John Locke And Thomas Hobbes Essay

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John Locke and Thomas Hobbes Locke and Hobbes: the historical context. John Locke (1632–1704) was an English philosopher who is often credited with being the originator of liberalism. Locke’s personal life was one of accomplishment and success. He graduated from Oxford in 1656, taught philosophy, and published works on philosophy, politics, religion, and education. In his Two Treatises of Government (1690), Locke argues in favor of limited government and protection for individual rights. He builds a logical case for both propositions by extensively discussing human nature, the state of nature, laws of nature, and the origins of states. Locke’s discussion of these topics culminates in his rejection of the political theory of English writer Robert Filmer (1588–1653), a very popular theorist who supported the doctrine of the divine right of kings. Locke believed that people created governments by freely consenting to those governments and that governments should serve citizens, not hold them in subjection.1 Born in Malmesbury, England, Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) was a philosopher and political theorist widely renowned for his 1651 book Leviathan. He was educated at Oxford, lived for a time in Paris and there met philosopher Rene ́ Descartes, traveled to Italy and met Galileo, and served as a tutor of Charles II. Leviathan brings together parts of Hobbes’s previously published writings, including the 1642 Latin work De Cive and the 1640 Elements of Law, Natural and Political. Hobbes was also author of A Dialogue Between a Philosopher and a Student of the Common Laws of England;Behemoth: Or the Long Parliament (1668); and various essays on free will, optics, geometry, and moral philosophy. 2 The distinction between Hobbes and Lo... ... middle of paper ... ...limits are exceeded through the establishment of the currency , which is not perishable. Locke is also convinced that an economy based on private property and unlimited accumulation of wealth generate economic development overall infinitely superior to the pre-bourgeois models : a small piece of land cultivated privately , he notes , makes it a hundred times more than they would if left in the common property. Bibliografy -Edwards A., Towshend J., Interpreting modern political philosophy- From Macchiavelli to Marx, Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. -Mclelland J.S., A history of western political thought, New York, Routledge, 1996. -Strauss L., Cropsey J., History of political philosophy, University of Chicago, 1972. -Ebestein W., Ebenstein A., Great political thinkers, Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 1999 - Sharma S.K, Sharma U., Western political thought, Atlantic, 2013.

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