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Essay on John Locke
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John Locke was a British born philosopher, physician, and writer that played a significant role in the framework of The United States. He was born in Wrington, England on August 29th, 1632. A father, also named John, who was a country lawyer, and his mother Anges Keene, raised Locke. Both his parents were Puritans, which influenced his later work immensely ("John Locke"). Locke’s parents sent him to the famous Westminister School in London where he was led by Alexander Popham, a member of Parliament. He later did his studies in philosophy at prestigious Oxford University, while also gaining some medical background. Locke did not enjoy the curriculum at Oxford, as he was more interested in the works of modern philosophers. Locke received his bachelor of medicine in 1674, and was a physician for much of his early life after college ("John Locke"). He was put to learn medicine under Thomas Sydenham, who had a major effect on John Locke’s philosophical thinking. Locke’s medical awareness was tested when Sydenham had a liver infection and Locke undertook a life-threatening operation to remove the cyst. The operation was successful and Locke was credited with saving Sydenham’s life. After that experience, Locke decided that the medical field was not for him so Locke became more fascinated with philosophy as he joined the Whig movement ("John Locke"). He traveled across Europe gaining new ideas that would later turn be featured in two of his major publications, A Letter Concerning Toleration and Two Treatises of Government.
John Locke got A Letter Concerning Toleration published in 1689 and it was first published in Latin. What made him put pen to paper and write this was the increased fear that Catholicism could very well be taking Eng...
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...ched in the stone of American history.
Works Cited
Broers, Adalei. "John Locke On Equality, Toleration, and the Atheist Exception." Student Pulse. Student Pulse, n.d. Web. 07 May 2014. http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/75/john-locke-on-equality-toleration-and-the-atheist-exception
"John Locke." 2014. The Biography.com website. May 07 2014 http://www.biography.com/people/john-locke-9384544.
Kramnick, Isaac. "Lockean Liberalism and the American Revolution." The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. History Now, n.d. Web. 07 May 2014. http://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/road-revolution/essays/lockean-liberalism-and-american-revolution
Tuckness, Alex, "Locke's Political Philosophy", The Stanford Encyclopedia of (Winter 2012 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), Web. 07 May 2014 URL = http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2012/entries/locke-political/
Trans. William Popple. N.p., c. 1686. - c Print. The.. 4) Locke, John.
John Locke, one of the leading philosophers of the European Enlightenment was very important when it came to political thought in the United States. His ideas of the reasons, nature, and limits of the government became especially important in the development of the Constitution. In one of his most famous writings of that time, Two Treatises on Government (1689), Locke established a theory where personal liberty could coexist with political power ; meaning that the people would agree to obey the government and in return, the government would have the responsibility of respecting the people’s natural rights. In other words, he laid out a social contract theory that provided the philosophy and source of a governing author...
Locke, John Essay concerning Humane Understanding, Book II ("Of Ideas"), Chapter 1 ("Of Ideas in General, and Their Original")
...artin Luther King’s writings how he relates back to John Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau making his writing very well rounded towards the audience.
The Founding Fathers of the United States relied heavily on many of the principles taught by John Locke. Many of the principles of Locke’s Second Treatise of Government may easily be discovered in the Declaration of Independence with some minor differences in wording and order. Many of the ideas of the proper role of government, as found in the Constitution of the United States, may be discovered in the study of Locke. In order to understand the foundation of the United States, it is vital that one studies Locke. A few ideas from Hume may be found but the real influence was from Locke. Rousseau, on the other hand, had none.
John Locke was an English philosopher who lived during 1632-1704. In political theory he was equally influential. Contradicting Hobbes, Locke maintained that the original state of nature was happy and characterized by reason and tolerance; all human beings were equal and free to pursue "life, health, liberty, and possessions." The state formed by the social contract was guided by the natural law, which guaranteed those inalienable rights. He set down the policy of checks and balances later followed in the U.S. Constitution; formulated the doctrine that revolution in some circumstances is not only a right but an obligation; and argued for broad religious freedom.
The Enlightenment period can be accredited to having an impact on the radicalism of the American Revolution. “During the eighteenth century, many educated Americans began to be influenced by the outlook of the European Enlightenment.” Enlightenment thinkers were particularly fond of rationalism and reasoning as a government of human life. John Locke, a philosopher and author of this period, brought up in Two Treatises on Government the idea that the government and the governed should have a mutual agreement. This agreement, known as Locke’s “social contract” held that men should surrender themselves to be governed, and in turn, the government would recognize the natural rights of men. Life, liberty, an...
Review this essay John Locke – Second treatise, of civil government 1. First of all, John Locke reminds the reader from where the right of political power comes from. He expands the idea by saying, “we must consider what estate all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons as they think fit.” Locke believes in equality among all people. Since every creature on earth was created by God, no one has advantages over another.
Locke and Rousseau present themselves as two very distinct thinkers. They both use similar terms, but conceptualize them differently to fulfill very different purposes. As such, one ought not be surprised that the two theorists do not understand liberty in the same way. Locke discusses liberty on an individual scale, with personal freedom being guaranteed by laws and institutions created in civil society. By comparison, Rousseau’s conception portrays liberty as an affair of the entire political community, and is best captured by the notion of self-rule. The distinctions, but also the similarities between Locke and Rousseau’s conceptions can be clarified by examining the role of liberty in each theorist’s proposed state of nature and civil society, the concepts with which each theorist associates liberty, and the means of ensuring and safeguarding liberty that each theorist devises.
W. Von Leyden.,1982. Hobbs and Locke: the politics of freedom and obligation. London: The MacMillian Press Ltd.
What John Locke was concerned about was the lack of limitations on the sovereign authority. During Locke’s time the world was surrounded by the monarch’s constitutional violations of liberty toward the end of the seventeenth century. He believed that people in their natural state enjoy certain natural, inalienable rights, particularly those to life, liberty and property. Locke described a kind of social contract whereby any number of people, who are able to abide by the majority rule, unanimously unite to affect their common purposes. The...
Locke started his career teaching English at Howard University. Later on however, he became head of the Department of Philosophy. While he was working, he had developed some other interests in other fields as well. He liked music, art, literature, political theory, and anthropology to name a few.
While Locke’s famous line “in the beginning all the world was America” might appear rather pompous, he clearly explains the causes for the liberal tradition in America. Given the fact that land was bountiful and scarcity was not a problem for
Wright, John Samuel Fletcher. Liberty in Key Works of John Locke and John Stuart Mill. Thesis Deakin University, 1995.
Furthermore, Locke's passion for morality is also seen in his interpretation of the social contract. We see that Locke's ideas in freedom of life, liberty, and property have formed the basic morals of past and current governments. One of Edwards's morals that have been seen throughout American history is the infinite sovereignty of G...