John Locke Essays (774 words) - Rights, Empiricists, John Locke

John Locke John Locke John Locke was an English philosopher and political theorist during the 1600s. He was also the founder of British empiricism. He is known for his great contribution to the Enlightenment period, in which he gave people the idea of natural rights and a government that protects those rights. John Locke also wrote a famous essay called Concerning Human Understanding and attacked the theory of divine right of kings in Two Treatises of Government. John Locke was a very important philosopher and his ideas effected many people. John Locke was born in Wrinlington, Somerset on August 29,1632. He lived from 1632 to 1704. He was the son of a puritan lawyer who fought for Cromwell in the English civil war. The father also named John Locke was a very devoted man to his work and family and an even-tempered man.John Locke was educated at Westminniser School and Oxford and later became a tutor at the university. His friends urged him to leave the church and start writing all of his great ideas, but John Locke said he was not fit for that calling, so he remained at the Church of England. He had long been interested in Meteorology and the experimental sciences, especially chemistry. He turned to medicine and became one of the most known practitioner of his time (Microsoft). In 1669, Locke became confidential secretary and personal physician to Anthony Ashley Cooper, later Lord Chancellor, and the first earl of Shaftbury. Locke's association with Shaftbury enabled him to meet many of the great men of England, but it also caused him a great deal of trouble. Shaftbury was indicated for high treason, but Locke was suspected of disloyalty. In 1685 he left England for Holland after the revolution of 1688 (Wolterstorff 83). Locke was always very interested in psychology, and in about 1670, some of his friends begged him to write and publish a paper on limitations of human judgment. He started to write a few paragraphs, but 20 years passed before he finished because he was interested in Shaftesbury's political affairs. The result was his great and famous essay Concerning Human Understanding. In his work he stressed the theory that the human mind starts as a tabula rasa, which is a wax tablet ready to be used for writing. The mind has new born ideas, and once men get a greater understanding of the idea, he can learn to make that idea greater (?John Locke?). Locke was the founder of British empiricism. Locke's Essay is one of the classical documents of British empirical philosophy. The thing that Locke was most concerned about was epistemology, which means the theory of knowledge. Locke sees the universe as made up of ?insensible particles? and ?immaterial substances? that associate with human bodies. He believes these bodies have senses, which produce ideas. These ideas are what creates our thoughts, perception, and consciousness. Locke believed we have no knowledge other then our ideas. According to Locke, secondary qualities, such as taste, ?are nothing in the objects themselves but powers to produce ideas in use by their primary qualities? (Aaron 72) Locke is also known for the Two Treatises of Government. The first part of the document talks about the political views of Sir Robert Filmer. Filmer had argued that the power of a king is the same as a father's power over his children. Locke didn't agree with this concept and thought that the father only has power until his child become an adult and that the king's subjects are not the same as children. In the second part of the document, Locke says that ruler's must rule by the laws of nature, or natural rights to life, liberty, and property. The ruler's powers are given to him with people trusting that the ruler will follow these natural rights, and if the ruler doesn't follow these rights his power can be taken away. He believed that a monarchy with an assembly to make sure the monarch follows these natural rights was a perfect political arrangement. He also believed that principles of conduct were possible and humans could be trusted to follow these principles. These ideas had a tremendous effect on all future political thinking. The Americans Declaration of