Locke

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• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781405189361, 9781405189354
• eBook ISBN: 9781118327722
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Modern Philosophy

In a focused assessment of one of the founding members of the liberal tradition in philosophy and a self-proclaimed "Under-Labourer" working to support the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, the author maps the full range of John Locke's highly influential ideas, which even today remain at the heart of debates about the nature of reality and our knowledge of it, as well as our moral and political rights and duties.

• Comprehensive introduction to the full range of Locke's ideas, providing an up-to-date account that acknowledges issues raised by recent scholarship over the past decade
• A well-rounded perspective on one of the intellectual giants of the western philosophical tradition
• Provides detailed coverage of Locke's two key works, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding and The Two Treatises of Government.
• A sophisticated analysis by a highly respected academic
• A vital addition to the Blackwell Great Minds series

chapter 1

locke's life

If you ask what sort of a man he was, the answer is that he was contented with his modest lot. Bred a scholar, he used his studies to devote himself to truth alone.

Locke's description of himself, translated by Roger Woolhouse from the original Latin on his tombstone

John Locke was an accidental philosopher. For most of his intellectual life, he was attracted to the kinds of activities engaged in by the research scientists of his day: collecting data, formulating explanatory hypotheses on the basis of observation, and testing hypotheses by controlled experiments. But because of a broad and insatiable intellectual curiosity and a devotion to truth wherever it lay, as well as a deep antipathy to absolute power and its abuses, Locke found himself drawn into a number of important philosophical and political controversies that, as he saw it, required clear definition of terms, precise reasoning, and a firm grasp of the extent and limits of human understanding. His impatience with what he saw as the fruitless and endless disputation of his more Scholastically minded contemporaries, combined with his own investigations into the mental abilities of human beings and his liberal views on the inclusive nature of Christianity and the importance of toleration, led him to defend a number of controversial philosophical and theological doctrines that more than ruffled the feathers of prominent Anglican (Church of England) clergymen. His claim that the legitimacy of government is grounded in the consent of the people was anathema to supporters of the divine right of kings and of the importance of absolute rule as a bulwark against chaos and civil war. He was mostly lucky in that he was able to devote much of his life to the pursuits that gave him the greatest satisfaction: observing, cataloguing, discovering, reading, writing, and sharing ideas with like-minded friends. And he lived long enough and worked sufficiently tirelessly to leave us with a priceless intellectual legacy, one that rivals, in both quality and influence, the output of the rest of the Western world's greatest philosophers.

John Locke was born in Wrington, Somerset, in 1632, and spent the first 14 years of his life in the village of Belluton, 6 miles south of the thriving market town of Bristol. His mother, Agnes Keene, and father, John, 10 years her junior, lived in a house given to them by Locke's grandfather, who had made his fortune in the cloth trade. In later years, Locke would describe his mother as very pious and affectionate, but little else is known about her. He also had kind things to say about his father, approving of the strict discipline with which he was raised before adolescence and the gradual loosening of this discipline thereafter, allowing for the possibility of true friendship between parent and son in adulthood. Of Locke's two brothers, one died in infancy, and the other, Thomas, five years younger than John, died in 1663, most likely of tuberculosis.

Locke's parents were probably Puritans, Calvinists who leaned towards Presbyterianism. As Protestant dissenters, they opposed Anglican orthodoxy and demands for uniformity, as well as Catholicism. No doubt this dual hostility had a significant impact on Locke, much of whose later theological output (perhaps unsurprisingly) reflected the basic attitudes of his parents. Locke's father was a lawyer, charged in part with collecting local taxes to support the increasingly unpopular administration of King Charles I, who believed in his divine right to absolute rule. In 1642, when Locke was 10 years old, a two-year standoff between Parliament and Charles I led to civil war. Locke's father, at some cost to himself, joined a Parliamentary regiment organized by a local MP, Alexander Popham. The regiment was defeated, and John Sr returned home in 1643. But thanks to Popham's power to nominate boys for entrance into selective private schools, Locke's father was able to secure a place for him at Westminster School in 1646.

At Westminster, Locke's curriculum consisted of a steady diet of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic, with some geography, arithmetic, and geometry (taught in Latin). Locke later described the school atmosphere as very severe, awash with the kind of corporal punishment he never ceased to detest. In 1649, Charles I was beheaded, and his son, Charles II, was defeated by Oliver Cromwell in 1651 and fled to the continent. In 1650, Locke earned a special scholarship that enabled him to board at Westminster and compete, successfully in 1652, for a place at Christchurch College, Oxford.

Locke's program of study at Christchurch was an extension of the Westminster curriculum, with the addition of lectures and tutorials on Aristotelian Scholastic logic, metaphysics, and moral philosophy, and a method of learning grounded in disputation, akin to what we now think of as formal debate. Locke developed a lifelong antipathy to Aristotelian doctrines (particularly to the procrustean conventions of syllogistic logic and the obscure terms and useless questions of Scholastic metaphysics) and to the method of disputation, which he thought inconducive to knowledge or discovery.

Locke's mother died in 1654, when he was 22, and the next year he was graduated with a BA from Oxford. He thought briefly of studying law, but returned to Christchurch to seek an MA, which included a slightly more extensive program of Scholastic study, including “natural philosophy” (i.e., science). By the time he earned his MA in 1658, Locke had a reputation as a very learned and ingenious scholar. In 1659, perhaps thinking of finding a spouse, Locke began spending time (and exchanging letters) with Elinor Parry, then 18, whose brother was a student at Jesus College. Neither Locke nor Elinor was willing to commit to anything more than friendship, and the correspondence shows evidence of ups and downs in the relationship, though over the next few years Elinor's interest in the possibility of more serious attachment grew.

After Cromwell's death in 1658, there was a brief battle for succession. Cromwell's son, Richard, was defeated in 1659 and Charles II was restored to the throne. Though unclear beforehand which way to lean, Locke embraced the Restoration as a form of “quiet and settlement.”¹ Despite Charles II's liberal attitude to dissenters, a Parliamentary bill for religious (Anglican) uniformity was passed in 1661, the year of Locke's father's death. Worried about the consequences of a crackdown on dissenters, Locke wrote two (unpublished) Tracts on Government (in 1660 and 1662) supporting toleration of freedom of conscience, but trusting the king to enforce uniformity of religious practices as a way of preventing religious war. At the time, Locke was enjoying life as a student, making friends with the experimental chemist Robert Boyle (1627–1691), relishing his study of medicine, and gaining appreciation for the intelligibility (even if not the truth) of the physics of René Descartes (1596–1650).

Between 1661 and 1667 Locke was elected to various posts at Oxford: Lecturer in Greek, Lecturer in Rhetoric, Censor in Moral Philosophy, and Tutor. He attended medical lectures, investigating the function of respiration and looking to explain the various colors of blood, and conducted experiments with barometers, thermoscopes, and hygrometers in order to better understand the weather (and its potential relationship with disease). In 1663–1664, he composed Essays on the Law of Nature (in Latin), explaining that natural law, imposed by God to govern the wills of human beings for their own betterment, is not innate, but can be known by human beings on the basis of reason and sense-experience. In 1665, Charles II moved briefly to Oxford to avoid the plague that was about to sweep through London. On the basis of a recommendation, Locke was offered the chance to serve as part of a mission to Germany to prevail on the Elector of Brandenburg to remain neutral in case England fell to war with Holland. Locke's letters at the time reveal openness of mind and curiosity, and a willingness to learn about the manners and mores of foreigners (including Catholics).

In 1666, a friend asked Locke to bring some spring water for Anthony Ashley Cooper (1621–1683), later the 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer and a powerful man in Charles II's government. Ashley suffered from pain and jaundice, and found some relief in spring water. Locke was unable to secure the water and apologized to Ashley in person. A generous man, Ashley accepted the apology and invited Locke to stay for dinner. Thus started a friendship that lasted until Ashley's death and completely changed Locke's life.

Locke was thinking of pursuing an MD at Oxford, but, growing increasingly impatient with the demands of academic life, decided against it. He received an offer from Elinor Parry's brother to become an Anglican clergyman and (possibly) take up a position in Dublin, Ireland. Not wanting to take orders and unwilling to give up further study for a life in the church, Locke declined the offer. Though Elinor continued for a time to hope that Locke would join her in Dublin, she eventually realized that Locke was not going to give up his life in England for a life with her, and married a Richard Hawkshaw in 1670.

By 1667, Locke had joined Ashley's family at Exeter House in London, and was serving as a tutor to Ashley's son, and advising the household on medical matters. In his medical capacity, he met and interacted with Ashley's physician, Thomas Sydenham (1624–1689), from whom he learned that the best way to study any disease is by observation of its development and the effects of treating it in various ways. Locke came to see that the leading medical theories of his day, derived from Galen (130–200) and Paracelsus (1493–1541), had not been sufficiently well tested.

During the time that Locke held various academic posts at Oxford, Charles II was trying to resist repeated Parliamentary efforts to crush religious dissenters, efforts that both Ashley and Locke supported. In 1667, Locke wrote (without publishing) an Essay Concerning Toleration, in which he went back on his earlier claim that the king could regulate practices of religious worship. The next year, Ashley developed a tumor that was successfully cauterized and drained for six weeks under Locke's direction. As a result, Ashley credited Locke with having saved his life. Locke's confidence in treating Ashley reflected what he had acquired in the way of experience and testimony from numerous physicians. And it was this blend of curiosity and confidence that led him to join the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge (founded in 1660) in 1668.

In 1669, Locke helped Ashley, who had become one of the eight Lords Proprietors of the American colony of Carolina, to draft the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina, and served as secretary to the Lords Proprietors for the next six years. He continued work on diseases and cures therefor, but by 1670 had decided against becoming a practicing physician. Part of the reason for this was that Locke was developing what he himself took to be a “consumptive disposition,”² probably caused by asthma or chronic bronchitis, no doubt inflamed by air pollution in London caused by the burning of sea coal. Ashley's grandson, the future 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (1671–1713), later to become a well-known philosopher in his own right, was born in 1671, and Locke was given responsibility for his education.

At Exeter House, Locke had been involved in discussions with friends about the principles of morality and revealed religion, and realized that these questions could not be answered without a grasp of the proper compass of the human understanding. Locke recognized that many disputes are really the product of misunderstanding prompted by the failure to clarify the meanings of words. Encouraged by friends to set down some thoughts about how such disputes might best be avoided, in 1671 Locke produced two early drafts (Draft A and Draft B) of what eventually became, after 18 years of on-and-off work during his leisure hours, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. In these drafts, Locke defended the idea that the mind is initially a blank slate, that all of the materials of knowledge derive from sensation and reflection, and that there is an important difference between knowledge, which is certain and indubitable, and belief or judgment, which is based on (greater or lesser degrees of) probability.

Locke experienced the results of political instability during the years 1672–1675. In 1672, Charles II declared war on Holland and, acting unilaterally, issued a Declaration of Indulgence protecting both Protestant non-conformists and Catholics. In the same year, Ashley became the 1st Earl of Shaftesbury and was appointed Lord Chancellor. Thanks to Shaftesbury's influence, Locke took on various paid appointments, including the position of Secretary and Treasurer of the Council of Trade and Plantations. But the conflict between Charles II and Parliament did not abate, with Charles abandoning his Declaration in the face of political opposition and Parliament passing the Test Act (requiring persons in civil or military positions to take an oath disavowing the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation) in 1673. Charles replaced Shaftesbury as Lord Chancellor with Thomas Osborne. Fearful that Osborne's influence might lead to absolute and arbitrary government without Parliamentary check, Shaftesbury, probably with Locke's assistance, published an anonymous polemical pamphlet, A Letter from a Person of Quality, to his Friend in the Country (1675), that was condemned by the Lords and ordered to be burned.

For Locke, who was experiencing regular debilitating coughs, this was an opportune time to leave the country for a time. In the end, he spent three and a half years in France, traveling (in two separate trips) to many destinations, including Paris, Orléans, Bordeaux, Montpellier, and Lyon. Locke kept a journal, divided into four categories: philosophy, history of manners, political wisdom, and productions of art and nature. He used Latin to communicate and worked on his French. On his travels, he met several people who came to play an important role in his life, not the least of whom was Thomas Herbert (later Earl of Pembroke in 1683), who became the patron to whom the Essay is dedicated. He met the Dutch physicist Christiaan Huygens (1629–1695), the astronomer Giovanni Cassini (1625–1712), and the physician François Bernier (1625–1688), who had translated the work of the French Epicurean atomist and critic of Descartes, Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655). In 1678, he hired Sylvanus Brownower, who served him as amanuensis, secretary, and in other capacities. Locke thought of marriage, but realized that this would result in the loss of his Christchurch studentship, and would require earning a living as a physician. He came to the conclusion that marriage and death are “nearly the same thing.”³

While Locke was in France, Charles brought Shaftesbury back into the government because of his increasing popularity, in part to insulate himself against worries that his brother and heir to the throne, James, who had converted to Catholicism, would replace him and turn the country Catholic. With Shaftesbury now in a stronger position, Locke returned to England in 1679. But fearful that Shaftesbury's power and connections might make it difficult for James to succeed him, Charles dismissed Shaftesbury later that year. For two years, Charles fought with Parliament over the question of whether James should be excluded as heir to the throne or should be allowed to take the throne with limitations on his power. In 1681, Shaftesbury was arrested and charged with high treason, accused of encouraging false testimony of a “Popish Plot” to replace Charles with James. Eventually released on bail, fears that he would engage in armed rebellion because of Charles's repeated refusals to call Parliament into session led Shaftesbury to go into hiding and escape to Holland, where he died a few months later in January 1683.

During this time, Locke wrote one of the works responsible for his lasting fame, and met a person who was to become one of his closest friends, and perhaps more than that. The work was Two Treatises of Government (W5: 207–485), the first a detailed refutation of Robert Filmer's posthumously published Patriarcha: or the Natural Power of Kings (1680), which defended the divine right of kings, passed down through primogeniture from Adam's paternal right over his children and his right of dominion over the Earth granted him by God, the second a positive account of the source of governmental legitimacy in any political society formed by voluntary compact in a state of nature. The person was Damaris Cudworth (1659–1708), daughter of the Cambridge Platonist philosopher, Ralph Cudworth (1617–1688), to whom Locke was introduced in 1681 and of whom he said that there was “something more in her than is common to the rest of her sex,” and later described as “a remarkably gifted woman and one of my familiar friends.”⁴

In 1683, the Rye House plot to assassinate Charles and James was discovered, and warrants were issued for the conspirators. Locke began hiding and destroying papers, worried perhaps that he might be associated with the plot. A list of “damnable doctrines”⁵ was drawn up at Oxford, at least some of which he knew he had included in the Two Treatises. Perhaps worried about being detained on charges of treason or defamati...

Table of contents

• cover
• blackwell great minds
• title page
• copyright page
• dedication
• preface
• abbreviations
• chapter 1: locke's life
• chapter 2: the nature and role of ideas
• chapter 3: the negative project: against innatism
• chapter 4: the positive project: ideational empiricism
• chapter 5: substances
• chapter 6: qualities
• chapter 7: mental operations
• chapter 8: relations
• chapter 9: language
• chapter 10: knowledge and belief
• chapter 11: moral philosophy
• chapter 12: political philosophy
• index