Locke

Modern philosophy

Locke was a seventeenth-century English philosopher (1632-1704), regarded as one of the founders of empiricism and, in political thought, of liberalism. While studying at Oxford, he became interested in the thought of Descartes. He travelled to France, where he met some of the most brilliant minds of the age. During the Tory Reaction, he was exiled from England and took refuge in Holland. He is the author of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, as well as The Second Treatise of Government and Essay Concerning Toleration.

Locke's Works Summarised on This Site

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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.

The country was at the time torn apart by civil war, which left a lasting mark on Locke's childhood. The conflict ruined his father, a solicitor who had served as a captain on the Parliamentary side. The war did not end until Locke's late teens, with the execution of Charles I in 1649.

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

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

Though drawn to medicine and the natural sciences, he found little value in rhetoric and scholasticism. In 1663, he was elected Censor of Moral Philosophy at Oxford and, as a tutor, took charge of the studies of younger students.

He threw himself into this role all the more fully as he was essentially alone in the world: both his parents and his two brothers had died. He remained a bachelor for the rest of his life.

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

Travel and Philosophy

At thirty-five, he left Oxford to become secretary to Lord Ashley, Earl of Shaftesbury and minister to Charles II, with whom he formed a close friendship. He served as physician to the family and tutor to the Earl's son.

Until this point he had been chiefly interested in medicine and the natural sciences. It was not until 1671, following his reading of Descartes — who had died some twenty years earlier — that he turned seriously to philosophy.

It was then that he began writing An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, his major work, which would take many years to complete.

portrait of John Locke — Portrait of John Locke

From 1672 to 1675, he travelled in France — not only Paris, but also Montpellier, where he went to benefit from the mild southern climate and to recuperate. The journey also deepened his understanding of Descartes and brought him into contact with French intellectual circles.

In France, he served as tutor to the son of Sir John Banks, a friend of the Shaftesburys. During these years, he developed a keen interest in education and pedagogy, which would later bear fruit in his final work, Some Thoughts Concerning Education.

In 1682, political circumstances forced him into exile. He took refuge in Holland for seven years before returning to England once the cause he had supported had prevailed. On his return, he was appointed a Commissioner of Appeal and took up a post at the Board of Trade.

Fame in Oates

For Locke, 1689 was a landmark year: he published in quick succession the Two Treatises of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration. To evade censorship, the first work appeared anonymously, while the second was initially published in Latin in the Netherlands.

The following year, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding appeared. It soon became the basis for philosophical teaching at Trinity College Dublin, and would go on to exert a profound influence on the French philosophers of the Enlightenment.

From 1691 onwards, he lived with his friend Lady Masham at her manor in Oates, Essex, a few dozen miles from London. Now celebrated, he received friends, responded to reviews of his works, and maintained a wide correspondence with prominent figures, including ministers of the Crown.

In 1693, he published Some Thoughts Concerning Education, which some have argued exerted an even greater influence in its day than An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.

Suffering from oedema in his legs and increasing 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