as having laid the foundation of those superstructures which have been raised in the Physical & Moral sciences".
While quite different works, Locke, Hobbes, and Rousseau agreed that a social contract, in which the government's authority lies in the consent of the governed, [58] is necessary for man to live in civil society. Locke defines the state of nature as a condition in which humans are rational and follow natural law, in which all men are born equal ...
However first publication that can be confirmed is 1698, which postdates by almost a decade Locke's better known writings. The level of religious tolerance portrayed in the Constitutions was acclaimed by Voltaire who advised, "Cast your eyes over the other hemisphere, behold Carolina, of which the wise Locke was the legislator."
John Locke was the first to develop a liberal philosophy as he coherently described the elementary principles of the liberal movement, such as the right to private property and the consent of the governed The Agreement of the People (1647), a manifesto for political change proposed by the Levellers during the English Civil War, called for ...
Decades after his death, the English philosopher's ideas helped shape the American republic.
Locke's work appeared amidst a fear that Catholicism might be taking over England and responds to the problem of religion and government by proposing religious toleration as the answer. This "letter" is addressed to an anonymous "Honored Sir": this was Locke's close friend Philipp van Limborch, who published it without Locke's knowledge. [1]
In addition to the theoretical deficiencies of Locke's theory of property, Wood also argues that Locke also provides a justification for the dispossession of indigenous land. The idea that making land productive serves as the basis of property rights establishes the corollary that the failure to improve land could mean forfeiting property ...