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John Locke: A Universal Thinker

            The Enlightenment was a period of intense intellectual ferment that lasted from approximately AD 1650 to 1789. The Enlightenment was a turning point in history that ushered in the contemporary age. It was a period when Europe emerged from the middle ages and the Modern Mind was born. The Enlightenment had many short and long term causes seen not only in Europe where the Enlightenment originated but are seen even now in the present day United States. One very significant figure of the Enlightenment was John Locke. He was a highly respected English scholar whose ideas contributed an establishment to the foundation for the Enlightenment. John Locke's Enlightenment ideas have forever changed the meaning of government and where it is directly seen, in the current American government. .
             The years before the Enlightenment were very important to the development to the ideas that inevitably would shape the world today. Before the Enlightenment was the time period called the Middle Ages. During this time religion was the focus of life and government at the time was base on feudalism. In the years leading up to it, and the early years of Enlightenment there were strong monarchs throughout Europe. These monarchs were justifying power by the divine right in which Kings claimed not just the right to rule, but to right to rule with absolute power. They backed this claim with the assertion that a king's power came from God. Preachers of the divine right said that monarchs are chosen by God and responsible only to him. To challenge the authority of the monarch in any way was a sin. Because of the divine right, kings were protected and common people were without any rights at all. What power people had was restricted to only wealthy noblemen. Another thing pre-Enlightenment was the lack of "say" that people had in the government. Many of the needs of the majority of people in a country were not concerns of the monarch.


Essays Related to John Locke: A Universal Thinker

1. John Locke and Politics

Introduction The assignment is based on the whole character sketch of John Locke and what he felt about almost everything in the spheres of Politics. ... John Locke – Life Sketch Locke is the greatest figure in the history of political thought. ... John Locke was considered to be the founder of Empiricism. ... He also compared morals to mathematics by saying that it is a demonstrable science which is subject to universal laws. Further explaining what those universal laws are, he noted that they were of two types, namely – Divine Law and Natural Law. ...

  • Word Count: 7056
  • Approx Pages: 28
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

2. What Makes A Political Theory A Classic

Using these criteria he undoubtably believes that John Locke's Two Treatises of Government is a political classic. ... Extended relevancy beyond their own time of publication to the present, or even to provide judgments of universal application. ... A major alternative to political theory is organized around concepts rather than thinkers. Rather than study the thinkers views, study the concepts in further understanding the topic. ... John Locke's Two Treatises of Government is definitely a classic in my eyes. ...

  • Word Count: 1243
  • Approx Pages: 5
  • Grade Level: High School

3. Locke and Rousseau

Both the early modern thinkers John Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau formulated their own accounts on the state of nature, forming the basis for much of the political theory that was forwarded by both these early modern philosophers. ... Thinkers may differ on whether this natural law was observed in the state of nature or merely recognised and respected, but an association between the two can be witnessed in the writings of both Locke and Rousseau. John Locke (1632-1704) is a predominant figure in the history of political philosophy. ... Due to man's placement to fulfil a somewhat divi...

  • Word Count: 1226
  • Approx Pages: 5
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

4. Hobbes And Locke

A sign of this is that most people think that they are as wise as the others; their contentment with their natural allotment indicating that they have a sufficient share of cautiousness... This second law requires: "That a man be willing, when others are so too (as farre-forth, as for Peace, and defense of himself he shall think it necessary, to lay down this right to all things; and be contented with so much liberty against other men, as he would allow other men against himself... XXI Of the Liberty of Subjects John Locke - First is the assumption of a system of morality--the natural law ...

  • Word Count: 2051
  • Approx Pages: 8
  • Grade Level: High School

5. Enlightenment

The Enlightenment philosophers such as John Locke, and Thomas Hobbes believed in free education. ... The concept of God in both movements varied in some aspects however they both converged on one universal idea. ... The enlightenment thinker's believed that God was the creator of all and that the universe was a machine governed by fixed laws. ... John Locke believed if a ruler broke his contract with his people, or failed to protect their rights, they could be ejected peacefully or violently. ... Separation of church and state, protection from others cruelty, and religious toleration were...

  • Word Count: 823
  • Approx Pages: 3
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

6. Human Rights

Great philosophers from the past such as Aristotle, Socrates and Thomas Aquinas focused extensively on their definition of human rights, among other ideas, and lead the way for more contemporary thinkers such as John Locke and Martin Luther King Jr Notions of natural right were introduced by European philosophers such as Aristotle, but is was Aquinas who developed the idea more in-depth. ... It even repeated some of the promises made by King John in the M...

  • Word Count: 1673
  • Approx Pages: 7

7. Compare empiricism and rationalism

Locke also defined the two sources of knowledge as sensation and reflection. ... In a similar approach, Locke argued that we have no innate moral or practical principles, for there is no universal agreement about such principles. ... The one universal idea that we all aspire to is happiness, and equally our intrinsic dislike of unhappiness. ... Locke's belief in the existence of God is argumentative. ... John Locke and David Hume upheld the belief that sensible things were composed of material substance, the basic framework for the materialist position. ...

  • Word Count: 2949
  • Approx Pages: 12
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

8. Universal Human Rights

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a Western-biased document that is challenged in its universal applicability due to cultural difference and competing ideas of society and community. ... Traditionalists refute the idea that human rights should be universal and equal for all, preferencing group rights rather than individual rights. ... The ancient Greeks thinker Aristotle spoke of man as a social being with a 'reasoning soul' and in Christianity the biblical notion of man is in the 'image and likeness of God'. Human worth and dignity are ideas that were d...

  • Word Count: 1758
  • Approx Pages: 7
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: Graduate

9. Animal Rights and Sentience

It is widely believed that the main trait that distinguishes man from other animal species (animal meaning nonhuman) is sentience, or "the ability to think, feel, perceive, or experience subjectively" ("Sentience"). John Locke, esteemed philosophical essayist and one of the most influential people of the 17th century, states in his work Concerning Human Understanding of Ideas that an "idea is the object of thinking," and that such thoughts originate from "experience," "reflection," and "sensation" (Locke). Using ideas inspired from L...

  • Word Count: 1661
  • Approx Pages: 7
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: Graduate

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