John Locke

John Locke argued against the divine right of kings by asserting that governments derive their legitimacy from the natural rights of the people, including life, property, and liberty, which are...

John Locke was a strong supporter of classical liberalism, which backed the need for representative democracy based on political freedom and civil liberties. The idea behind classical liberalism...

Locke's view of human nature differs from Hobbes's in being more optimistic. Locke viewed the newborn human as a tabula rasa, or blank slate, that could be molded and educated into either virtue or...

John Locke argued that the main purpose of government is to protect the natural rights of its citizens. He believed that the government acquired this power through the voluntary consent of the...

The English philosopher John Locke identified the three natural rights of man as Life, Liberty and Property. The American Declaration of Independence refers to the closely related Life, Liberty and...

John Locke didn't think you could prove that God exists, but that you could prove that believing in God was perfectly reasonable for educated men such as himself. This involved demonstrating that...

Locke regards the mind as a tabula rasa, or blank slate, with experience providing the content. The mind is then able to process this content, turning simple ideas into more complex ones. Primary...

Thomas Hobbes and John Locke both explored political philosophy but had differing views on human nature and government. Hobbes believed in a strong centralized authority to prevent societal chaos, as...

Locke outlined his point of view on education in an extremely influential essay aptly entitled "Some Thoughts Concerning Education," published in 1693. Building off his own thoughts on...

For Locke, the social contract is an agreement between people to set up a government that will rule over all of them. To Locke, the state of nature is basically peaceful, but it is not guaranteed...

Thomas Jefferson, in writing the Declaration of Independence, and the authors of the U.S. Constitution were heavily influenced by the political theories of John Locke (1632-1704), which advanced...

John Locke's basic philosophy centers on empiricism, the idea that knowledge comes from sensory experience. He believed in natural rights, including life, liberty, and property, which governments...

One way to define modernity is to say that it is the time in which there is a move away from traditional ways of thinking and organizing society.  It is a time when thinkers are moving toward...

John Locke believed that a "person" was defined by consciousness, or persisting memory. David Hume, however, thought that if one examined this so-called "person," the only thing to be found was a...

The problems John Locke addresses in A Letter Concerning Toleration relate to the proper relationship between the state and religious sects and how far the government should seek to regulate religion...

That's a very good question, one that has formed the basis of numerous critiques of Locke's philosophy over the centuries. According to Locke's theory of perception, we can never form a complete...