John Locke was distinguished English philosopher of seventeenth century. He was born in 1632 and is considered as an important figure of early European enlightenment. Most of his philosophical ideas had huge influence on later eminent enlightenment figures including, Immanuel Kant, David Hume and Rousseau. Locke was polymath who wrote on very broad range of interests. However, his primary focus of interest was on three areas including, Epistemology, political philosophy and religious toleration.
Epistemology
Locke first area of interest was epistemology. He wrote an essay on “Human Understanding” in 1689 which is considered as the first great defense of empiricism. He explained limits of human understanding through wide range of topics. He argues that no man knowledge can go beyond his experience, in order to describe what can an individual legitimately claim to know and what not. Furthermore, Locke presented the theory of mind in his essay, which influence the development of modern sociological and psychological concepts including, “identity” and “Self”. Locke explained self as the continuity consciousness. He referred to the human mind as blank slate which is filled with knowledge via experiences, observation and experimentation. His theory of mind went against the Cartesian perspective which suggest that human are born with intrinsic ideas or knowledge.
Moreover, he says that everything we know, believe and think is merely the outcome of the knowledge we obtained through experience. He believed that education plays an important role in the development of individual personality. How individuals turnout in their later stage of lives good or evil — virtuous or vicious depend on their education. Individuals are very vulnerable to the ideas which people put in their mind in the early stages of life. He further argues that, the ideas which are learned in childhood have important and enduring effect on one personality compare to the ideas that are learned in adulthood.
Political Philosophy
Political philosophy was also one among the Locke areas of interest, which is relative to and followed in present world or modern societies. Locke’s writings on political philosophy is based on seventeenth century unpredictable political events that took place in Britain such as, civil war of 1642 – 1651, establishment of commonwealth, restoration of monarchy in 1660, glorious revolution of 1688 and 1688 bills of rights.
Two treaties of government was another great contribution of Locke to the political philosophy. This work of Locke try to answer the question that; who should rule the country and on what legitimate basis? The commonly share idea at the time was that the political authority is directly derived from God. In other words, Kings and the royal families have been grated the authority by God to rule over country and common people. In first treaties lock thoroughly rejected the idea that God have created the kings. His second treaties was influenced from Hobbes social contract theory. Lock accepted the view of Hobbes that before or without government there would be a state of nature. State of nature refer to the idea that each individual have some God rights which are not subjected to any authority. However, he disagreed with Hobbes views of how this place would have been without government or ruler.
Locke believed that, state of nature is risky and unstable because individual can cause harm to one another without government. Stability requires cooperation and solidarity among individuals which is created by government. Therefore to achieve stability people willfully surrender some of their rights to the government. Lock argues that, people obtain some inalienable rights that no ruler or government can take from them, people voluntarily concede some of their personal freedoms for the reason that, their other rights should be preserved or protected by the ruler or government. He further says that if the ruler is tyrant and does not protect or preserve the rights of people he will be overthrown and replaced by the people.
Religious Toleration
“Toleration” is among one of the most influential work of Locke. He wrote this essay because he was fascinated about the question that what to do when people don’t agree with one another adhered religious views or beliefs? His fascination regarding the question was inspired from the religious turmoil in England that was initiated during the regime of Henry the VIII and continued until 17th century.
In 16th century Henry VIII decided to separate entire country of England from Roman Catholic Church as a result English Protestants initiated the process of questioning the religion openly. As the process was getting out of hand and could not be easily stopped, which gave birth to the views that government should have complete control over religion in order to stop this process. However, Locke was the first to advocate the idea of freedom of believe in his essay titled “Toleration”.
In his essay, he advocated religious toleration based on three points. Firstly he argues that, the state and human beings are not in a position to evaluate the truth regarding established viewpoint of different religions. Secondly, even if they were able to determine the true religion, they could not compel the adherent of other religions to change their beliefs and to adhere the belief of a particular religion through violence. Lastly, coercing a single religion hinders the diversity and could lead to social disorder. Locke believed that the ultimate objective of the state is to fulfill the various felt needs of citizen in order to provide them comfortable lives rather than to be concerned about citizen after lives. He argued that, religion is a personal choice and churches are voluntary organizations which could be only build for the purpose of worship. He advocated religious toleration but was against atheism. Because he believed that, atheism could lead to social disorder and chaos.
Written by; Khushdil Khan Kasi