John Locke (Wrington, Somerset, 1632 - Oates, Essex, 1704) was a philosopher English, one of the first and more important thinkers of the Enlightenment (English Lights). On the epistemological level, it is a representative of the Empirisme, considering that any knowledge comes from the experiment. On the political plan, he is regarded as one of the intellectual founders of the Libéralisme. Its influence was considerable in these two fields.

Biography

John Locke was born close to Bristol on Sunday, August 29 1632. His/her father, lawyer, then captain with the service of the Parliament in 1648, was ruined during the civil war. Locke learned the Latin and the Greek , and the philosophy of Aristote at the school of Westminster (1646 - 1652).

He became lawyer with Oxford in 1652. There was then a competition between the Plato icians of Cambridge and the Aristotélicien S of Oxford. For some time, traditional knowledge was blamed by philosophers such as Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes and Rene Descartes.

It was by the Lecture of Descartes that Locke was interested truly in philosophy, towards 1659. It was also influenced by scientists such as Robert Boyle and Sydenham. Itself wished to become Médecin.

Locke was dependant of friendship with Lord Ashley, count de Shaftesbury and minister of Charles II. He was secretary of the Board off Trade of 1672 to 1675. Starting from 1675, it travels in France (Montpellier, Paris). In 1683, following the reaction Tory, Shaftesbury and Locke are exiled of England and take refuge in Holland. Locke returned in its country in 1689.

Theory of knowledge

The goal of Locke and its method

It is at the time of moral problems and Religieux that Locke engages in a critical analysis of the capacities of the Entendement, in order to determine the extent of the human Connaissance. Locke will be given for goal to determine the origin, the degrees of certainty and the extent of human knowledge, their bases and the degrees of Foi which one can grant to them, the Opinion S and approvals that one can legitimately have.

This step excludes from the start the Cartesian speculations on the Nature of the heart and its relationship with the movements Physiologique S. Indeed, the examination relates only on faculties of the Homme and to the objects which are presented to its Esprit. This method should thus make it possible to include/understand how the understanding forms ideas of the things, and by there, to see which are the terminals of the human Connaissance.

The method will consist in observing the facts of the heart and describing the experiment of interiority. The analysis Psychologique lockéenne will be thus a study of the ideas. This company is the first precise and rigorous formulation critical problem.

Ideas

All our knowledge is made ideas, i.e. , in a broad direction, “any object that the Esprit sees immediately”, or “no matter what it can be which occupies our spirit when he thinks. ”, which is a Définition very near to that of Descartes.

One can summarize in two questions their analysis in the Essai about the human understanding : is

• how formed our ideas?
• which report/ratio our ideas do they have with the things?

But Locke initially carries out a long criticism of the theory of the innate ideas.

The criticism of the innate ideas

Since Locke proposes to seek the origin of our ideas, the Théorie of the innate ideas is presented naturally to the Esprit. However, for Locke, all our ideas actually derive from the experiment. The refutation of the inneism will enable him to justify its thesis.

First of all, according to the Innéisme, there are ideas which are universal: the identity principle, the principle of contradiction, the idea that we have of God, etc But the experiment show us in an obvious way the opposite: the children are not aware of these ideas, and there are other civilizations that ours where alleged ideas innate morals are completely absent. On this point, the inneism is thus insupportable.

But an innate idea is also an idea which is in the understanding. However, if it is in the Entendement, it must be perceived; from where it follows that all the men should be aware of the innate ideas as of their birth, that these ideas should be their very first ideas, the object first of their spirit, which is obviously absurd. Indeed: or an idea not perceived by the understanding forever be in the understanding, or it was perceived and it must thus be known. An idea cannot thus be in the heart without being object of the understanding there. By definition, the idea is what is in the spirit; to support that an idea is in the heart without being conceived, it is to say that this idea is not an idea.

It is necessary thus that any innate idea is immediately seen. Two objections appear here: that, already evoked, of the ignorance of the innate ideas in which most of humanity is, like another: so certain men do not know the innate ideas, they do not recognize them more: when one presents some to the understanding and that they are not included/understood immediately (what arrives in the training) then these ideas show their noninnate character.

What is thus criticized by Locke, it is the theory which our heart would passively contain of the ideas independently of the experiment. This criticized theory is not that of Descartes; indeed, for Descartes, the innate ideas are ideas which result from the activity of the understanding. With final, one hardly knows to whom Locke addresses his criticisms, perhaps with Platonic of Cambridge.

Origin of our ideas

If there is no innate idea, how thus we form our ideas? Locke formulates on this point the Métaphore of the virgin slate (tabula shaved) to describe the human Esprit before its contact with the world. The spirit thus contains any character, no idea. There remains nothing any more but the experiment: only the experiment can be the base of our knowledge. The matter of our spirit is thus is the external objects (ideas which comes from the directions) that is to say the operations of the thought itself (ideas which come following the action from the reflection): in both cases, the ideas come from the experiment. By the directions, an excitation or a movement on the body makes us perceive significant quality S; by the reflection, the heart receives the impression of its own activity when it perceives the things of the outside world.

These ideas of the feeling and the reflection are of two kinds: simple or complex.

Simple ideas

According to Locke the simple ideas are indivisible and complete, but they are not always clear; they are without mixture, homogeneous and inanalysables: one can thus neither define them nor to explain them. One cannot either communicate them, nor to know them without personal experience. Immediate data of the experiment, these ideas are the only materials of our Pensée.

Locke distinguishes two types of simple ideas: simple ideas of the feeling and simple ideas of the reflection.

the simple ideas of the feeling enter by the direction without any mixture, and they are all quite distinct. Some of these ideas are provided by only one direction, like the its, the Saveur, etc Of others come us from several feel at the same time: the movement, the space, the wide , etc In connection with qualities which we perceive thus, Locke made three distinctions:

There are qualities first , which we cannot separate from the bodies: for example, solidity, the movement, etc These qualities are really in the Matière.

The qualities second are the Puissance which in us feelings by their qualities have the bodies to produce first: the Heat, the Color, etc let us perceive We them directly. These qualities are not really in the bodies, and their appearances vary with the range of our directions. Although we judge naturally that these qualities are in the bodies, when they are not perceived, these qualities do not exist. Without a body and a heart to perceive them, heat, the pain, etc do not exist nowhere in the world.

Locke distinguishes a third kind of quality: the power that have the bodies to produce or receive effects or changes such as it results from it for us from deteriorations from our Perception S. the Feu transforms for example the matter, which we perceive then differently. These qualities are perceived indirectly and we naturally do not allot them to the bodies.

the simple ideas of the feeling and the reflection are ideas which result from these two modes of experiment: for Locke, it is: the Pleasure and the Pain, joined one to the other in almost all our ideas; concern ( uneasiness ); power; the Existence and the Unit which we conceive in all perceptions of objects and by any idea.

the ideas of reflection can be divided according to two types of action; it is a question of seeing whether one can discover in each simple idea:

• the Understanding, which include/understand the perception (to have an idea), retention (to point out its ideas which, apart from this act, are not nowhere) and the distinction (capacity to conceive an idea, to abstract, from where fictitious character of the general ideas which has existence only in our spirit).
• the Will: in this case, there do not seem to be simple ideas.

Thus, in short, our simple ideas, i.e. indivisible, are provided to our passive spirit by one or more direction at the same time, or are obtained by the impression of a reflection alone, or finally by a reflection and a feeling.

Complex ideas

The complex ideas are a combination of simple ideas. Locke distinguishes three types of complex ideas.

The modes are complex ideas which do not remain by themselves, but are like affections of the substances. The modes are divided in their turn into several types:

• modes made up of only one type of simple ideas. They are modifications of a simple idea: for example, two is the repeated unit. Space comes from the simple idea from wide: it is the elaborate significant idea of distance. The duration comes us from the idea of succession; the number, which comprises a strictly given unit; the infinite one which is formed by the addition without end of finished
• the modes of Pensée: the spirit perceives a large variety of its own modifications when it reflects on itself. One finds the Perception, the memory, the Attention, etc
• the modes of the Volonté: power, the Freedom like power to begin or not to begin an action, to continue it or not.
• mixed modes: these are independent ideas that the joint spirit without these modes having of real significant existence (ex: the Lie).

The substances are ideas constantly joined together considered as pertaining to a Objet. The substance is an existing whole by itself, but we in general do not have an precise idea of the substance.

The relation is a comparison such as the examination of a thing contains the consideration of another. The principal relations are the Causalité, the identity and diversity.

Knowledge

Locke thus established, by this analysis of the ideas, that all our Connaissance S relates to our ideas, on the reports/ratios which they have between them and on their modifications. Knowledge thus consists in the Perception which we have of suitability or unsuitableness that our ideas have between them. To know, it is to compare ideas, to discover which are their relations, and to judge.

It distinguishes four kinds of suitabilities and unsuitablenesses which correspond about to fields of human knowledge:

• identity or diversity (Logical)
• relation (mathematical)
• necessary coexistence (Physical)
• real existence (Metaphysical)

It also distinguishes four kinds of knowledge: of the two first the certainty follows; third the opinion and probability; fourth faith.

Intuitive knowledge

The intuitive Connaissance is the immediate Perception of the suitability or the unsuitableness of the ideas between them, without intermediate idea. This Intuition is obvious, and it produces the Certitude. Thus, all the clear and distinct ideas, i.e. the abstract ideas, are they obvious; the spirit conceives immediately that each idea is appropriate with itself and that it disconvient with all the others. Nevertheless, these ideas are not axioms of the Pensée and Science S. Indeed, these Axiome S are useless to seize particular proposals, and they can induce us in Erreur. The abstract ideas are obvious owing to the fact that they are our work, they do not need to be shown. For example:

As regards our existence, we see it with so much obviously and of certainty which the thing does not have need to be shown by any proof. I think, I reason, I feel pleasure and pain; can none of these things be more obvious to me than my own existence? If I doubt anything else, this doubt even convinces me of my own existence and does not allow me to doubt it. In each act of feeling, reasoning or thought, we are internally convinced in ourselves of our own being, and we arrive on that at the more high degree of certainty which it is possible to imagine.

Conclusive knowledge

The conclusive Connaissance consists to compare ideas and to perceive of it suitability or unsuitableness by the means of other ideas which are evidence for the demonstration. It is the reason which perceives these bonds between the ideas, while following the wire of the deduction. The deduction includes/understands several degrees:

• to discover evidence;
• to order the ideas clearly and suitably so that connections appear with obviousness;
• to perceive these connections;
• finally, to conclude.

In the field of Demonstration, in fact mathematics is more the high degree of the certainty, because it comprises these four degrees. We intuitively conceive the abstract ideas of mathematics, and these clear and distinct intuitions make it possible to deduce some from the properties. On the other hand, the field of the experiment provides such ideas, it is not nothing of some there and of universal, all is contingent there. In the field of the demonstration, Locke also places the proof of the existence of God; it is, according to him, the only existence which can be proven and that, with a certainty equal to that of mathematics. Indeed, if we consider our existence, we know that some to be real exists; however, if the non-being can nothing produce, then there is a being which exists of all eternity.

Sensitive knowledge

We have an intuitive knowledge of our Existence and a conclusive knowledge of the existence of God. All the other existences are known to us by the direction. The idea that we have of a thing does not maintain any connection necessary with the existence even this thing; the Déduction of the idea to the existence is thus impossible. One needs the presence of a Objet so that we can know the existence of it.

Political philosophy

The political Philosophie of Locke is regarded as a stage founder of the liberal thought. This Modernité is sometimes disputed; the reasons of this dispute will be exposed lower.

Initially, one can describe this political philosophy in three parts:

• the Natural law
• the Property
• the Liberalism

The natural law

Locke thus describes the state of nature:

a state in which the men are as a man and not as a member of a company. ( Treated civil government , §14)

In this state, the Homme S are free and equal. Indeed, no man is subjected by nature to whoever, because one cannot be subjugated with the arbitrary Volonté of another man, nor to be obliged to obey laws that another would institute for him: in the state of nature, no one does not hold a legislative Autorité. The equality is a consequence of this Liberté, because if there does not exist any natural report/ratio of personal subjection, it is by the manifest absence of distinction between the men: all have same faculties.

Nevertheless, the freedom of this state is not licentious; each one is held to make of it the best use required by its conservation (§4). The state of nature thus comprises already certain rules. If there is no humanly instituted Loi, all the men must however obey the law of nature, law which is discovered by the Raison (or by the revelation) and which is of divine origin. This law prohibited the men from doing all that they wish; they have the Owe:

• to preserve their clean Life, which is a gift of God (§6);
• to respect the life, freedom, goods of Others, because it is necessary to their conservation that each one once takes care of the subsistence of the mankind his clean is assured;
• to endeavor to carry out a peaceful and harmonious life with the others; the Violence is thus prohibited, except defending themselves or defending others (§7);
• to respect the word given and to carry out the Contract S (§14).

Freedom is in the respect of these obligations prescribed by the natural laws, because it is in their obeying that the man is led to make what is in conformity with its nature and its interests. Freedom is thus not an absence of obstacle external with the realization of its desire, but in obedience with the divine regulations discovered by the reason.

The property

The passage of the natural law to the Propriété (in a broad direction) is done by the Droit. Indeed, it is insofar as the man has Owe S natural which it is also carrying right having to guarantee the possibility to him of carrying out his duties. Its rights are thus natural, related to its Nobody, because they are founded on its Human nature, on what the realization of it requires for what it is naturally intended and which revealed to him the divine law.

Locke states three basic rights:

• right to the Life and to found a family;
• right to the Freedom;
• right to the pleasure of its goods and especially to the exchange.

These rights define a field of inviolability of the human person; their natural character excludes that it is legitimate to make exchange of it, or not to recognize them according to conventions.

Among these rights which precede all the human institutions, Locke thus places the pleasure of the goods. Indeed, the private property is necessary for the conservation of the life and the exercise of its human dignity. There is thus a right to have all that is necessary to the subsistence.

Nevertheless, since the world was given jointly to the men by God, it is necessary to explain the legitimacy of the individual appropriation:

Although the lower ground and all creatures belong jointly to all the men, each man is however owner of his own person. No other that itself does not have a right on it, the work of its body and the work of its hands belong to him into clean. It mingles its work with all that it makes leave the state in which left nature, and there joined something which is his. By there, it makes its property of it. This thing being extracted by him from being common where nature had put it, its work adds something to him, which excludes the common right of the other men. (§27)

The man is thus the single owner of his person and sound body, and he enjoys an exclusive property right. He is also owner of sound work: a thing worked cease to be a common property:

Thus, the grass which my horse eats, the lumps of earth which my servant tore off, and the hollows which I made in places to which I have a common right with others, become my good and my own heritage, without the assent of anyone. (§28)

But, once exposed the idea of property by work, it is still necessary to explain how the man is the owner of his person? Locke defines the person thus:

It is, I think, a being thinking and intelligent endowed with reason and reflection, and which can regard oneself as the same thing thinking in various times and places. What comes only from this conscience ( consciousness ) which is inseparable from the thought, and which is essential for him so that it seems to me: because it is impossible with somebody to perceive without as perceiving as it perceives. ( Test on the human understanding , II, 27,9).

The personal identity is founded on the continuity of the Conscience in the Temps, and this conscience constitutes the identity which, by means of the memory, is maintained in time and enables us to recognize ourselves as being the same ones.

However, this capacity of the conscience:

• is basically adapting, since it makes it possible to recognize actions and Pensée S for his, i.e. which it makes it possible to identify a responsible agent with respect to the men and of the creator.
• founds the property of oneself, in particular body which is the body of so-and-so, and who presents himself thus to his conscience (by its actions and their results).

To summarize the thought of Locke on the Property, one can say that the property of the things is not only necessary to remain; the property is an extension of the property of the Nobody. In this direction, the property of the goods is same inviolable as the human person. This person is designed like a report/ratio of oneself with oneself as a property. Each man is thus sole owner of his person, of his Vie, his Liberté and his well S.

Liberalism

The thought of Locke can be regarded as a thought founder of liberalism, and that, as well on the political plan as on the economic plan.

The political Liberalism of Locke

On the Political level, the question which arises for Locke is to know if one can think the political Pouvoir without its institution not involving the loss of the Liberté individuals who are subjected to him.

The statesmen of nature being for Locke of the owners, they are engaged in economic relations; this point already tends to make conceive a State which would be satisfied to guarantee what is acquired, without it intervening in the company. The political power is not thus supposed to institute the social order by Loi S, but it is with the service of the company to correct the elements which would tend to harm to him.

It follows from there that political power:

• finds its origin in the assent of those on which the Autorité is exerted;
• has its end in the guarantee of the Respect of the natural rights of any man, whom it must arbitrate the conflicts and exert a Droit to punish.

The political power is thus amputee of its dimensions ethical and nun; it cannot prohibit the Culte S, it does not deal with the hello men nor of their perfection Morale. These businesses are strictly personal. The State is thus an instrument and its role is tiny room to the civil and temporal interests men of which it must protect the life, freedom and the goods.

Its extent being thus limited, Locke proposes a hierarchisation of the capacities, an institutional organization making it possible to control their exercise, and affirms consequently that the Peuple has the right (see even the obligation) to resist when the capacity exceeds the limits which are assigned to him by its function.

The hierarchisation of the capacity

The social Contract creates a community only holder of all the capacities. But, not being able to exert itself its powers, those are delegated to magistrates. In any Political organization , there exists a part which defines what each capacity must make, and a part which designates the holders of these to be able S which one obeys.

While the recourse to the force relates to the executive powers and federative, the legislature belongs to the company itself. The Legislative power is for Locke the supreme capacity: this capacity cannot thus be absolute and arbitrary:

• the positive Droit is subordinated to the natural laws;
• this capacity is the pooling of the capacity of the individuals: there cannot be higher capacity;
• this capacity is universal, it is not addressed to the private individuals as such;
• it is a capacity stable and public, it founds a regular legal order;
• it is impossible that the legislative power deprives a man well of his S, because this Propriété is inviolable;
• the legislative power has only the capacity to make Loi S, and it is absolutely depend on the Communauté: only the latter has the right to indicate legislative authorities and the right to control the exercise of it.

The hierarchisation of the capacities will then consist in for Locke subjecting the Executive power to the legislative power since this last is the supreme capacity and that it is the expression of the will of a community. The rule and the Droit thus have the primacy and nobody is above the law. The executive power is thus naturally lower, because it carries out only the decisions of the legislative power.

To avoid the concentration of the capacities, it is necessary to delegate them to distinct authorities and to even delegate to several authorities the same power; for example, the legislature can belong at an assembly and to the king. But it is preferable to partly entrust this capacity completely or at an elected and renewable assembly, so that no individual of the company is privileged.

This organization involves risks of abuse all the same, abuse as well the executive power as of the legislative power. According to Locke, though it arrives, and even if the capacity were deputy, the community is always the only true holder of these capacities. Consequently, it has the right to control the exercise of it, and it is alone Juge in this field. If the legislative power is used wrongly, the community declares null the decisions of the judicial body, and this one is some dissolved by the fact.

Right of resistance

Since there can be abuses, and since the community cannot in no case to be private of its rights, it is necessary that the community has also a right of resistance.

Locke distinguishes three cases where the right of resistance applies:

• treason of a magistrate (for example, exercise of the force apart from the right: usurpation, Tyranny);
• when a magistrate neglects his function;
• on evidence of a project of treason.

It is at the community that then returns the right to judge, and, when somebody wants to exert capacity for which it has not be indicated (thus when somebody wants to exert a power which does not exist), the Désobéissance is legitimate.

Social justice

The idea of a state of nature is not only for Locke a means of founding the individual rights of the Propriété; indeed, this property right, in its formulation even, comprises certain restrictions which define a duty of charity which results from the duty of any man to preserve the mankind. There is thus a limit with this inviolable right of the personal property: an owner, even if it is in its right, has the duty to yield the useless goods to his subsistence, insofar as these goods can come to assistance of stripped individuals: these people have right there, but in the condition of really having no possibility to provide for their clean Besoin S.

This duty of Charité introduces into the possessive Individualisme of Locke an at least minimal solidarity which limits it. This charity is a universal regulation which recalls the individual owner to the modesty, and which comes to moderate the individualistic liberalism of Locke: although each one can legitimately assert the Droit S which it has on its goods, the private appropriation of the goods of the Earth in the final analysis has its true legitimacy only if it is for the benefit of all, because the Ground is common, and any man has right there. Thus, Locke thinks that its liberal system can increase the resources of all the men, and fill this duty of charity:

• this system increases the available resources;
• it carries out itself a distribution of the richnesses; the least well parcelled out of a company is then in a situation better than if this company had not existed.

The Letter on the tolerance

The central argument of the Lettre on the tolerance is the distinction of the State and the Église S, from their differences as for their temporal or spiritual ends and the average employees (forces or persuasion).

For Locke, it is quite clear that only the Magistrat with the load it temporal power, which consists in maintaining by the Loi a law and order ensuring the public property and the civil Paix. The magistrate does not have any right on the spiritual interests of the individuals, because each one is free to choose the way to live in which it estimates that it will ensure the hello to him. Each one can thus adhere freely to the Dogme S which it likes; the religious companies must be free and voluntary, but do not have any legitimacy as for the use of the force, not more than they do not have the right to influence the decisions of the action public policy.

The political power must thus tolerate the Secte S since they observe these conditions; the temporal mission of the State requires of him that it protect the rights of all the Homme S whatever their Croyance S, and precisely so that each man can carry out his life according to the beliefs which it considers the best, and of which it is of right the only judge.

To this Political tolerance and nun, Locke brings nevertheless several restrictions. These restrictions rise owing to the fact that it does not conceive the Tolérance for itself, but with an aim of reconciling the safeguarding of the individual Liberté and civil peace.

Locke formulates four restrictions:

• one cannot tolerate any Homme which is opposed to the company and the moralities essential to the maintenance of the civil society;
• one cannot tolerate that some assume particular privileges, for them or their sect, vermin at the company;
• one cannot tolerate a Église subjected to an authority different from that of the magistrate (for example, with the Pape);
• finally, one cannot tolerate the atheists.

Locke fights thus at the same time the dogmatic authoritarianism which destroys the conditions of the Freedom of conscience by imposing certain designs of the good, and the individualistic Anarchisme which destroys the conditions of the social life by research without restriction of a good chosen even in all conscience. Individual freedom in the field of the religion must be as large as possible, it must be guaranteed by laws, but it must always remain compatible with the political conditions which enable him to exist.

Pedagogy

Locke presents its ideas on the manner of forming a gentleman in his Pensées on education .

Works

• Law off Natural (law of nature), the first work

• Test on the tolerance , 1667
• Anatomica , 1668
• Of arte medica , 1669
• Drafting of a constitution for the colony of North Carolina, ever applied, 1670
• Letter to the tolerance , 1690
• Test on the human understanding , 1690
• two Treaties of the civil government , 1690
• Thought oneducation , 1693
• Considerations on the consequences of the reduction in the interest and the increase in the value of the money
• Speech on the miracles
• reasonable Christianity

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