Essays on John Locke

John Locke and Rene Descartes are quite often seen as two of the first early philosophers. Both of them looking for answers to the same questions such as: is there certainty in knowledge? What is knowledge? How does our mind work? While Locke and Descartes...

How can we know if we are a brain in a vat? Can we be sure that we are not the playthings of evil demons? These questions have been discussed by many philosophers in the past and still we do not have a proof that...

Philosophers over the years have written and evaluated numerous topics in philosophy. Occasionally, these scholars concede to their ideas and sometimes disagree with each other’s thought. Two scholars had distinctive ideas about where innate ideas originate from and how we get these sorts of ideas....

“Our knowledge in all these enquiries reaches very little farther than our experience” (Essay). Locke asserts the principle that true knowledge is learned. As humans, our knowledge about the world around us and the subjects within it come from a study of our surroundings. Locke’s...

Within his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Locke picks up where his predecessors in epistemological theorizing left off and proceeds to shift the study towards a more empiricist approach. Amongst the complexities of his theory, the notions of ‘substance’, ‘nominal essence’ and ‘real essence’ are fundamental...

John Locke proves that mathematical knowledge is not innate in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding by contrasting Plato’s theory to learning through sensation and perception, thus curating the theory of empiricism. Through his arguments, Locke proves mathematical knowledge is not something that you are born...

John Locke was born on August 29th, 1632 in Wrington, England. He was raised by two puritan parents: Agnes Keen and John Locke SR. His father was a lawyer and had to raise Locke by himself after Keen died during childbirth. By age 20, Locke...

The examination of philosophy requires an in-depth look at two aspects of the philosopher. First one must examine their writings to grasp their points and perspectives, and then one must be able to examine the philosophers’ personal lives to see whether they maintain their written...

John Locke’s theory of the social contract seems, at first glance, to envision the growth of freedom and the concomitant recession of authority. Considered this way, John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government presents a clear contrast, manifesting individual freedom as the dominant political value to...

Mercantilism: Un-Locke-ing the Mun-dane Prominent English writer Thomas Mun was an early, yet influential mercantilist. Spanning the sixteenth through much of the eighteenth century, mercantilism influenced trade through the idea that a nation must protect its wealth by exporting more than it imports. This would...

William Blake, in his work There Is No Natural Religion, and William Wordsworth, in his poem 1799 Prelude, challenge John Locke’s understanding of the nature of the self by offering alternative theories as to the ways in which we as humans perceive and interpret our...

Chapter Fourteen of John Locke’s Two Treatises of Government discusses the prerogative of the executive. Locke defines prerogative as the “power to act according to discretion, for the public good, without the prescription of the law, and sometimes even against it” (Locke §160). For Locke,...

Rousseau deepens purely negative reaction against the philosophy of the Enlightenment. While philosophers-enlighteners discover one-sided worship of reason too, Rousseau highlights the cult of feelings. While philosophers-enlighteners extol the individual and personal interests, Rousseau extols the community and the common will. While the enlighteners talk...

Simon Bolivar is a Creole that grew up in a wealthy family. Bolivar dedicated his time and effort to fighting for the independence of Venezuela from Spain. In order to do this Bolivar was inspired by the enlightenment ideas of John Locke. John Locke explains...

Mo’ Money Mo’ Problems Work is an integral part of American culture, if not all of society. From a young age, children are taught to perform well in school in order to be have successful jobs in the future. College age students’ academic curriculums revolve...

Students and scholars alike are often deceived by the association between Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau as founders of the social contract. Grouping these authors together often causes people to forget the essential variations presented by each man. The issue of liberty, for example, takes on...

Nature vs. nurture is an age old debate dating back to the 1800’s. There have been hundreds of psychologists, scientists, religious leaders and even ordinary people who argue their view on the subject. John Locke was one of these people, a renowned British philosopher, who...

John Locke argues that we should study our place in the natural world to shape our system of ethics and politics. The most natural of human behaviors is avoiding pain and seeking pleasure which means that people are naturally selfish sometimes. He also asserts that...

In chapter XXVII of the essay Identity and Diversity, the author John Locke discusses numerous types of identities and provides multiple examples for these identities. However, to understand identity and its many components we must first grasp the concept of identity itself as understood by...