John Locke

Crystal Sanchez

Mr. Fitz

A. P. Euro/Per. 6

December 1 2005

The 17th century in England was a time of war, taxes, religious intolerance, and political mischief. At the time there was a conflict between Crown and Parliament and the conflicts between Protestants, Anglicans and Catholics. With the defeat of Charles I in 1649 there began a great experiment in governmental institutions including the abolishment of the monarchy, the house of the Lords and ht Anglican Church, and the establishment of Oliver Cromwell's Protectorate in the 1650s. After these events England was declared a common wealth. Throughout the 17th century, many of the foremost religious writers had clung to the conviction that God had imprinted on the mind of man certain indelible truths, and that of these ideas the assurance of God's own existence was at once the clearest and the most important. (G.R. Cragg, p.115)

John Locke was born August 29, 1632 into Protestant parents. Locke's father was a lawyer who served in Cavalry Company on the Puritan side in the early stages of the English civil war (http://www.panix.com). Locke was a boy when the civil war broke out (1640s). Locke was a king scholar which were a group of boys who had the privilege of living in the school and who received a stipend for two or three years before standing to election for either Christ church, Oxford or Trinity College Cambridge. Locke was sixteen years old and was attending Westminster when Charles I was executed. From Westminster Locke attended Oxford at the age of twenty (http://panix.com). The importance of some thinkers is even greater than the intrinsic value of what they have to say. (G. R. Cragg, p.114). Locke characterized the view of his own age and predicted the thought of the succeeding period. The choice of Locke's influence was much wider than the circle usually affected by the writings of philosophers. He created a new mentality among intelligent people. He offered, a satisfying interpretation of the workings of the human mind, and provided a framework inside which the ordinary person's thinking could be done. Opposition to authoritarianism characterizes much Of Locke's work. This opposition, which characterized Locke's work, is on the level of the individual person and on the level of institutions like church and government. For the individual Locke wanted us to use reason to search after truth rather than to simply accept what others thought. What Locke didn't want is for us to be driven by superstition and authority. Sometimes one gets self-conscience and does what others tell them to, only because it is right or moral to do. In the grand scheme of things Locke wanted us to proportion agreements to propositions to the evidence for them. The positive side of Locke's anti-authoritarianism is that he believes that using reason to try to grasp the truth, and determining the legitimate functions of institutions will optimize human flourishing for the individual and society both in respect to its material and spiritual life (http://stanford.edu/entries/locke/).

Locke wrote about psychology, and religious toleration. In 1679, the situation of England was highly volatile, because of this background Locke wrote his most famous works, the two treatises of government (http://dicoverjohnlocke.com/). After the reign of Charles II and James II there was a new way of doing things. A progressive way, a way more tolerant of religious differences than before. It was also a way in which people's rights were respected more. Symptoms of this were the Bill of rights 1689 and the abolition of pre-republican censorship in 1695(in which Locke himself played a part in drafting parliamentary arguments)(http://discoverjohnlocke.com/). John Locke helped start the philosophical movement. That movement was known as the Enlightenment of the 18th century. In our society today we can still see some of Locke's way of thinking and his beliefs in our systems of government. His contributions to society include the theory of knowledge known as empiricism, which talked about the limits of what we can understand about he nature of reality. Locke believed that our understanding of reality ultimately derives from what we have experienced through the senses (http://who2/johnlocke.html). The political implication of his theories included the notions that all people are born equal and that education can free people from tyranny. Locked also believed that government had a moral obligation to guarantee that individuals always retained sovereignty over their own rights, including ownership of property that resulted from their labor(http://who2/johnlocke.html). Politically active john Locke was personal physician to and advisor to Anthony Ashley Cooper, the Earl of Shaftesbury: a leader in the parliamentary opposition of King Charles II. At the time when Shaftesbury fled to Netherlands, and Locked followed was when he wrote his masterpiece, essay concerning Human understanding, and actively plotted to put William pf Orange on the English throne (http://who2johnlocke.html). In his essay Concerning Human Understanding: "We can he think, know with certainty that god exists. We can also know about morality with the same precision we know about mathematics, because we are the creators of moral and political ideas. In regard to natural substances we can know only the appearances and not the underlying realities that produce those appearances. Still, the atomic hypothesis with its attendant distinction between primary and secondary qualities is the most plausible available hypothesis (http://oregonstate.edu). As we all know every number word is all just a theory. Something that the "The Renaissance Men/discoverers just made up to find a meaning to reason. When Locke wanted us to use reason to search after truth rather than to simply accept what others thought, "Is Locke implying that everything that we thought we know is all just a political scheme or simply a theory. The commonwealth of learning is not at this time without master-builders, whose mighty designs, in advancing the sciences, will leave lasting monuments to the admiration of prosperity: but every one must not hope to be Boyle or a Sydenham; and in the age that produces such masters as the great huygenieus and the incomparable Mr. Newton, with some others of that strain, it is ambition enough to be employed as an under-labourer in clearingthe ground a little, and removing some of the rubbish that lies in the way to knowledgeÐ'...(http://panix.com). In reality Locke might be referring to himself as a Ð''under-labourer' because he is contrasting the known to be prestigious discoveries of these men, with his own attempt to show the lack of