Lecture 2: John Locke

Today we looked at John Locke, who was influential both as the first "empiricist" and in his ideas about society and politics. He was clearly very much shaped in his views by the events that he experienced, such as the Civil War, the tyranic rule of Cromwell, the restoration of Charles the Second and the entrance of James the Second, a catholic, and his changes to society, and finally the "Glorious revolution" in which William of Orange came to the throne. Locke's family tie to the civil war would also have influenced his view on society.

Locke's view on the "social contract", which was developed by Hobbes, was very different to the original. Instead of viewing human nature as aggressive and leading to war, he saw human nature in a more positive way. The most shocking thing (to the people at the time) would have been Locke's attack on the concept of the Divine right of kings; saying that the people should be given the chioce and that they have 3 basic rights;
1) the right to life
2) the right to property
3) the right to revolution.
This suggests that even though the monarch was put there by God, the poeple could go against this and elect their own ruler,. Locke's idea was that people need to be governed, but this should be done by majority consent and the governement should be limited by law so that its main purpose is to protect property, rather than dictate the lives of the people. If the government was not sticking to this, the people had the right to rebel. This was a very dangerous and provocative idea, which many have argued gave precedent and acted as a manual for revolution, therefore having much to do with the French revolution. However, much of this idea was also used directly in American constitution and has not done so much harm there.

Locke also had clear ideas on the concept of the "state of nature" which was very different to Hobbes' view of it. Locke said that everyone enjoys natural freedom and equality but obey natural laws which are discovered through the ability to reason which was given by God. Therefore, these laws are not innate but discovered; "interwoven in the constitution of the human mind".THis is ery contradictory to many other thought patterns at the time which said that we have "innate ideas".

Locke's views on human understanding are also very interesting; according to Locke we are born with a blank slate with nothing in our minds, but we are given, by God, the capacity to understand and build up knowledge and ideas. This is contraty to many other popular theories such as Plato's "perfect forms" in which the soul is aware of the forms before birth and therefore only remembers rather than learns. Descartes' view is also contraditory to Locke's as he said that we have innate ideas that are imprinted by God. Locke, however argued that "Truly before they are known, there is nothing of them in the mind but a capacity to know them", therefore our understanding comes from experiences that are worked on by our powers of reason to produce "real knowledge". Locke's idea of reason consists of 2 parts: 1) an inquiry as to what we know with certainty, and 2) an investigation into things which we accept but only because of probability rather than certainty. For matters of faith beyond reason and experience, Locke urges us to turn to "revelation" which should, again be checked against reason.

Locke was religious, but beleived in religious tolerance rather than persecution of other faiths and ideas. He was intent on separating religion from the state, in order to avoid war and conflict.

Despite the obvious impact Locke had on not only his contemporaries but also on philosophy today, he merely saw himself as a "humble under-labourer clearing the ground" for scientists such as Newton. This, i beleive, is an underestimation of his influence.

The lecture then looked at Newton and his importance. He is seen as the beginning of "enlightened science" because of his breakthroughs in physics such as the law of gravityand the 3 laws of motion and infinitismal calculus, affecting not only science, but also the way that people think of God. The fact that the Cartesians saw him as not explaining why illustrates the fact that Newton saw the universe as demonstrating God's freedom and omnipotence, therefore he believed it is not for humans to understand the why, only that it is there. This is important in confirming the faith of many people. Newton was an amazingly influential man, with his compatriots such as Pope saying things like "Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night: God said "let Newton be!" and there was light". This shows just how important Newton's mere 2 years of work was on the basis of science and also of philosophy.

I found this lecture very interesting, more so than last week because the concepts, for me were easier to grasp, and look forward to discussing Locke's ideas more in the seminar next week.