Contents introduction main Part chapter 1

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION

Main Part
CHAPTER 1. The english philosopher John Locke's philosophy
1.1 John Locke’s life
1.2 John Locke’s career
1.3 Philosophy
1.4 Epistemology and Psychology

Introduction
John Locke's interests, like those of many seventeenth-century philosophers, encompass the fields that make up the contemporary scientific and social sciences. His lucid exposition of the theoretical foundation of contemporary liberalism in his Two Treatises of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration is his most notable contribution to the history of political thinking. He also contributed significantly to economics, psychology, and education. Locke was not the first philosopher to use the term "state of nature" to describe the origins of government, but his state of nature in the Second Treatise deserves to be compared to previous incarnations of the concept, particularly Thomas Hobbes' use of the term in Leviathan. According to Locke, life in nature was "a state of perfect freedom," as well as equality and plenty, with the exception of "a common...authority to judge between them." By the law of nature, man in the state of nature has several rights, the most fundamental of which is the right of self-preservation, from which Locke derives his "strange doctrine," according to which everyone in the state of nature has the right to punish violators of the law without recourse to a higher magistrate or judge. Anyone who breaks the law of nature declares war on the rest of humanity, allowing anyone to punish him to the extent they see fit, including death. So, while Locke's state of nature appears to be more pleasant at first than Hobbes', this universal power to carry out the natural law quickly leads to irresolvable conflict.
Because everyone is born equal and free, any form of authority over him must have his consent. A social compact is hence the source of society. Individual rights to life, liberty, and property are protected by forming and submitting to government. Citizens, according to Locke, cannot fully relinquish their authority to determine whether the government is infringing on their rights to the point where it is acting tyrannically and must be opposed. In the final chapter of the Second Treatise, Locke lays out an account of the causes of the dissolution of a government, and in a departure from prevailing opinion about the rights of subjects, affirms the right of citizens to resist a tyrannical government. Locke’s ideas differ both from earlier thinkers such as Hobbes, who denied subjects any right to resist their sovereign, and those such as John Calvin, who admitted that tyrants ought to be deposed but denied ordinary citizens the right to depose them, instead entrusting this task to magistrates. Approximately a decade before the publication of the Second Treatise, Algernon Sidney had advanced a position on rebellion similar to Locke’s in his Discourses Concerning Government, a book that resulted in his execution for treason. Both Sidney’s and Locke’s writings on this question were influential in the American Revolution. Several passages in the Declaration of Independence directly echo Locke’s formulations in the Second Treatise.