Some Thoughts Concerning Education

Title page from the first edition of Locke's Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)

Some Thoughts Concerning Education is a 1693 treatise on education written by the English philosopher John Locke. For over a century, it was the most important philosophical work on education in England. It was translated into almost all of the major written European languages during the eighteenth century, and nearly every European writer on education after Locke, including Jean-Jacques Rousseau, acknowledged its influence.
In his Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), Locke outlined a new theory of mind, contending that the child's mind was a tabula rasa or "blank slate"; that is, it did not contain any innate ideas. Some Thoughts Concerning Education explains how to educate that mind using three distinct methods: the development of a healthy body; the formation of a virtuous character; and the choice of an appropriate academic curriculum.
Locke wrote the letters that would eventually become Some Thoughts for an aristocratic friend, but his advice had a broader appeal since his educational principles allowed women and the lower classes to aspire to the same kind of character as the aristocrats for whom Locke originally intended the work.

Historical context

Rather than writing a wholly original philosophy of education, Locke, it seems, deliberately attempted to popularize several strands of seventeenth-century educational reform at the same time as introducing his own ideas. English writers such as John Evelyn, John Aubrey, John Eachard, and John Milton had previously advocated "similar reforms in curriculum and teaching methods," but they had not succeeded in reaching a wide audience. Curiously, though, Locke proclaims throughout his text that his is a revolutionary work; as Nathan Tarcov, who has written an entire volume on Some Thoughts, has pointed out, "Locke frequently explicitly opposes his recommendations to the ‘usual,’ ‘common,’ ‘ordinary,’ or ‘general’ education.”
As England became increasingly mercantilist and secularist, the humanist educational values of the Renaissance, which had enshrined scholasticism, came to be regarded by many as irrelevant. Following in the intellectual tradition of Francis Bacon, who had challenged the cultural authority of the classics, reformers such as Locke, and later Philip Doddridge, argued against Cambridge and Oxford's decree that “all Bachelaur and Undergraduats in their Disputations should lay aside their various Authors, such that caused many dissensions and strifes in the Schools, and only follow Aristotle and those that defend him, and take their Questions from him, and that they exclude from the Schools all steril and inane Questions, disagreeing from the antient and true Philosophy [sic].” Instead of demanding that their sons spend all of their time studying Greek and Latin texts, an increasing number of families began to demand a practical education for their sons; by exposing them to the emerging sciences, mathematics, and the modern languages, these parents hoped to prepare their sons for the changing economy and, indeed, for the new world they saw forming around them.

Text

One of these families was the Clarkes of Chipley, Somerset. In 1684 Edward Clarke asked his friend, John Locke, for advice on raising his son and heir, Edward, Jr.; Locke responded with a series of letters that eventually served as the basis of Some Thoughts Concerning Education. But it was not until 1693, encouraged by the Clarkes and another friend, William Molyneux, that Locke actually published the treatise; Locke, "timid" when it came to public exposure, decided to publish the text anonymously.
Although Locke revised and expanded the text five times before he died, he never substantially altered the "familiar and friendly style of the work." The "Preface" alerted the reader to its humble origins as a series of letters and, according to Nathan Tarcov, who has written an entire volume on Some Thoughts, advice that otherwise might have appeared "meddlesome" became welcome. Tarcov claims Locke treated his readers as his friends and they responded in kind.

Pedagogical theory

Of Locke's major claims in the Essay Concerning Human Understanding and Some Thoughts Concerning Education, two played a defining role in eighteenth-century educational theory. The first is that education makes the man; as Locke writes at the opening of his treatise, "I think I may say that of all the men we meet with, nine parts of ten are what they are, good or evil, useful or not, by their education." In making this claim, Locke was arguing against both the Augustinian view of man, which grounds its conception of humanity in original sin, and the Cartesian position, which holds that man innately knows basic logical propositions. In his Essay Locke posits an “empty” mind—a tabula rasa—that is “filled” by experience. In describing the mind in these terms, Locke was drawing on Plato's Theatetus, which suggests that the mind is like a "wax tablet". Although Locke argued strenuously for the tabula rasa theory of mind, he nevertheless did believe in innate talents and interests. For example, he advises parents to watch their children carefully in order to discover their "aptitudes," and to nurture their children's own interests rather than force them to participate in activities which they dislike "he, therefore, that is about children should well study their natures and aptitudes and see, by often trials, what turn they easily take and what becomes them, observe what their native stock is, how it may be improved, and what it is fit for."
Locke's second most important contribution to eighteenth-century educational theory also stems from his theory of the self. He writes: "the little and almost insensible impressions on our tender infancies have very important and lasting consequences." That is, the "associations of ideas" made when young are more significant than those made when mature because they are the foundation of the self—they mark the tabula rasa. In the Essay, in which he first introduces the theory of the association of ideas, Locke warns against letting "a foolish maid" convince a child that "goblins and sprites" are associated with the darkness, for "darkness shall ever afterwards bring with it those frightful ideas, and they shall be so joined, that he can no more bear the one than the other."
Locke's emphasis on the role of experience in the formation of the mind and his concern with false associations of ideas has led many to characterize his theory of mind as passive rather than active, but as Nicholas Jolley, in his introduction to Locke's philosophical theory, points out, this is "one of the most curious misconceptions about Locke." As both he and Tarcov highlight, Locke's writings are full of directives to actively seek out knowledge and reflect on received opinion; in fact, this was the essence of Locke's challenge to innatism.

Body and mind

Locke advises parents to carefully nurture their children's physical “habits” before pursuing their academic education. As many scholars have remarked, it is unsurprising that a trained physician, as Locke was, would begin Some Thoughts with a discussion of children's physical needs, yet this seemingly simple generic innovation has proven to be one of Locke's most enduring legacies—Western child-rearing manuals are still dominated by the topics of food and sleep. To convince parents that they must attend to the health of their children above all, Locke quotes from Juvenal's Satires—"a sound mind in a sound body." Locke firmly believed that children should be exposed to harsh conditions while young in order to inure them to, for example, cold temperatures when they were older: "Children [should] be not too warmly clad or covered, winter or summer" (Locke's emphasis), he argues, because "bodies will endure anything that from the beginning they are accustomed to." Furthermore, in order to prevent a child from catching chills and colds, Locke suggests that “his feet to be washed every day in cold water, and to have his shoes so thin that they might leak and let in water whenever he comes near it" (Locke's emphasis). Locke posited that if children were accustomed to having sodden feet, a sudden shower that wet their feet would not cause them to catch a cold. Such advice (whether followed or not) was quite popular; it appears throughout John Newbery's children's books in the middle of the eighteenth century, for example, the first best-selling children's books in England. Locke also offers specific advice on topics ranging from bed linens to diet to sleeping regimens.

Virtue and reason

Locke dedicates the bulk of Some Thoughts Concerning Education to explaining how to instill virtue in children. He defines virtue as a combination of self-denial and rationality: "that a man is able to deny himself his own desires, cross his own inclinations, and purely follow what reason directs as best, though the appetite lean the other way" (Locke's emphasis). Future virtuous adults must be able not only to practice self-denial but also to see the rational path. Locke was convinced that children could reason early in life and that parents should address them as reasoning beings. Moreover, he argues that parents should, above all, attempt to create a "habit" of thinking rationally in their children. Locke continually emphasizes habit over rule—children should internalize the habit of reasoning rather than memorize a complex set of prohibitions. This focus on rationality and habit corresponds to two of Locke's concerns in the Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Throughout the Essay, Locke bemoans the irrationality of the majority and their inability, because of the authority of custom, to change or forfeit long-held beliefs. His attempt to solve this problem is not only to treat children as rational beings but also to create a disciplinary system founded on esteem and disgrace rather than on rewards and punishments. For Locke, rewards such as sweets and punishments such as beatings turn children into sensualists rather than rationalists; such sensations arouse passions rather than reason. He argues that “such a sort of slavish discipline makes a slavish temper" (Locke's emphasis).

Title page from the fourth edition of Essay Concerning Human Understanding

What is important to understand is what exactly Locke means when he advises parents to treat their children as reasoning beings. Locke first highlights that children "love to be treated as Rational Creatures," thus parents should treat them as such. Tarcov argues that this suggests children can be considered rational only in that they respond to the desire to be treated as reasoning creatures and that they are "motivated only [by] rewards and punishments" to achieve that goal.
Ultimately, Locke wants children to become adults as quickly as possible. As he argues in Some Thoughts, "the only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it, into which a young gentleman should be entered by degrees as he can bear it, and the earlier the better." In the Second Treatise on Government (1689), he contends that it is the parents' duty to educate their children and to act for them because children, though they have the ability to reason when young, do not do so consistently and are therefore usually irrational; it is the parents' obligation to teach their children to become rational adults so that they will not always be fettered by parental ties.

Academic curriculum

Locke does not dedicate much space in Some Thoughts Concerning Education to outlining a specific curriculum; he is more concerned with convincing his readers that education is about instilling virtue and what Western educators would now call critical-thinking skills. Locke maintains that parents or teachers must first teach children how to learn and to enjoy learning. As he writes, the instructor "should remember that his business is not so much to teach [the child] all that is knowable, as to raise in him a love and esteem of knowledge; and to put him in the right way of knowing and improving himself." But Locke does offer a few hints as to what he thinks a valuable curriculum might be. He deplores the long hours wasted on learning Latin and argues that children should first be taught to speak and write well in their native language. Most of Locke's recommendations are based on a similar principle of utility. So, for example, he claims that children should be taught to draw because it would be useful to them on their foreign travels (for recording the sites they visit), but poetry and music, he says, are a waste of time. Locke was also at the forefront of the scientific revolution and advocated the teaching of geography, astronomy, and anatomy. Locke's curricular recommendations reflect the break from scholastic humanism and the emergence of a new kind of education—one emphasizing not only science but also practical professional training. Locke also recommended, for example, that every (male) child learn a trade. Locke's pedagogical suggestions marked the beginning of a new bourgeois ethos that would come to define Britain in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Class

When Locke began writing the letters that would eventually become Some Thoughts on Education, he was addressing an aristocrat, but the final text appeals to a much wider audience. For example, Locke writes: "I place Vertue [sic] as the first and most necessary of those Endowments, that belong to a Man or a Gentleman." James Axtell, who edited the most comprehensive edition of Locke's educational writings, has explained that although "he was writing for this small class, this does not preclude the possibility that many of the things he said about education, especially its main principles, were equally applicable to all children" (Axtell's emphasis). This was a contemporary view as well; Pierre Coste, in his introduction in the first French edition in 1695, wrote, "it is certain that this Work was particularly designed for the education of Gentlemen: but this does not prevent its serving also for the education of all sorts of Children, of whatever class they are."
While it is possible to apply Locke's general principles of education to all children, and contemporaries such as Coste certainly did so, Locke himself, despite statements that may imply the contrary, believed that Some Thoughts applied only to the wealthy and the middle-class (or as they would have been referred to at the time, the "middling sorts"). As Peter Gay writes, "[i]t never occurred to him that every child should be educated or that all those to be educated should be educated alike. Locke believed that until the school system was reformed, a gentleman ought to have his son trained at home by a tutor. As for the poor, they do not appear in Locke's little book at all."
In his "Essay on the Poor Law," Locke turns to the education of the poor; he laments that "the children of labouring people are an ordinary burden to the parish, and are usually maintained in idleness, so that their labour also is generally lost to the public till they are 12 or 14 years old." He suggests, therefore, that "working schools" be set up in each parish in England for poor children so that they will be "from infancy [three years old] inured to work." He goes on to outline the economics of these schools, arguing not only that they will be profitable for the parish, but also that they will instill a good work ethic in the children.

Gender

Locke wrote Some Thoughts Concerning Education in response to his friend Samuel Clarke's query on how to educate his son, so the text's “principal aim”, as Locke states at the beginning, “is how a young gentleman should be brought up from his infancy.” This education “will not so perfectly suit the education of daughters; though where the difference of sex requires different treatment, it will be no hard matter to distinguish" (Locke's emphasis). This passage suggests that, for Locke, education was fundamentally the same for men and women—there were only small, obvious differences for women. This interpretation is supported by a letter he wrote to Mrs. Clarke in 1685 stating that “since therefore I acknowledge no difference of sex in your mind relating . . . to truth, virtue and obedience, I think well to have no thing altered in it from what is [writ for the son].” Martin Simons states that Locke "suggested, both by implication and explicitly, that a boy's education should be along the lines already followed by some girls of the intelligent genteel classes." Rather than sending boys to schools which would ignore their individual needs and teach them little of value, Locke argues that they should be taught at home as girls already were and "should learn useful and necessary crafts of the house and estate." Like his contemporary Mary Astell, Locke believed that women could and should be taught to be rational and virtuous.
But Locke does recommend several minor “restrictions” relating to the treatment of the female body. The most significant is his reining in of female physical activity for the sake of physical appearance: “But since in your girls care is to be taken too of their beauty as much as health will permit, this in them must have some restriction . . . ‘tis fit their tender skins should be fenced against the busy sunbeams, especially when they are very hot and piercing.” Although Locke’s statement indicates that he places a greater value on female than male beauty, the fact that these opinions were never published allowed contemporary readers to draw their own conclusions regarding the “different treatments” required for girls and boys, if any. Moreover, compared to other pedagogical theories, such as those in the best-selling conduct book The Whole Duty of a Woman (1696), the female companion to The Whole Duty of Man (1657), and Rousseau’s Emile (1762), which both proposed entirely separate educational programs for women, Locke’s Some Thoughts appears far more egalitarian.

Reception and legacy

Along with Rousseau's Emile (1762), Locke's Some Thoughts Concerning Education was one of the foundational eighteenth-century texts on educational theory. In Britain, it was considered the standard treatment of the topic for over a century. For this reason, some critics have maintained that Some Thoughts Concerning Education vies with the Essay Concerning Human Understanding for the title of Locke's most influential work. Some of Locke's contemporaries, such as seventeenth-century German philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Leibniz, believed this as well; Leibniz argued that Some Thoughts superseded even the Essay in its impact on European society.
Locke's Some Thoughts Concerning Education was a runaway bestseller. During the eighteenth century alone, Some Thoughts was published in at least 53 editions: 25 English, 16 French, six Italian, three German, two Dutch, and one Swedish. It was also excerpted in novels such as Samuel Richardson's Pamela (1740–1), and it formed the theoretical basis of much children's literature, particularly that of the first successful children's publisher, John Newbery. According to James Secord, an eighteenth-century scholar, Newbery included Locke's educational advice to legitimize the new genre of children's literature. Locke's imprimatur would ensure the genre's success.
By the end of the eighteenth century, Locke's influence on educational thought was widely acknowledged. In 1772 James Whitchurch wrote in his Essay Upon Education that Locke was “an Author, to whom the Learned must ever acknowledge themselves highly indebted, and whose Name can never be mentioned without a secret Veneration, and Respect; his Assertions being the result of intense Thought, strict Enquiry, a clear and penetrating Judgment.” Writers as politically dissimilar as Sarah Trimmer, in her periodical The Guardian of Education (1802–6), and Maria Edgeworth, in the educational treatise she penned with her father, Practical Education (1798), invoked Locke's ideas. Even Rousseau, while disputing Locke's central claim that parents should treat their children as rational beings, acknowledged his debt to Locke.
John Cleverley and D. C. Phillips place Locke's Some Thoughts Concerning Education at the beginning of a tradition of educational theory which they label "environmentalism." In the years following the publication of Locke's work, Etienne Bonnot de Condillac and Claude Adrien Helvétius eagerly adopted the idea that people's minds were shaped through their experiences and thus through their education. Systems of teaching children through their senses proliferated throughout Europe. In Switzerland, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, relying on Locke's theories, developed the concept of the "object lesson." These lessons focused pupils' attention on a particular thing and encouraged them to use all of their senses to explore it and urged them to use precise words to describe it. Used throughout Europe and America during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, these object lessons, according to one of their practitioners "if well-managed, cultivate Sense-Perception, or Observation, accustom children to express their thoughts in words, increase their available stock of words and of ideas, and by thus storing material for thinking, also prepare the way for more difficult and advanced study."
Such techniques were also integral to Maria Montessori's methods in the twentieth century. According to Cleverley and Phillips, the television show Sesame Street is also "based on Lockean assumptions—its aim has been to give underprivileged children, especially in the inner cities, the simple ideas and basic experiences that their environment normally does not provide." In many ways, despite Locke's continuing influence, as these authors point out, the twentieth century has been dominated by the "nature vs. nurture" debate in a way that Locke's century was not. Locke's optimistic "environmentalism," though qualified in his text, is now no longer just a moral issue – it is also a scientific issue.

See also

• Philosophy of education
• Of the Conduct of the Understanding

Notes

1.      ^ Ezell, Margaret J.M. "John Locke’s Images of Childhood: Early Eighteenth-Century Responses to Some Thoughts Concerning Education." Eighteenth-Century Studies 17.2 (1983–4), 141.

2.      ^ Tarcov, Nathan. Locke’s Education for Liberty. Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1984), 80.

3.      ^ Axtell, James L. "Introduction." The Educational Writings of John Locke. Ed. James L. Axtell. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1968), 60.

4.      ^ Qtd. in Frances A. Yates, “Giodano Bruno’s Conflict with Oxford.” Journal of the Warburg Institute 2.3 (1939), 230.

5.      ^ Axtell, 4.

6.      ^ Axtell, 13.

7.      ^ Axtell, 15–16.

8.      ^ ^{a b} Tarcov, 79.

9.      ^ Locke, John. Some Thoughts Concerning Education and Of the Conduct of the Understanding. Eds. Ruth W. Grant and Nathan Tarcov. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., Inc. (1996), 10; see also Tarcov, 108.

10.  ^ Ezell, 140.

11.  ^ Simons, Martin. "Why Can't a Man Be More Like a Woman? (A Note on John Locke's Educational Thought)." Educational Theory 40.1 (1990), 143.

12.  ^ Yolton, John W. The Two Intellectual Worlds of John Locke: Man Person, and Spirits in the Essay. Ithaca: Cornell University Press (2004), 29–31 and John Yolton, Locke: An Introduction. New York: Basil Blackwell (1985), 19–20; see also Tarcov, 109.

13.  ^ Yolton, John Locke and Education, 24-5.

14.  ^ Locke, Some Thoughts, 41.

15.  ^ Locke, Some Thoughts, 10.

16.  ^ Locke, John. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Ed. Roger Woolhouse. New York: Penguin Books (1997), 357.

17.  ^ Jolley, 28.

18.  ^ Tarcov, 83ff and Jolley 28ff.

19.  ^ Locke, Some Thoughts, 11–20.

20.  ^ Hardyment, Christina. Dream Babies: Child Care from Locke to Spock. London: Jonathan Cape (1983), 226; 246–7; 257–72.

21.  ^ Locke, Some Thoughts, 11.

22.  ^ ^{a b} Locke, Some Thoughts, 12.

23.  ^ For example, in the "Preface" to A Little Pretty Pocket-Book, Newbery recommended that parents feed their child a “common Diet only, cloath him thin, let him have good Exercise, and be as much exposed to Hardships as his natural Constitution will admit” because “the Face of a child, when it comes into the World, (says the great Mr. Locke) is as tender and susceptible of Injuries as any other Part of the Body; yet by being always exposed, it becomes Proof against the severest Season, and the most inclement Weather.” A Little Pretty Pocket-Book, Intended for the Instruction and Amusement of Little Master Tommy, and Pretty Miss Polly. 10th edition. London: Printed for J. Newbery (1760), 6.

24.  ^ Locke, Some Thoughts, 25.

25.  ^ Yolton, Two Intellectual Worlds, 31-2.

26.  ^ See, for example, Locke, Essay, 89–91.

27.  ^ Yolton, Introduction, 22-4.

28.  ^ Locke, Some Thoughts, 34-8.

29.  ^ Locke, Some Thoughts, 34.

30.  ^ Tarcov, 117-8.

31.  ^ Locke, Some Thoughts, 68.

32.  ^ Yolton, John Locke and Education, 29–30; Yolton, Two Intellectual Worlds, 34–37; Yolton, Introduction, 36-7.

33.  ^ Yolton, Introduction, 38.

34.  ^ Locke, Some Thoughts, 195.

35.  ^ Locke, Some Thoughts, 143.

36.  ^ Bantock, G. H. "'The Under-labourer' in Courtly Clothes: Locke." Studies in the History of Educational Theory: Artifice and Nature, 1350–1765. London: George Allen and Unwin (1980), 241.

37.  ^ Bantock, 240-2.

38.  ^ John Dunn, in his influential Political Thought of John Locke, has interpreted this "calling" as a Calvinist religious doctrine. Tarcov has criticized this reading, however, writing: "Dunn’s exposition of the doctrine and its providentialist character is based on Puritan and secondary sources, and he gives no clear evidence for attributing it in this form to Locke.” (Tarcov 127)

39.  ^ Bantock, 244.

40.  ^ Leites, Edmund. "Locke's Liberal Theory of Parenthood." Ethnicity, Identity, and History. Eds. Joseph B. Maier and Chaim I. Waxman. New Brunswick: Transaction Books (1983), 69–70.

41.  ^ Locke, Some Thoughts, 102.

42.  ^ Axtell, 52 and Yolton, John Locke and Education, 30-1.

43.  ^ Qtd. in Axtell, 52.

44.  ^ Gay, Peter. "Locke on the Education of Paupers." Philosophers on Education: Historical Perspectives. Ed. Amélie Oksenberg Rorty. London: Routledge (1998), 190.

45.  ^ Locke, John. "An Essay on the Poor Law." Locke: Political Essays. Ed. Mark Goldie. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1997), 190.

46.  ^ Locke, "Essay on the Poor Law," 190.

47.  ^ Locke, "An Essay on the Poor Law," 191.

48.  ^ Locke, John. "Letter to Mrs. Clarke, February 1685." The Educational Writings of John Locke. Ed. James L. Axtell. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1968), 344.

49.  ^ Simons, 135.

50.  ^ Simons, 140; see also Tarcov, 112.

51.  ^ Simons, 139 and 143.

52.  ^ Locke, "Letter to Mrs. Clarke," 344.

53.  ^ Leites, 69–70.

54.  ^ Ezell, 147

John Locke ( /ˈlɒk/; 29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704), widely known as the Father of Liberalism,^[2][3][4] was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social contract theory. His work had a great impact upon the development of epistemology and political philosophy. His writings influenced Voltaire and Rousseau, many Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, as well as the American revolutionaries. His contributions to classical republicanism and liberal theory are reflected in the American Declaration of Independence.^[5]
Locke's theory of mind is often cited as the origin of modern conceptions of identity and the self, figuring prominently in the work of later philosophers such as Hume, Rousseau and Kant. Locke was the first to define the self through a continuity of consciousness. He postulated that the mind was a blank slate or tabula rasa. Contrary to pre-existing Cartesian philosophy, he maintained that we are born without innate ideas, and that knowledge is instead determined only by experience derived from sense perception.^[6]

Contents 1 Biography 2 Influence 2.1 Theories of religious tolerance 2.2 Constitution of Carolina 2.3 Theory of value and property 2.4 Political theory 2.4.1 Limits to accumulation 2.5 On price theory 2.5.1 Monetary thoughts 2.6 The self 3 Religious beliefs 4 List of major works 4.1 Major unpublished or posthumous manuscripts 5 See also 6 References 6.1 Notes 6.2 Secondary literature 7 External links 7.1 Works 7.2 Resources

Influence

Locke exercised a profound influence on political philosophy, in particular on modern liberalism. Michael Zuckert has argued that Locke launched liberalism by tempering Hobbesian absolutism and clearly separating the realms of Church and State. He had a strong influence on Voltaire who called him "le sage Locke". His arguments concerning liberty and the social contract later influenced the written works of Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and other Founding Fathers of the United States. In fact, one passage from the Second Treatise is reproduced verbatim in the Declaration of Independence, the reference to a "long train of abuses." Such was Locke's influence that Thomas Jefferson wrote: "Bacon, Locke and Newton ... I consider them as the three greatest men that have ever lived, without any exception, and as having laid the foundation of those superstructures which have been raised in the Physical and Moral sciences". Today, most contemporary libertarians claim Locke as an influence.
But Locke's influence may have been even more profound in the realm of epistemology. Locke redefined subjectivity, or self, and intellectual historians such as Charles Taylor and Jerrold Seigel argue that Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) marks the beginning of the modern Western conception of the self.

Theories of religious tolerance

Locke, writing his Letters Concerning Toleration (1689–92) in the aftermath of the European wars of religion, formulated a classic reasoning for religious tolerance. Three arguments are central: (1) Earthly judges, the state in particular, and human beings generally, cannot dependably evaluate the truth-claims of competing religious standpoints; (2) Even if they could, enforcing a single "true religion" would not have the desired effect, because belief cannot be compelled by violence; (3) Coercing religious uniformity would lead to more social disorder than allowing diversity.

Constitution of Carolina

Appraisals of Locke have often been tied to appraisals of liberalism in general, and also to appraisals of the United States. Detractors note that (in 1671) he was a major investor in the English slave-trade through the Royal African Company, as well as through his participation in drafting the Fundamental Constitution of the Carolinas while Shaftesbury's secretary, which established a feudal aristocracy and gave a master absolute power over his slaves. For example, Martin Cohen notes that as a secretary to the Council of Trade and Plantations (1673–4) and a member of the Board of Trade (1696–1700) Locke was, in fact, "one of just half a dozen men who created and supervised both the colonies and their iniquitous systems of servitude". Some see his statements on unenclosed property as having been intended to justify the displacement of the Native Americans.^[17][18] Because of his opposition to aristocracy and slavery in his major writings, he is accused of hypocrisy and racism, or of caring only for the liberty of English capitalists.

 

 

Theory of value and property

Locke uses the word property in both broad and narrow senses. In a broad sense, it covers a wide range of human interests and aspirations; more narrowly, it refers to material goods. He argues that property is a natural right and it is derived from labour.
In Chapter V of his Second Treatise, Locke argues that the individual ownership of goods and property is justified by the labour exerted to produce those goods or utilise property to produce goods beneficial to human society.
Locke stated his belief, in his Second Treatise, that nature on its own provides little of value to society; he provides the implication that the labour expended in the creation of goods gives them their value. This is used as supporting evidence for the interpretation of Locke's labour theory of property as a labour theory of value, in his implication that goods produced by nature are of little value, unless combined with labour in their production and that labour is what gives goods their value.
Locke believed that ownership of property is created by the application of labour. In addition, he believed property precedes government and government cannot "dispose of the estates of the subjects arbitrarily." Karl Marx later critiqued Locke's theory of property in his own social theory.

Political theory

See also: Two Treatises of Government

Locke's political theory was founded on social contract theory. Unlike Thomas Hobbes, Locke believed that human nature is characterised by reason and tolerance. Like Hobbes, Locke believed that human nature allowed men to be selfish. This is apparent with the introduction of currency. In a natural state all people were equal and independent, and everyone had a natural right to defend his “Life, health, Liberty, or Possessions", basis for the phrase in the American Declaration of Independence; "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness".
Like Hobbes, Locke assumed that the sole right to defend in the state of nature was not enough, so people established a civil society to resolve conflicts in a civil way with help from government in a state of society. However, Locke never refers to Hobbes by name and may instead have been responding to other writers of the day. Locke also advocated governmental separation of powers and believed that revolution is not only a right but an obligation in some circumstances. These ideas would come to have profound influence on the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.

Limits to accumulation

Labour creates property, but it also does contain limits to its accumulation: man’s capacity to produce and man’s capacity to consume. According to Locke, unused property is waste and an offence against nature. However, with the introduction of “durable” goods, men could exchange their excessive perishable goods for goods that would last longer and thus not offend the natural law. The introduction of money marks the culmination of this process. Money makes possible the unlimited accumulation of property without causing waste through spoilage. He also includes gold or silver as money because they may be “hoarded up without injury to anyone,” since they do not spoil or decay in the hands of the possessor. The introduction of money eliminates the limits of accumulation. Locke stresses that inequality has come about by tacit agreement on the use of money, not by the social contract establishing civil society or the law of land regulating property. Locke is aware of a problem posed by unlimited accumulation but does not consider it his task. He just implies that government would function to moderate the conflict between the unlimited accumulation of property and a more nearly equal distribution of wealth and does not say which principles that government should apply to solve this problem. However, not all elements of his thought form a consistent whole. For example, labour theory of value of the Two Treatises of Government stands side by side with the demand-and-supply theory developed in a letter he wrote titled Some Considerations on the Consequences of the Lowering of Interest and the Raising of the Value of Money. Moreover, Locke anchors property in labour but in the end upholds the unlimited accumulation of wealth.

On price theory

Locke’s general theory of value and price is a supply and demand theory, which was set out in a letter to a Member of Parliament in 1691, titled Some Considerations on the Consequences of the Lowering of Interest and the Raising of the Value of Money. Supply is quantity and demand is rent. “The price of any commodity rises or falls by the proportion of the number of buyer and sellers.” and “that which regulates the price... [of goods] is nothing else but their quantity in proportion to their rent.” The quantity theory of money forms a special case of this general theory. His idea is based on “money answers all things” (Ecclesiastes) or “rent of money is always sufficient, or more than enough,” and “varies very little...” Regardless of whether the demand for money is unlimited or constant, Locke concludes that as far as money is concerned, the demand is exclusively regulated by its quantity. He also investigates the determinants of demand and supply. For supply, goods in general are considered valuable because they can be exchanged, consumed and they must be scarce. For demand, goods are in demand because they yield a flow of income. Locke develops an early theory of capitalisation, such as land, which has value because “by its constant production of saleable commodities it brings in a certain yearly income.” Demand for money is almost the same as demand for goods or land; it depends on whether money is wanted as medium of exchange or as loanable funds. For medium of exchange “money is capable by exchange to procure us the necessaries or conveniences of life.” For loanable funds, “it comes to be of the same nature with land by yielding a certain yearly income ... or interest.”

 

 

Monetary thoughts

Locke distinguishes two functions of money, as a "counter" to measure value, and as a "pledge" to lay claim to goods. He believes that silver and gold, as opposed to paper money, are the appropriate currency for international transactions. Silver and gold, he says, are treated to have equal value by all of humanity and can thus be treated as a pledge by anyone, while the value of paper money is only valid under the government which issues it.
Locke argues that a country should seek a favourable balance of trade, lest it fall behind other countries and suffer a loss in its trade. Since the world money stock grows constantly, a country must constantly seek to enlarge its own stock. Locke develops his theory of foreign exchanges, in addition to commodity movements, there are also movements in country stock of money, and movements of capital determine exchange rates. The latter is less significant and less volatile than commodity movements. As for a country’s money stock, if it is large relative to that of other countries, it will cause the country’s exchange to rise above par, as an export balance would do.
He also prepares estimates of the cash requirements for different economic groups (landholders, labourers and brokers). In each group the cash requirements are closely related to the length of the pay period. He argues the brokers – middlemen – whose activities enlarge the monetary circuit and whose profits eat into the earnings of labourers and landholders, had a negative influence on both one's personal and the public economy that they supposedly contributed to.

The self

Locke defines the self as "that conscious thinking thing, (whatever substance, made up of whether spiritual, or material, simple, or compounded, it matters not) which is sensible, or conscious of pleasure and pain, capable of happiness or misery, and so is concerned for itself, as far as that consciousness extends". He does not, however, ignore "substance", writing that "the body too goes to the making the man." The Lockean self is therefore a self-aware and self-reflective consciousness that is fixed in a body.
In his Essay, Locke explains the gradual unfolding of this conscious mind. Arguing against both the Augustinian view of man as originally sinful and the Cartesian position, which holds that man innately knows basic logical propositions, Locke posits an "empty" mind, a tabula rasa, which is shaped by experience; sensations and reflections being the two sources of all our ideas.
John Locke's formulation of tabula rasa in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding was influenced by a 17th century Latin translation Philosophus Autodidactus (published by Edward Pococke) of the Arabic philosophical novel Hayy ibn Yaqzan by the 12th century Andalusian-Islamic philosopher and novelist Ibn Tufail (known as "Abubacer" or "Ebn Tophail" in the West). Ibn Tufail demonstrated the theory of tabula rasa as a thought experiment through his Arabic philosophical novel novel Hayy ibn Yaqzan in which he depicted the development of the mind of a feral child "from a tabula rasa to that of an adult, in complete isolation from society" on a desert island, through experience alone.
Locke's Some Thoughts Concerning Education is an outline on how to educate this mind: he expresses the belief that education maketh the man, or, more fundamentally, that the mind is an "empty cabinet", with the statement, "I think I may say that of all the men we meet with, nine parts of ten are what they are, good or evil, useful or not, by their education."
Locke also wrote that "the little and almost insensible impressions on our tender infancies have very important and lasting consequences." He argued that the "associations of ideas" that one makes when young are more important than those made later because they are the foundation of the self: they are, put differently, what first mark the tabula rasa. In his Essay, in which is introduced both of these concepts, Locke warns against, for example, letting "a foolish maid" convince a child that "goblins and sprites" are associated with the night for "darkness shall ever afterwards bring with it those frightful ideas, and they shall be so joined, that he can no more bear the one than the other."
"Associationism", as this theory would come to be called, exerted a powerful influence over eighteenth-century thought, particularly educational theory, as nearly every educational writer warned parents not to allow their children to develop negative associations. It also led to the development of psychology and other new disciplines with David Hartley's attempt to discover a biological mechanism for associationism in his Observations on Man (1749).

Religious beliefs

Some scholars have seen Locke's political convictions as deriving from his religious beliefs.^[36][37][38] Locke's religious trajectory began in Calvinist trinitarianism, but by the time of the Reflections (1695) Locke was advocating not just Socinian views on tolerance but also Socinian Christology; with veiled denial of the pre-existence of Christ.^[39] However Wainwright (Oxford, 1987) notes that in the posthumously published Paraphrase (1707) Locke's interpretation of one verse, Ephesians 1:10, is markedly different from that of Socinians like Biddle, and may indicate that near the end of his life Locke returned nearer to an Arian position.^[40]
Locke's Some Thoughts Concerning Education is an outline on how to educate this mind: he expresses the belief that education maketh the man, or, more fundamentally, that the mind is an "empty cabinet", with the statement, "I think I may say that of all the men we meet with, nine parts of ten are what they are, good or evil, useful or not, by their education."
Locke also wrote that "the little and almost insensible impressions on our tender infancies have very important and lasting consequences."^[10] He argued that the "associations of ideas" that one makes when young are more important than those made later because they are the foundation of the self: they are, put differently, what first mark the tabula rasa. In his Essay, in which is introduced both of these concepts, Locke warns against, for example, letting "a foolish maid" convince a child that "goblins and sprites" are associated with the night for "darkness shall ever afterwards bring with it those frightful ideas, and they shall be so joined, that he can no more bear the one than the other."
"Associationism", as this theory would come to be called, exerted a powerful influence over eighteenth-century thought, particularly educational theory, as nearly every educational writer warned parents not to allow their children to develop negative associations. It also led to the development of psychology and other new disciplines with David Hartley's attempt to discover a biological mechanism for associationism in his Observations on Man (1749).
First appearing in 1690 with the printed title An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke concerns the foundation of human knowledge and understanding. He describes the mind at birth as a blank slate (tabula rasa, although he did not use those actual words) filled later through experience. The essay was one of the principal sources of empiricism in modern philosophy, and influenced many enlightenment philosophers, such as David Hume and George Berkeley.
Book II of the Essay sets out Locke's theory of ideas, including his distinction between passively acquired simple ideas, such as "red," "sweet," "round," etc., and actively built complex ideas, such as numbers, causes and effects, abstract ideas, ideas of substances, identity, and diversity. Locke also distinguishes between the truly existing primary qualities of bodies, like shape, motion and the arrangement of minute particles, and the secondary qualities that are "powers to produce various sensations in us" such as "red" and "sweet." These secondary qualities, Locke claims, are dependent on the primary qualities. He also offers a theory of personal identity, offering a largely psychological criterion. Book III is concerned with language, and Book IV with knowledge, including intuition, mathematics, moral philosophy, natural philosophy ("science"), faith, and opinion.

Book I

Locke's main thesis is that the mind of a newborn is a white page (the frequently attributed tabula rasa does not occur in the Essay), and that all ideas are developed from experience. Book I of the Essay is devoted to an attack on nativism or the doctrine of innate ideas. Locke allowed that some ideas are in the mind from an early age, but argued that such ideas are furnished by the senses starting in the womb: for instance, differences between colors or tastes. If we have a universal understanding of a concept like sweetness, it is not because this is an innate idea, but because we are all exposed to sweet tastes at an early age.
Along these lines, Locke also argued that people have no innate principles. Locke contended that innate principles would rely upon innate ideas, which do not exist. One of Locke's fundamental arguments against innate ideas is the very fact that there is no truth to which all people attest. He took the time to argue against a number of propositions that rationalists offer as universally accepted truth, for instance the principle of identity, pointing out that at the very least children and idiots are often unaware of these propositions.

Book II

Whereas Book I is intended to reject the doctrine of innate ideas proposed by Descartes and the rationalists, Book II explains that every idea is derived from experience either by sensation – direct sensory information – or reflection – "the perception of the operations of our own mind within us, as it is employed about the ideas it has got".
Furthermore, although Locke stops short of claiming that the existence of the Judaeo-Christian God is demonstrable, Book II is also a systematic argument for the existence of an intelligent being: "Thus, from the consideration of ourselves, and what we infallibly find in our own constitutions, our reason leads us to the knowledge of this certain and evident truth, that there is an eternal, most powerful, and most knowing being; which whether any one will please to call God, it matters not." Locke argues in the book that it is irrational to conclude otherwise. This preference towards separating God from his Judaeo-Christian ties may explain why so many of the men who helped found The United States (e.g. Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams), many of whom were staunch proponents of much of Locke's work and rhetorical methods, could hold to an unmoving belief in God (or "Providence") while not articulating traditional Christian theology.
A 17th century Latin translation Philosophus Autodidactus (published by Edward Pococke) of the Arabic philosophical novel Hayy ibn Yaqzan by the 12th century Andalusian-Islamic philosopher and novelist Ibn Tufail (known as "Abubacer" or "Ebn Tophail" in the West) had an influence on John Locke's formulation of tabula rasa in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Ibn Tufail demonstrated the theory of tabula rasa as a thought experiment through Hayy ibn Yaqzan in which he depicted the development of the mind of a feral child "from a tabula rasa to that of an adult, in complete isolation from society" on a desert island, through experience alone.^[2]

Reaction, response, and influence

Locke's empiricist viewpoint was sharply criticized by rationalists. In 1704 Gottfried Leibniz wrote a rationalist response to Locke's work in the form of a chapter-by-chapter rebuttal, the Nouveaux essais sur l'entendement humain ("New Essays on Human Understanding"). At the same time, Locke's work provided crucial groundwork for future empiricists such as David Hume.