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Colegiul National Elena Cuza
-John Locke-Life and Activity
Candidat:
Dinu Andreea-Cornelia
Coordonator:
Profesor Laura Anton
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Table of Contents
Argument ………………………..……………………………… 4
Introduction….…………………………………………………..6
I. Biography
Who was John Locke? ………………………………….. 7
II. About knowledge
1. The Limits of Human Underestanding ………….. 8
2. Simple and Complex Ideas …………………………… 9
3. Primary and Secondary Qualities …………… 10
4. The Self …………………………………..………………….. 11
III. Politics
1. The Two Treaties Of Government ………………….. 12
2. Theory Of Value And Property ……………………… 13
3. Human Nature And God’s Purposes ……………… 14
Conclusion …………………………………… ,,………………….. 15
References .……………………………………………………….. 16
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However,I should advise you that after you will
read one philosopher,you will definitely want to
know more about who inspired his thinking,what
was the starting point,who opposed to his
thinking,thus forming a continuance that will also
help one make connections and parallels.
What is more,his conception of social contract had a
great contribution to one of the most important
document in the history of the USA,The Declaration
of Independence.
I hope I will succeed in stirring your interest and
make you think of the philosophers as your friends
who can help you understand life better.
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I. Biography
Who was John Locke?
John Locke (b. 1632, d. 1704) was a British philosopher, Oxford academic and also
medical researcher.
Locke grew up and lived through one of the most extraordinary centuries of
English political and intellectual history. It was a century in which conflicts
between Crown and Parliament and the overlapping conflicts between
Protestants, Anglicans and Catholics swirled into civil war in the 1640s.
Locke's father, who was also called John Locke, was a country lawyer and aclerk .His mother was Agnes Keene. Both parents were Puritans.
In 1647, Locke was sent to the prestigiousWestminster School in London under
the sponsorship of Alexander Popham, a member of Parliament and his father's
former commander. After completing his studies there, he was admitted toChrist
Church, Oxford. He was awarded a bachelor's degree in 1656 and a master's
degree in 1658. He obtained a bachelor of medicine in 1674, having studied
medicine extensively during his time atOxford. In 1666, he met Lord Anthony
Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, who had come to Oxford seeking
treatment for a liver infection. Cooper was impressed with Locke and persuaded
him to become part of his retinue.Locke had been looking for a career and in 1667
moved into Shaftesbury's home at Exeter House in London, to serve as Lord
Ashley's personal physician.
Locke's medical knowledge was put to the test when Shaftesbury's liver infection
became life-threatening. Locke coordinated the advice of several physicians and
was probably instrumental in persuading Shaftesbury to undergo an operation(then life-threatening itself) to remove the cyst. Shaftesbury survived and
prospered, crediting Locke with saving his life.
Locke fled to the Netherlands in 1683, under strong suspicion of involvement in
the Rye House Plot, although there is little evidence to suggest that he was
directly involved in the scheme. In the Netherlands, Locke had time to return to
his writing, spending a great deal of time re-working the Essay and composing the
Letter on Toleration. Locke did not return home until after theGloriousRevolution. Locke accompanied William of Orange's wife back to England in 1688.
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3.Primary and Secondary Qualities
His view is that the simple idea is the test and standard of reality. Whatever the
mind contributes to our ideas removes them further from the reality of things; in
becoming general, knowledge loses touch with things. Butnot all simple ideas
carry with them the same significance for reality. Colours, smells, tastes, sounds,
and the like are simple ideas, yet nothing resembles them in the bodies
themselves; but, owing to a certain bulk, figure, and motion of their insensibleparts, bodies have “a power to produce those sensations in us.” These, therefore,
are called “secondary qualities of bodies.” On the other hand, “solidity, extension,
figure, motion or rest, and number” are also held by Locke to be simple ideas; and
these are resemblances of qualities inbody; “their patterns do really exist in the
bodies themselves”; accordingly, they are “primary qualities of bodies.” In this
way, by implication if not expressly, Locke severs, instead of establishing, the
connection between simple ideas and reality.
The only ideas which can make good their claim to be regarded as simple ideas
have nothing resembling them in things. Other ideas, no doubt, are said to
resemble bodily qualities (an assertion for which no proof is given and none is
possible); but these ideas have only a doubtful claim to rank as simple ideas.
Locke’s prevailing tendency is to identify reality with the simple idea, but he
sometimes comes close to the opposite view that the reference to reality is the
work of thought.
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4.The Self
Locke defines the self as "that conscious thinking thing, (whatever substance,
made up of whether spiritual, or material, simple, or compounded, it matters not)
which is sensible, or conscious of pleasure and pain, capable of happiness or
misery, and so is concerned for itself, as far as that consciousness extends". He
does not, however, ignore "substance", writing that "the body too goes to the
making the man. The Lockean self is therefore a self-aware and self-reflective
consciousness that is fixed in a body.
In his Essay , Locke explains the gradual unfolding of this conscious mind. Arguing
against both the Augustinian view of man as originally sinful and the Cartesian
position, which holds that man innately knows basic logical propositions, Locke
posits an "empty" mind, a tabula rasa, which is shaped by experience;sensations
and reflections being the two sources of all our ideas
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III.Politics
1.The Two Treatises Of Government-(Political theory)-
Locke's political theory was founded on social contract theory. Unlike Thomas
Hobbes, Locke believed that human nature is characterised by reason and
tolerance. Like Hobbes, Locke believed that human nature allowed men to be
selfish. This is apparent with the introduction of currency. In a natural state all
people were equal and independent, and everyone had a natural right to defend
his “Life, health, Liberty, or Possessions". This became the basis for the phrase in
the American Declaration of Independence:"Life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness" .
The introduction of the work was written later than the main text, and gave
people the impression that the book was written in 1688 to justify the Glorious
Revolution.Supposing that the Two Treatises may have been intended to explainand defend the revolutionary plot against Charles II and his brother, how does it
do this?
Locke assumed that the sole right to defend in the state of nature was not enough,
so people established a civil society to resolve conflicts in a civil way with help
from government in a state of society. Locke also advocated governmental
separation of powers and believed that revolution is not only aright but an
obligation in some circumstances. These ideas would come to have profound
influence on the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the UnitedStates
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2.Theory of value and property
Locke uses the word property in both broad and narrow senses. In a broad sense,
it covers a wide range of human interests and aspirations; more narrowly, it refers
to material goods. He argues that property is a natural right and it is derived from
labour.
In Chapter V of his Second Treatise, Locke argues that the individual ownership of
goods and property is justified by the labour exerted to produce those goods or
utilise property to produce goods beneficial to human society.
Locke stated his belief, in his Second Treatise, that nature on its own provides
little of value to society; he provides the implication that the labour expended in
the creation of goods gives them their value. This is used as supporting evidence
for the interpretation of Locke's labour theory of property as a labour theory of
value, in his implication that goods produced by nature are of little value, unless
combined with labour in their production and that labour is what gives goods
their value.
Locke believed that ownership of property is created by the application of labour.
In addition, he believed property precedes government and government cannot
"dispose of the estates of the subjects arbitrarily." Karl Marx later critiqued
Locke's theory of property in his own social theory.
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3.The Human Nature and God’s Purposes
According to Locke, God created man and we are, in effect, God's property. Thechief end set us by our creator as a species and as individuals is survival
If one takes survival as the end, then we may ask what are the means necessary
to that end. On Locke's account, these turn out to be life, liberty, health and
property. Since the end is set by God, on Locke's view we have a right to the
means to that end. So we have rights to life, liberty, health and property. These
are natural rights, that is they are rights that we have in a state of nature before
the introduction of civil government, and all people have these rights equally.
Locke does not intend his account of the state of nature as a sort of utopia.
Rather it serves as an analytical device that explains why it becomes necessary to
introduce civil government and what the legitimate function of civil government is.
Thus, as Locke conceives it, there are problems with life in the state of nature.
The law of nature, like civil laws can be violated. There are no police, prosecutors
or judges in the state of nature as these are all representatives of a government
with full political power. The victims, then, must enforce the law of nature in the
state of nature. In addition to our other rights in the state of nature, we have the
rights to enforce the law and to judge on our own behalf. We may, Locke tells us,
help one another.
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Conclusion
I think that philosophy is a great tool in forming a personality.How
can you develop yourself without any questions as regards to the
world?
You stop evolving if you are not an inquiring mind and don’t
experience new things.
John Locke realised that and put an emphasis on reflection,theprocess we should pay more attention to.
The more we know the more we seem to get close to the world.
As a conclusion I have just realised how vast the world can be and
that every moment of our lives should be written down on a
tabula rassa.
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References
www.wikipedia.com
www.plato.stanford.edu/entries/ locke.com
Manual pentru clasa a XIIa de Elena Lupsa,Gabriel Hacman.Ed didactica si
pedagogica