John Locke

SUBMITTED BY: EMMELL JOHN A. MAGSIPOC

SUBMITTED TO: JADE VINCENT JAMERO SARDA
GRADE 12- STEM

John Locke was a British philosopher, Oxford academic and medical researcher.
Locke’s monumental An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689) is one of
the first great defences of modern empiricism and concerns itself with determining
the limits of human understanding in respect to a wide spectrum of topics. It thus
tells us in some detail what one can legitimately claim to know and what one cannot.
Locke’s association with Anthony Ashley Cooper (later the First Earl of Shaftesbury)
led him to become successively a government official charged with collecting
information about trade and colonies, economic writer, opposition political activist,
and finally a revolutionary whose cause ultimately triumphed in the Glorious
Revolution of 1688. Among Locke’s political works he is most famous for The
Second Treatise of Government in which he argues that sovereignty resides in the
people and explains the nature of legitimate government in terms of natural rights
and the social contract. He is also famous for calling for the separation of Church
and State in his Letter Concerning Toleration. Much of Locke’s work is characterized
by opposition to authoritarianism. This is apparent both on the level of the individual
person and on the level of institutions such as government and church. For the
individual, Locke wants each of us to use reason to search after truth rather than
simply accept the opinion of authorities or be subject to superstition. He wants us to
proportion assent to propositions to the evidence for them. On the level of Institutions
it becomes important to distinguish the legitimate from the illegitimate functions of
institutions and to make the corresponding distinction for the uses of force by these
institutions. Locke believes that using reason to try to grasp the truth, and determine
the legitimate functions of institutions will optimize human flourishing for the
individual and society both in respect to its material and spiritual welfare. This in turn,
amounts to following natural law and the fulfilment of the divine purpose for
humanity.
1. Historical Background and Locke’s Life
John Locke (1632–1704) was one of the greatest philosophers in Europe at the end
of the seventeenth century. 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.
With the defeat and death of Charles I, there began a great experiment in
governmental institutions including the abolishment of the monarchy, the House of
Lords and the Anglican church, and the establishment of Oliver Cromwell’s
Protectorate in the 1650s. The collapse of the Protectorate after the death of
Cromwell was followed by the Restoration of Charles II—the return of the monarchy,
the House of Lords and the Anglican Church. This period lasted from 1660 to 1688.
It was marked by continued conflicts between King and Parliament and debates over
religious toleration for Protestant dissenters and Catholics. This period ends with the
Glorious Revolution of 1688 in which James II was driven from England and
replaced by William of Orange and his wife Mary. The final period during which
Locke lived involved the consolidation of power by William and Mary, and the
beginning of William’s efforts to oppose the domination of Europe by the France of
Louis XIV, which later culminated in the military victories of John Churchill—the Duke
of Marlborough.
What is Locke's theory?

In politics, Locke is best known as a proponent of limited

government. He uses a theory of natural rights to argue that
governments have obligations to their citizens, have only limited
powers over their citizens, and can ultimately be overthrown by
citizens under certain circumstances.