Locke

Modern philosophy

Locke was a 17^th-century English philosopher (1632-1704), considered one of the founders of empiricism and, politically, of liberalism. While studying at Oxford, he became interested in the thought of Descartes. He traveled to France, where he met some of the most brilliant minds of the time. During the Tory Reaction, he was exiled from England and took refuge in Holland. He is the author of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, but also of The Second Treatise of Government or Essay Concerning Toleration.

Locke's works summarised on this site

book cover

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

Locke develops here a resolutely empiricist theory of knowledge. How are our ideas formed? Is our knowledge limited?

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Bibliography

Here are the essential books if you want to understand this author's thinking better:

Roger Woolhouse (2007). Locke: A Biography. Cambridge University Press
Dunn, John (1969), The Political Thought of John Locke, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press
Marshall, John (1994), John Locke: resistance, religion and responsibility, Cambridge
Vere Claiborne Chappell, ed. (1994). The Cambridge Companion to Locke. Cambridge University Press.
Ayers, Michael, 1991. Locke. Epistemology & Ontology, Routledge

Biography: life of Locke

Youth

John Locke was born in 1632, in Wrington, a small town near Bristol in south-west England.

At the time, the country was torn apart by civil war; this would leave a lasting mark on Locke's childhood. The war led to the ruin of his father, who was a captain in Parliament and had previously worked as a solicitor. The war would not end until his late teens, with the execution of Charles I in 1649.

At the age of 15, he went to London to study. After learning Latin and Greek, he enrolled at Westminster School and read the works of Aristotle.

A zealous student, he won a scholarship to continue his studies at Oxford, where he returned at the age of twenty.

Though interested in medicine and the natural sciences, he found little use in rhetoric and scholasticism. In 1663, he was elected Censor of Moral Philosophy at Oxford. As a tutor, he supervised the studies of younger students.

He was all the more committed to his mission because he was a loner: both his parents and his two brothers were dead. He remained a bachelor for the rest of his life.

Politically, he was one of those who opposed the absolutism of the Stuarts.

Travel and philosophy

At the age of thirty-five, he left Oxford to become secretary to Lord Ashley, the Earl of Shaftesbury and minister to Charles II, befriending him. He was physician to the family, and tutor to the Earl's son.

Up to this point he had been mainly interested in medicine and the natural sciences. It was not until 1671 that he truly turned to philosophy, following his reading of Descartes, who had passed away around twenty years earlier.

At this point, he began writing An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, his major work. It was to be written over many years.

portrait of John Locke — Portrait of John Locke

From 1672 to 1675, he went travelling. He visited France, not only Paris, but also Montpellier, to take care of himself: he went there to enjoy the excellent climate of the South of France. This was an opportunity to deepen his understanding of Descartes and connect with intellectual circles.

In France, he was tutor to the son of Sir John Banks, a friend of the Shaftesburys. During these years, he developed significant expertise in education and pedagogy, which would later play a key role in his final work, Some Thoughts Concerning Education.

In 1682, he was forced into exile from England as a result of the Civil War. He took refuge in Holland for seven years before returning to England, once the side he supported had triumphed. Upon his return, he was appointed as a Commissioner of Appeal and worked at the Board of Trade.

Fame in Oates

For Locke, 1689 was a banner year: he published one after the other the Two Treatises of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration. To circumvent censorship, the first work appeared anonymously, while the second was first published in Latin in the Netherlands.

The following year, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding was published. This soon provided the basis for philosophical teaching at Trinity College Dublin, and would exert a profound influence, a few decades later, on the French philosophers of the Enlightenment.

From 1691 onwards, he lived with his friend Lady Masham at her manor in Oates, Essex, located a few dozen miles from London. Now famous, he entertained friends, responded to reviews of his works, and kept up a correspondence with many prominent people, including the King's ministers.

In 1693, he published Some Thoughts Concerning Education, which some claim had an even greater influence in its time than An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.

Suffering from oedema in his leg and deafness, Locke died in 1704, at High Laver.

Main works

Essay Concerning Toleration
A Letter Concerning Toleration
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
Two Treatises of Government
Some Thoughts Concerning Education