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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