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The Ultimate Guide to the John Locke Essay Competition

Humanities and social sciences students often lack the opportunities to compete at the global level and demonstrate their expertise. Competitions like ISEF, Science Talent Search, and MIT Think are generally reserved for students in fields like biology, physics, and chemistry.

At Lumiere, many of our talented non-STEM students, who have a flair for writing are looking for ways to flex their skills. In this piece, we’ll go over one such competition - the John Locke Essay Competition. If you’re interested in learning more about how we guide students to win essay contests like this, check out our main page .

What is the John Locke Essay Competition?

The essay competition is one of the various programs conducted by the John Locke Institute (JLI) every year apart from their summer and gap year courses. To understand the philosophy behind this competition, it’ll help if we take a quick detour to know more about the institute that conducts it.

Founded in 2011, JLI is an educational organization that runs summer and gap year courses in the humanities and social sciences for high school students. These courses are primarily taught by academics from Oxford and Princeton along with some other universities. The organization was founded by Martin Cox. Our Lumiere founder, Stephen, has met Martin and had a very positive experience. Martin clearly cares about academic rigor.

The institute's core belief is that the ability to evaluate the merit of information and develop articulate sound judgments is more important than merely consuming information. The essay competition is an extension of the institute - pushing students to reason through complex questions in seven subject areas namely Philosophy, Politics, Economics, History, Psychology, Theology, and Law.

The organization also seems to have a strong record of admissions of alumni to the top colleges in the US and UK. For instance, between 2011 and 2022, over half of John Locke alumni have gone on to one of eight colleges: Chicago, Columbia, Georgetown, Harvard, Pennsylvania, Princeton, Stanford, and Yale.

How prestigious is the John Locke Contest?

The John Locke Contest is a rigorous and selective writing competition in the social sciences and humanities. While it is not as selective as the Concord Review and has a much broader range of students who can receive prizes, it is still considered a highly competitive program.

Winning a John Locke essay contest will have clear benefits for you in your application process to universities and would reflect well on your application. On the other hand, a shortlist or a commendation might not have a huge impact given that it is awarded to many students (more on this later).

What is the eligibility for the contest?

Students, of any country, who are 18 years old or younger before the date of submission can submit. They also have a junior category for students who are fourteen years old, or younger, on the date of the submission deadline.

Who SHOULD consider this competition?

We recommend this competition for students who are interested in social sciences and humanities, in particular philosophy, politics, and economics. It is also a good fit for students who enjoy writing, want to dive deep into critical reasoning, and have some flair in their writing approach (more on that below).

While STEM students can of course compete, they will have to approach the topics through a social science lens. For example, in 2021, one of the prompts in the division of philosophy was, ‘Are there subjects about which we should not even ask questions?’ Here, students of biology can comfortably write about topics revolving around cloning, gene alteration, etc, however, they will have to make sure that they are able to ground this in the theoretical background of scientific ethics and ethical philosophy in general.

Additional logistics

Each essay should address only one of the questions in your chosen subject category, and must not exceed 2000 words (not counting diagrams, tables of data, footnotes, bibliography, or authorship declaration).

If you are using an in-text-based referencing format, such as APA, your in-text citations are included in the word limit.

You can submit as many essays as you want in any and all categories. (We recommend aiming for only one given how time-consuming it can be to come up with a single good-quality submission)

Important dates

Prompts for the 2023 competition will be released in January 2023. Your submission will be due around 6 months later in June. Shortlisted candidates will be notified in mid-July which will be followed by the final award ceremony in September.

How much does it cost to take part?

What do you win?

A scholarship that will offset the cost of attending a course at the JLI. The amount will vary between $2000 and $10,000 based on whether you are a grand prize winner (best essay across all categories) or a subject category winner. (JLI programs are steeply-priced and even getting a prize in your category would not cover the entire cost of your program. While the website does not mention the cost of the upcoming summer program, a different website mentions it to be 3,000 GBP or 3600 USD)

If you were shortlisted, most probably, you will also receive a commendation certificate and an invitation to attend an academic ceremony at Oxford. However, even here, you will have to foot the bill for attending the conference, which can be a significant one if you are an international student.

How do you submit your entry?

You submit your entry through the website portal that will show up once the prompts for the next competition are up in January! You have to submit your essay in pdf format where the title of the pdf attachment should read SURNAME, First Name, Category, and Question Number (e.g. POPHAM, Alexander, Psychology, Q2).

What are the essay prompts like?

We have three insights here.

Firstly, true to the spirit of the enlightenment thinker it is named after, most of the prompts have a philosophical bent and cover ethical, social, and political themes. In line with JLI’s general philosophy, they force you to think hard and deeply about the topics they cover. Consider a few examples to understand this better:

“Are you more moral than most people you know? How do you know? Should you strive to be more moral? Why or why not?” - Philosophy, 2021

“What are the most important economic effects - good and bad - of forced redistribution? How should this inform government policy?” - Economics, 2020

“Why did the Jesus of Nazareth reserve his strongest condemnation for the self-righteous?” - Theology, 2021

“Should we judge those from the past by the standards of today? How will historians in the future judge us?” - History, 2021

Secondly, at Lumiere, our analysis is that most of these prompts are ‘deceptively rigorous’ because the complexity of the topic reveals itself gradually. The topics do not give you a lot to work with and it is only when you delve deeper into one that you realize the extent to which you need to research/read more. In some of the topics, you are compelled to define the limits of the prompt yourself and in turn, the scope of your essay. This can be a challenging exercise. Allow me to illustrate this with an example of the 2019 philosophy prompt.

“Aristotelian virtue ethics achieved something of a resurgence in the twentieth century. Was this progress or retrogression?”

Here you are supposed to develop your own method for determining what exactly constitutes progress in ethical thought. This in turn involves familiarizing yourself with existing benchmarks of measurement and developing your own method if required. This is a significant intellectual exercise.

Finally, a lot of the topics are on issues of contemporary relevance and especially on issues that are contentious . For instance, in 2019, one of the prompts for economics was about the benefits and costs of immigration whereas the 2020 essay prompt for theology was about whether Islam is a religion of peace . As we explain later, your ‘opinion’ here can be as ‘outrageous’ as you want it to be as long as you are able to back it up with reasonable arguments. Remember, the JLI website clearly declares itself to be, ‘ not a safe space, but a courteous one ’.

How competitive is the JLI Essay Competition?

In 2021, the competition received 4000 entries from 101 countries. Given that there is only one prize winner from each category, this makes this a very competitive opportunity. However, because categories have a different number of applicants, some categories are more competitive than others. One strategy to win could be to focus on fields with fewer submissions like Theology.

There are also a relatively significant number of students who receive commendations called “high commendation.” In the psychology field, for example, about 80 students received a commendation in 2022. At the same time, keep in mind that the number of students shortlisted and invited to Oxford for an academic conference is fairly high and varies by subject. For instance, Theology had around 50 people shortlisted in 2021 whereas Economics had 238 . We, at Lumiere, estimate that approximately 10% of entries of each category make it to the shortlisting stage.

How will your essay be judged?

The essays will be judged on your understanding of the discipline, quality of argumentation and evidence, and writing style. Let’s look at excerpts from various winning essays to see what this looks like in practice.

Level of knowledge and understanding of the relevant material: Differentiating your essay from casual musing requires you to demonstrate knowledge of your discipline. One way to do that is by establishing familiarity with relevant literature and integrating it well into their essay. The winning essay of the 2020 Psychology Prize is a good example of how to do this: “People not only interpret facts in a self-serving way when it comes to their health and well-being; research also demonstrates that we engage in motivated reasoning if the facts challenge our personal beliefs, and essentially, our moral valuation and present understanding of the world. For example, Ditto and Liu showed a link between people’s assessment of facts and their moral convictions” By talking about motivated reasoning in the broader literature, the author can show they are well-versed in the important developments in the field.

Competent use of evidence: In your essay, there are different ways to use evidence effectively. One such way involves backing your argument with results from previous studies . The 2020 Third Place essay in economics shows us what this looks like in practice: “Moreover, this can even be extended to PTSD, where an investigation carried out by Italian doctor G. P. Fichera, led to the conclusion that 13% of the sampling units were likely to have this condition. Initiating economic analysis here, this illustrates that the cost of embarking on this unlawful activity, given the monumental repercussions if caught, is not equal to the costs to society...” The study by G.P. Fichera is used to strengthen the author’s claim on the social costs of crime and give it more weight.

Structure, writing style, and persuasive force: A good argument that is persuasive rarely involves merely backing your claim with good evidence and reasoning. Delivering it in an impactful way is also very important. Let’s see how the winner of the 2020 Law Prize does this: “Slavery still exists, but now it applies to women and its name in prostitution”, wrote Victor Hugo in Les Misérables. Hugo’s portrayal of Fantine under the archetype of a fallen woman forced into prostitution by the most unfortunate of circumstances cannot be more jarringly different from the empowerment-seeking sex workers seen today, highlighting the wide-ranging nuances associated with commercial sex and its implications on the women in the trade. Yet, would Hugo have supported a law prohibiting the selling of sex for the protection of Fantine’s rights?” The use of Victor Hugo in the first line of the essay gives it a literary flair and enhances the impact of the delivery of the argument. Similarly, the rhetorical question, in the end, adds to the literary dimension of the argument. Weaving literary and argumentative skills in a single essay is commendable and something that the institute also recognizes.

Quality of argumentation: Finally, the quality of your argument depends on capturing the various elements mentioned above seamlessly . The third place in theology (2020) does this elegantly while describing bin-Laden’s faulty and selective use of religious verses to commit violence: “He engages in the decontextualization and truncation of Qur'anic verses to manipulate and convince, which dissociates the fatwas from bonafide Islam. For example, in his 1996 fatwa, he quotes the Sword verse but deliberately omits the aforementioned half of the Ayat that calls for mercy. bin-Laden’s intention is not interpretive veracity, but the indoctrination of his followers.” The author’s claim is that bin-Laden lacks religious integrity and thus should not be taken seriously, especially given the content of his messages. To strengthen his argument, he uses actual incidents to dissect this display of faulty reasoning.

These excerpts are great examples of the kind of work you should keep in mind when writing your own draft.

6 Winning Tips from Lumiere

Focus on your essay structure and flow: If logic and argumentation are your guns in this competition, a smooth flow is your bullet. What does a smooth flow mean? It means that the reader should be able to follow your chain of reasoning with ease. This is especially true for essays that explore abstract themes. Let’s see this in detail with the example of a winning philosophy essay. “However, if society were the moral standard, an individual is subjected to circumstantial moral luck concerning whether the rules of the society are good or evil (e.g., 2019 Geneva vs. 1939 Munich). On the other hand, contracts cannot be the standard because people are ignorant of their being under a moral contractual obligation, when, unlike law, it is impossible to be under a contract without being aware. Thus, given the shortcomings of other alternatives, human virtue is the ideal moral norm.” To establish human virtue as the ideal norm, the author points out limitations in society and contracts, leaving out human virtue as the ideal one. Even if you are not familiar with philosophy, you might still be able to follow the reasoning here. This is a great example of the kind of clarity and logical coherence that you should strive for.

Ground your arguments in a solid theoretical framework : Your essay requires you to have well-developed arguments. However, these arguments need to be grounded in academic theory to give them substance and differentiate them from casual opinions. Let me illustrate this with an example of the essay that won second place in the politics category in 2020. “Normatively, the moral authority of governments can be justified on a purely associative basis: citizens have an inherent obligation to obey the state they were born into. As Dworkin argued, “Political association, like family or friendship and other forms of association more local and intimate, is itself pregnant of obligation” (Dworkin). Similar to a family unit where children owe duties to their parents by virtue of being born into that family regardless of their consent, citizens acquire obligations to obey political authority by virtue of being born into a state.” Here, the author is trying to make a point about the nature of political obligation. However, the core of his argument is not the strength of his own reasoning, but the ability to back his reasoning with prior literature. By quoting Dworkin, he includes important scholars of western political thought to give more weight to his arguments. It also displays thorough research on the part of the author to acquire the necessary intellectual tools to write this paper.

The methodology is more important than the conclusion: The 2020 history winners came to opposite conclusions in their essays on whether a strong state hampers or encourages economic growth. While one of them argued that political strength hinders growth when compared to laissez-faire, the other argues that the state is a prerequisite for economic growth . This reflects JLI’s commitment to your reasoning and substantiation instead of the ultimate opinion. The lesson: Don’t be afraid to be bold! Just make sure you are able to back it up.

Establish your framework well: A paragraph (or two) that is able to succinctly describe your methodology, core arguments, and the reasoning behind them displays academic sophistication. A case in point is the introduction of 2019’s Philosophy winner: “To answer the question, we need to construct a method that measures progress in philosophy. I seek to achieve this by asserting that, in philosophy, a certain degree of falsification is achievable. Utilizing philosophical inquiry and thought experiments, we can rationally assess the logical validity of theories and assign “true” and “false” status to philosophical thoughts. With this in mind, I propose to employ the fourth process of the Popperian model of progress…Utilizing these two conditions, I contend that Aristotelian virtue ethics was progress from Kantian ethics and utilitarianism.” Having a framework like this early on gives you a blueprint for what is in the essay and makes it easier for the reader to follow the reasoning. It also helps you as a writer since distilling down your core argument into a paragraph ensures that the first principles of your essay are well established.

Read essays of previous winners: Do this and you will start seeing some patterns in the winning essays. In economics, this might be the ability to present a multidimensional argument and substantiating it with data-backed research. In theology, this might be your critical analysis of religious texts .

Find a mentor: Philosophical logic and argumentation are rarely taught at the high school level. Guidance from an external mentor can fill this academic void by pointing out logical inconsistencies in your arguments and giving critical feedback on your essay. Another important benefit of having a mentor is that it will help you in understanding the heavy literature that is often a key part of the writing/research process in this competition. As we have already seen above, having a strong theoretical framework is crucial in this competition. A mentor can make this process smoother.

Lumiere Research Scholar Program

If you’re looking for a mentor to do an essay contest like John Locke or want to build your own independent research paper, then consider applying to the Lumiere Research Scholar Program . Last year over 2100 students applied for about 500 spots in the program. You can find the application form here.

You can see our admission results here for our students.

Manas is a publication strategy associate at Lumiere Education. He studied public policy and interactive media at NYU and has experience in education consulting.

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How much should we care about social cohesion?

Nayah Victoria Thu, Oslo International School, Norway

Winner of the 2019 Politics Prize | 7 min read

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Introduction

In a world where our common future looks increasingly uncertain, humanity needs a measure of collective potential: social cohesion. Using GDP as a proxy for progress is outdated, as purely economic measures are neither sustainable nor sufficiently holistic. Academics have previously dismissed " additional indicators [as] a fundamentally political question " (Feigl, Hergovich and Rehm). However, social cohesion is neither “additional”, nor solely “political”. Instead, it provides a central focus for the necessary shift in global mindset away from perpetual economic growth. Social cohesion is imperative as humanity moves towards the ecological and societal sustainability embodied in initiatives such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Referring to the “bonds” that hold society together, social cohesion can be defined as “ the willingness of members of a society to cooperate with each other in order to survive and prosper ” (Stanley). This concept was born of Emilie Durkheim’s attempt to define the quality lost during the “social erosion” of early industrialization. He baptized it the “ consciousness collective; the belief held by citizens of a nation-state that they share a moral community, which enables them to trust each other ” (Larsen). In the present day, Durkheim would notice striking parallels to his lifetime: great technological change in an increasingly connected yet polarized world. As Durkheim’s perspective can be used to defend forced homogeneity, his concept must evolve to reflect modern liberal values. The trusting community he mentions must originate organically in order to reach its full potential. While he refers to the “nationstate”, moving towards the ecological ceiling of our biosphere requires genuine cooperation on a much greater level. The infrastructure to improve measurements of cohesion should likewise be globally developed, encompassing factors such as: “life satisfaction, trust, prosocial behaviour, suicide and voter turnout” (OECD). Social cohesion’s utilitarian value lies in determining the factors necessary for the future prosperity of the human race.

Reimagining Development

Humanity needs to start measuring and appreciating the social qualities required to move into ecological and societal balance. In On Liberty , Mill argues for the ability of any person to do what they want provided they do not hurt others. Today, this capability to “hurt” includes future generations – redefining the individual as part of an interconnected system, where affecting others is the rule, not the exception. As “Identity is socially constructed” (World Bank), the independence and sense of fulfilment required for peace is only possible through the opportunities afforded by a socially cohesive state. It encompasses the social structure necessary for individual development and group identity, remaining deeply utilitarian in nature. It is a measure of “ inclusion…trust… and mobility ” (Fonesca, Lukosch and Brazier). Liberal values and cohesion are mutually supportive: respect of individual freedom makes people more willing to work together, and less likely to abuse others’ rights. In addition, the empathy and collaboration of a cohesive society increases altruism, serving general utility. Merely replacing “citizen” with “consumer” changed survey respondents’ values, causing “ reduced social involvement ” (Bauer, Wilkie and Kim). A holistic system to measure fulfilment and cooperation would be even more powerful than reversing this semantic change. It could transform the individual’s role from that of a narcissistic homo economicus to a cooperative member of humanity.

Cohesion and the State

Social cohesion provides a lens through which to objectively analyse the rise of countries culturally dissimilar to the West. It is a defining component of development, more important than historical similarities or differences. Locke justifies the state through tacit consent: the acceptance of state systems and benefits. High social cohesion measures citizens’ acceptance of and willingness to work with one another and the state, thus embodying tacit consent. As any country’s potential for development is contingent on its legitimacy and contemporary political situation, cohesion also constitutes the essence of sustainable growth. This sheds light on the significance of high trust levels present in China “across … the last couple of decades” (Ortiz-Ospina and Roser). The constituent elements of social cohesion, from prosocial behaviour to high voter turn-out, justify the Chinese government, enabling it to mobilize the population towards its common goals.

Although social cohesion is criticized as “ vague enough to follow political meanderings ” (Stanley), this applies to political misuse of the term, not its essence. Independently evaluating alleged social cohesion clarifies this distinction. In Greece, the “cost of protecting insiders falls largely on ‘outsiders’” (The Economist), as the bloated public sector excludes younger citizens from economic participation. While undertaken in the name of cohesion, this leads to social stratification – eroding organic trust and undermining cooperative potential. Greece is blatantly misusing the term. Nevertheless, elements of social cohesion are open to interpretation. For example, Plotke questions whether competitive elections are the only valuable method of political representation. He broadens “representation” to include interest and “type” representation and “ suggests that modern understandings of political representation are to some extent contingent on political realities ” (Dovi). Explaining the importance of cohesive inclusion in representing a diverse society, he recommends analysing of contemporary political systems. Their effect on representation can be extended to their ability to support social cohesion. For example, within Western democracies, first-past-thepost and plurality systems are markedly different. The latter cultivates a culture of compromise, while the former, used in the UK and USA, is more divisive. Countries relying on a winner-takes-all system must strengthen their true cohesiveness or remain susceptible to partisan division. Any government desirous to retain power must understand the significance of social cohesion.

Focusing on social cohesion makes any state accountable for its citizens’ welfare, no matter the form of government. The feedback loops of political participation incentivize the incumbents to do more for their citizens. This is clearly shown in the democratic process of voting, as “ average life satisfaction is significantly related to the vote share [of the incumbent party]” (Ward). If social cohesion were an accepted measure of success, it would incentivize authoritarian regimes like the government of Equatorial Guinea to polish their international image by developing their country and society, instead of chasing oligarchical economic gains, touting a deceptively high GDP per capita and “spending huge sums on public relations” (Birrell) to “prove” their development. The presence of moral norms, with the “expectations of a social contract backed up by public accountability” (Raworth 125) can have tangible effects on objective measures of welfare. A Ugandan hospital’s public noticeboard and results reporting led to “33% fewer children dying under the age of five” (125). Note that the phrase “social contract” is imperfect as it does not imply common ownership of solutions, unlike the inclusive concept of “society [as] a joint-stock company” (Emerson 3). Nevertheless, social cohesion can prevent a transactional, economic worldview, holding governments accountable for all their actions.

Cohesion and Development

Social cohesion within countries is paramount to measuring the potential for successful international aid. According to William Easterly, the IMF and World Bank’s efforts to fix long-term economic issues have been less successful than their crisis control. Attempting to forge societal development using economic tools, they block the “circuitous route to a free market” (Easterly). This route implies that social cohesion must grow organically to reach the minimum level of trusting co-operation required to implement economic plans. Working through corrupt governments, organizations cannot mobilize the population or increase vertical trust required for the country’s self-sufficiency. Willingness to cooperate must be present for economic tools to successfully encourage sustainable development.

Social cohesion can correspond to social homogeneity. Economically developed Botswana, unlike many African countries, has a dominate ethnic group, language and a relatively intact traditional hierarchy. Linguistic and social diversity pose a barrier to trusting interaction. They have a negative correlation with societal development as “Countries with high social capital…tend to be linguistically homogenous” (Prospero). Perceived cultural and linguistic norms allow for conversion of social capital into tangible benefits, as outlined by Bourdieu. However, Botswana is a case of naturally occurring homogeneity, comparable to monocultural countries like Japan and Iceland. Cultural homogeneity should be seen as a possible contributing factor to social cohesion, not a desirable end in itself.

Just as social cohesion’s value lies in serving general utility, homogeneity’s value lies solely in its ability to generate social cohesion. Utility is served by social inclusion; “ The process of improving the ability, opportunity, and dignity of those disadvantaged on the basis of their identity to take part in society ” (Bordia Das). Durkheim attempted to artificially recreate natural homogeneity. However, he mistakenly neglected to acknowledge that marginalizing minority groups strips social cohesion of its utilitarian value. Today, modern academics recognize that “[forced] social homogeneity may be detrimental to social cohesion” (Stanley). For instance, destabilizing legal initiatives to create social homogeneity leave minorities like the Rohingya “lack[ing] basic rights” (Blakemore). This diminishes incentives to cooperate, breeding a culture of fear inconducive to the trust that forms the essence of social cohesion. With the ensuing power imbalance, authoritarian states lack the fluidity to respond to threats to their social and group identity. Considering current migratory pressure and the importance of inclusion for utility, social homogeneity becomes an unworthy goal.

Our Common Humanity

Inter-group, pro-social behaviour is arguably a greater source of legitimate power than any monopoly on physical force. Bourdieu argues that owners of social capital could become much stronger if owners of economic capital did not pit them against each other. Though such solidarity is difficult to maintain, moments of collective human identity and purpose can inspire group action. Grassroot efforts, personified in protests like Occupy and Extinction Rebellion , are imperative in raising awareness of our shared humanity. Similarly, according to Roger Griffins, counter-movements in less cohesive states succeed because they rely on shared, inextinguishable moral ideas. These commonalities establish trust, increasing group efficacy. A tendency towards self-interest does not prevent unifying goals from nurturing the horizontal trust necessary for social cohesion.

Just as the technological change and inequality of the industrial revolution worried Durkheim, so should the current power of social media merit a greater focus on social cohesion. Social media algorithms confirm, not challenge, extremist views as various groups discuss complex issues “within politically homogeneous ‘echo chambers’” (University of Pennsylvania). This creates a dichotomy between collective human identity and divisive factions, accelerating polarization. However, " egalitarian social networks, in which no individual is more powerful than another ” utilize the “remarkably strong effects of bipartisan social learning on eliminating polarization" (University of Pennsylvania). By refocusing, governments and media companies can not only accelerate, but also mitigate polarization. Even technicalities such as “the shade of blue and the size of buttons” (The Economist) greatly impact people’s willingness to listen to each other and empathize with other groups. Social media can facilitate constructive interaction, as long as it aims to promote social cohesion.

Social cohesion is a fragile, long-term goal that requires a sense of our common future. Focusing on interaction and present similarities facilitates this understanding. Inter-group exchange enables cohesion to grow organically in a larger, inclusive moral community. It is infinitely preferable to denying the presence of minority groups or persecuting them in misguided attempts at creating homogeneity. Mill argued “The only people who need to concern themselves regularly about … society in general are those few whose actions have an influence that extends that far” (Mill 13). The interdependence of 21st century society means that every individual’s actions reverberate globally in some regard, solidifying the importance of a cohesive human identity and global awareness.

There is no single panacea for the challenges facing humanity. Solutions are not solely technological, political, economic or cultural, but complex webs of vertical and horizontal cooperative effort. Social cohesion is a crucial measure of our propensity to cooperate, focusing on stability and holistic development as opposed to short-term economic gain. Only by appreciating its essence can we harness our collective potential to achieve harmony within the limits of our shared planet.

Bibliography

Bauer, Monika A., et al. "Cuing consumerism: situational materialism undermines personal and social well being." Psychological Science 16 March 2012: 517-523.

Birrell, Ian. The Observer: Equatorial Guinea . 23 October 2011. 27 July 2019. < https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/oct/23/equatorial-guinea-africa-corruptionkleptocracy>.

Blakemore, Erin. Who are the Rohyinga People? 8 February 2019. 13 July 2019. < https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/people/reference/rohingya-people/>.

Bordia Das, Maitreyi. Social Inclusion . n.d. 7 July 2019. < https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/socialinclusion>.

Dovi, Suzanne. "Political Representation." The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy . Ed. Edward N. Zalta. Fall 2018. etaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, 2018. 13 July 2019. < https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2018/entries/political-representation/>.

Easterly, William. The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Effort's to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good . Penguin Random House, 2006.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Self Reliance." Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Essays: First Series . 1841.

Feigl, George, Sven Hergovich and Miriam Rehm. "Beyond GDP: can we re-focus the debate?" Social developments in the European Union 2012 . 2012. 63-89.

Fonesca, Javier, Stephan Lukosch and Frances Brazier. "Social cohesion revisited: a new definition and how to characterize it." Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research (2019): 231-253.

Larsen, Christian Albrekt. "Social cohesion: Definition, measurement and developments." Research Paper. n.d.

Mill, J.S. Utilitarianism . 1863.

OECD. "Social Cohesion Indicators." Society at a glance: Asia/Pacific 2011 . OECD Publishing, 2012.

Ortiz-Ospina, Esteban and Max Roser. Trust . 2019. 28 July 2019. < https://ourworldindata.org/trust>.

Prospero. Social capital in the 21st century . 18 June 2015. 13 July 2019. < https://www.economist.com/prospero/2015/06/18/social-capital-in-the-21st-century>.

Raworth, Kate. The Doughnut Economy . Chelsea Green, 2017.

Stanley, Dick. "What Do We Know about Social Cohesion: The Research Perspective of the Federal Government's Social Cohesion Research Network." The Canadian Journal of Sociology / Cahiers Canadiens De Sociologie 28.1 (2003): 5–17.

The Economist. The Cruelty of Compassion . 28 January 2010. 17 July 2019. < https://www.economist.com/leaders/2010/01/28/the-cruelty-of-compassion>.

—. Whatsapp Suggests a Cure for Virality . 26 July 2018. 26 July 2019. < https://www.economist.com/leaders/2018/07/26/whatsapp-suggests-a-cure-for-virality>.

University of Pennsylvania. Can social media networks reduce political polarization on climate change? 3 September 2018. 22 July 2019. < https://phys.org/news/2018-09-social-medianetworks-political-polarization.html>.

Ward, George. Chapter 3: Happiness and Voting Behaviour . 20 March 2019. 28 July 2019. < https://worldhappiness.report/ed/2019/happiness-and-voting-behavior/>.

World Bank. Inclusion Matters: The Foundation for Shared Prosperity . Washington DC: World Bank, 2013.

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6 John Locke’s (1632–1704) Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689)

The project of the essay, against innate knowledge, ideas and their origin, simple ideas, primary and secondary qualities, complex ideas, substance/substratum, natural kinds, personal identity, the limits of knowledge.

As Locke admits, his Essay is something of a mess, from an editorial point of view. What follows are what I take to be some of the most important passages from the book, grouped under topical headings in an attempt to make a coherent and systematic whole. Parts and headings are given in bold and are purely my invention. Section headings are given in italics, and are Locke’s. Otherwise, all material in italics is mine, not Locke’s. ‘…’ indicates an omission.

The Essay is organized into Books, Chapters, and Sections. The start of each section cites book.chapter.section. For example, ‘I.i.5’ means Book I, chapter i, section 5.

(Textual note: the standard edition of the Essay is that of P.H. Nidditch (Oxford, 1975); but Roger Woolhouse’s Penguin edition is superior in some respects.)

<!–The headings are as follows: A. The Project B. Against Innate Knowledge C. Ideas and their Origin D. Simple Ideas E. Primary and Secondary Qualities F. Complex Ideas G. Substance/substratum H. Natural Kinds I. Body J. Mind K. Personal Identity L. The Limits of Knowledge M. God–>

(From The Epistle to the Reader ) Were it fit to trouble thee with the history of this Essay, I should tell thee, that five or six friends meeting at my chamber, and discoursing on a subject very remote from this, found themselves quickly at a stand, by the difficulties that rose on every side. After we had awhile puzzled ourselves, without coming any nearer a resolution of those doubts which perplexed us, it came into my thoughts that we took a wrong course; and that before we set ourselves upon inquiries of that nature, it was necessary to examine our own abilities, and see what objects our understandings were, or were not, fitted to deal with. …

The commonwealth of learning is not at this time without master-builders, whose mighty designs, in advancing the sciences, will leave lasting monuments to the admiration of posterity: but every one must not hope to be a Boyle or a Sydenham; and in an age that produces such masters as the great Huygenius and the incomparable Mr. Newton, with some others of that strain, it is ambition enough to be employed as an under-labourer in clearing the ground a little, and removing some of the rubbish that lies in the way to knowledge …

(From I.i.1— An Inquiry into the Understanding pleasant and useful ) Since it is the understanding that sets man above the rest of sensible beings, and gives him all the advantage and dominion which he has over them; it is certainly a subject, even for its nobleness, worth our labour to inquire into. The understanding, like the eye, whilst it makes us see and perceive all other things, takes no notice of itself; and it requires and art and pains to set it at a distance and make it its own object. …

(From I.i.2— Design ) This, therefore, being my purpose–to inquire into the original, certainty, and extent of human knowledge , together with the grounds and degrees of belief , opinion , and assent …

(From I.i.3— Method ) It is therefore worth while to search out the bounds between opinion and knowledge; and examine by what measures, in things whereof we have no certain knowledge, we ought to regulate our assent and moderate our persuasion. In order whereunto I shall pursue this following method: First, I shall inquire into the original of those ideas, notions, or whatever else you please to call them, which a man observes, and is conscious to himself he has in his mind; and the ways whereby the understanding comes to be furnished with them. Secondly, I shall endeavour to show what knowledge the understanding hath by those ideas; and the certainty, evidence, and extent of it. Thirdly, I shall make some inquiry into the nature and grounds of faith or opinion : whereby I mean that assent which we give to any proposition as true, of whose truth yet we have no certain knowledge. And here we shall have occasion to examine the reasons and degrees of assent .

(From I.i.4— Useful to know the Extent of our Comprehension ) If we can find out how far the understanding can extend its view; how far it has faculties to attain certainty; and in what cases it can only judge and guess, we may learn to content ourselves with what is attainable by us in this state.

(From I.i.5— Our Capacity suited to our State and Concerns ) It will be no excuse to an idle and untoward servant, who would not attend his business by candle light, to plead that he had not broad sunshine. The Candle that is set up in us shines bright enough for all our purposes.

(From I.i.6— Knowledge of our Capacity a Cure of Scepticism and Idleness ) When we know our own strength, we shall the better know what to undertake with hopes of success; and when we have well surveyed the powers of our own minds, and made some estimate what we may expect from them, we shall not be inclined either to sit still, and not set our thoughts on work at all, in despair of knowing anything; nor on the other side, question everything, and disclaim all knowledge, because some things are not to be understood. It is of great use to the sailor to know the length of his line, though he cannot with it fathom all the depths of the ocean. It is well he knows that it is long enough to reach the bottom, at such places as are necessary to direct his voyage, and caution him against running upon shoals that may ruin him. Our business here is not to know all things, but those which concern our conduct. If we can find out those measures, whereby a rational creature, put in that state in which man is in this world, may and ought to govern his opinions, and actions depending thereon, we need not to be troubled that some other things escape our knowledge.

What is Locke’s main project in the Essay?
What’s the point of pursuing it? What advantages does he expect to obtain from it?
What is distinctive about Locke’s project? What would Locke think of the method of, say, Spinoza?

Given Locke’s project, it makes sense that he begins by attacking the doctrine of innate knowledge. This attack was partly responsible for the Essay ’s being banned at Oxford in 1704. Can you think why these thoughts might sound dangerous, and why Locke’s project begins where it does?

(From I.ii.5– Not on Mind naturally imprinted, because not known to Children, Idiots, &c. ) For, first, it is evident, that all children and idiots have not the least apprehension or thought of them. And the want of that is enough to destroy that universal assent which must needs be the necessary concomitant of all innate truths: it seeming to me near a contradiction to say, that there are truths imprinted on the soul, which it perceives or understands not: imprinting, if it signify anything, being nothing else but the making certain truths to be perceived. For to imprint anything on the mind without the mind’s perceiving it, seems to me hardly intelligible. If therefore children and idiots have souls, have minds, with those impressions upon them, they must unavoidably perceive them …

[I]f the capacity of knowing be the natural impression contended for, all the truths a man ever comes to know will, by this account, be every one of them innate; and this great point will amount to no more, but only to a very improper way of speaking; which, whilst it pretends to assert the contrary, says nothing different from those who deny innate principles. For nobody, I think, ever denied that the mind was capable of knowing several truths.

(From I.ii.15— The Steps by which the Mind attains several Truths ) The senses at first let in particular ideas, and furnish the yet empty cabinet, and the mind by degrees growing familiar with some of them, they are lodged in the memory, and names got to them. Afterwards, the mind proceeding further, abstracts them, and by degrees learns the use of general names. In this manner the mind comes to be furnished with ideas and language, the materials about which to exercise its discursive faculty. And the use of reason becomes daily more visible, as these materials that give it employment increase. But though the having of general ideas and the use of general words and reason usually grow together, yet I see not how this any way proves them innate.

(From I.iv.20— No innate Ideas in the Memory ) To which let me add: if there be any innate ideas, any ideas in the mind which the mind does not actually think on, they must be lodged in the memory; and from thence must be brought into view by remembrance; i.e., must be known, when they are remembered, to have been perceptions in the mind before; unless remembrance can be without remembrance. For, to remember is to perceive anything with memory, or with a consciousness that it was perceived or known before. Without this, whatever idea comes into the mind is new, and not remembered; this consciousness of its having been in the mind before, being that which distinguishes remembering from all other ways of thinking.

Whatever idea was never perceived by the mind was never in the mind. Whatever idea is in the mind, is, either an actual perception, or else, having been an actual perception, is so in the mind that, by the memory, it can be made an actual perception again. Whenever there is the actual perception of any idea without memory, the idea appears perfectly new and unknown before to the understanding. Whenever the memory brings any idea into actual view, it is with a consciousness that it had been there before, and was not wholly a stranger to the mind. Whether this be not so, I appeal to every one’s observation. And then I desire an instance of an idea, pretended to be innate, which (before any impression of it by ways hereafter to be mentioned) any one could revive and remember, as an idea he had formerly known; without which consciousness of a former perception there is no remembrance; and whatever idea comes into the mind without that consciousness is not remembered, or comes not out of the memory, nor can be said to be in the mind before that appearance. For what is not either actually in view or in the memory, is in the mind no way at all, and is all one as if it had never been there. …

[W]hatever idea, being not actually in view, is in the mind, is there only by being in the memory; and if it be not in the memory, it is not in the mind; and if it be in the memory, it cannot by the memory be brought into actual view without a perception that it comes out of the memory; which is this, that it had been known before, and is now remembered. If therefore there be any innate ideas, they must be in the memory, or else nowhere in the mind; and if they be in the memory, they can be revived without any impression from without; and whenever they are brought into the mind they are remembered, i. E. They bring with them a perception of their not being wholly new to it. …

By this it may be tried whether there be any innate ideas in the mind before impression from sensation or reflection. I would fain meet with the man who, when he came to the use of reason, or at any other time, remembered any of them; and to whom, after he was born, they were never new. If any one will say, there are ideas in the mind that are not in the memory, I desire him to explain himself, and make what he says intelligible.

Why is Locke concerned to deny the doctrine of innate principles? Can you connect this with Locke’s project?
Can you extract an argument from these texts that might apply to innate ideas (as opposed to principles)? There seem to be three possible ways to cash out what it means to say that an idea is innate. It might be innate as a capacity; it might always be present to the mind; or it might be lodged in the memory. What does Locke think is wrong with this last option (memory)? (See esp. Chapter 4, Section 20 above—hint: Locke seems to think there’s something contradictory about innateness.)

Premise 1: An innate idea is in the memory. Premise 2: Any idea in the memory, when recovered, brings with it…

It’s one thing to attack the doctrines of innate knowledge and innate ideas; it’s another to come up with a replacement for them. Locke must explain how all our ideas are generated solely out of the materials given to us in experience, and how experience alone can justify our knowledge claims.

(From I.1.8— What Idea stands for ) Thus much I thought necessary to say concerning the occasion of this inquiry into human understanding. But, before I proceed on to what I have thought on this subject, I must here in the entrance beg pardon of my reader for the frequent use of the word idea , which he will find in the following treatise. It being that term which, I think, serves best to stand for whatsoever is the object of the understanding when a man thinks, I have used it to express whatever is meant by phantasm, notion, species , or whatever it is which the mind can be employed about in thinking ; and I could not avoid frequently using it. I presume it will be easily granted me, that there are such ideas in men’s minds: every one is conscious of them in himself; and men’s words and actions will satisfy him that they are in others.

(From IV.xxi.4) [S]ince the things the mind contemplates are none of them, besides itself, present to the understanding, it is necessary that something else, as a sign or representation of the thing it considers, should be present to it: and these are ideas .

(From II.i.2— All Ideas come from Sensation or Reflection ) Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper, void of all characters, without any ideas: how comes it to be furnished? … To this I answer, in one word, from experience . In that all our knowledge is founded; and from that it ultimately derives itself. Our observation employed either, about external sensible objects, or about the internal operations of our minds perceived and reflected on by ourselves, is that which supplies our understandings with all the materials of thinking. These two are the fountains of knowledge, from whence all the ideas we have, or can naturally have, do spring.

(From II.i.3— The Objects of Sensation one Source of Ideas ) First, our senses, conversant about particular sensible objects, do convey into the mind several distinct perceptions of things, according to those various ways wherein those objects do affect them. And thus we come by those ideas we have of yellow, white, heat, cold, soft, hard, bitter, sweet, and all those which we call sensible qualities …

(From II.i.4— The Operations of our Minds, the other Source of them ) Secondly, the other fountain from which experience furnisheth the understanding with ideas is, the perception of the operations of our own mind within us, as it is employed about the ideas it has got. … And such are perception, thinking, doubting, believing, reasoning, knowing, willing, and all the different actings of our own minds …

(From II.i.5— All our Ideas are of the one or of the other of these ) … These, when we have taken a full survey of them, and their several modes, and the compositions made out of them we shall find to contain all our whole stock of ideas; and that we have nothing in our minds which did not come in one of these two ways. Let any one examine his own thoughts, and thoroughly search into his understanding; and then let him tell me, whether all the original ideas he has there, are any other than of the objects of his senses, or of the operations of his mind, considered as objects of his reflection.

Locke thinks that sensation and reflection are our only sources of ideas. We should now look at his response to Descartes’s argument for a third source of ideas, namely, the intellect (see the second paragraph of the Sixth Meditation .

(From II.xxix.13— Complex ideas may be distinct in one part, and confused in another ) Our complex ideas, being made up of collections, and so variety of simple ones, may accordingly be very clear and distinct in one part, and very obscure and confused in another. In a man who speaks of a chiliaedron, or a body of a thousand sides, the ideas of the figure may be very confused, though that of the number be very distinct; so that he being able to discourse and demonstrate concerning that part of his complex idea which depends upon the number of thousand, he is apt to think he has a distinct idea of a chiliaedron; though it be plain he has no precise idea of its figure, so as to distinguish it, by that, from one that has but 999 sides: the not observing whereof causes no small error in men’s thoughts, and confusion in their discourses.

How does Locke respond to Descartes’s argument for the distinction between the intellect and the imagination? Who is right?

(From II.i.1— Uncompounded Appearances ) The better to understand the nature, manner, and extent of our knowledge, one thing is carefully to be observed concerning the ideas we have; and that is, that some of them, are simple and some complex .

Though the qualities that affect our senses are, in the things themselves, so united and blended, that there is no separation, no distance between them; yet it is plain, the ideas they produce in the mind enter by the senses simple; and unmixed. For, though the sight and touch often take in from the same object, at the same time, different ideas;–as a man sees at once motion and colour; the hand feels softness and warmth in the same piece of wax: yet the simple ideas thus united in the same subject, are as perfectly distinct as those that come in by different senses.

(From II.iii.1— Division of simple ideas ) The better to conceive the ideas we receive from sensation, it may not be amiss for us to consider them, in reference to the different ways whereby they make their approaches to our minds, and make themselves perceivable by us. First , then, there are some which come into our minds by one sense only . Secondly , there are others that convey themselves into the mind by more senses than one . Thirdly , others that are had from reflection only . Fourthly , there are some that make themselves way, and are suggested to the mind by all the ways of sensation and reflection .

the idea of blue ___________
the idea of square ___________
the idea of hoping ___________
the idea of straight ___________

(From II.xxi.1— This Idea [of power] how got ) The mind being every day informed, by the senses, of the alteration of those simple ideas it observes in things without; and taking notice how one comes to an end, and ceases to be, and another begins to exist which was not before; reflecting also on what passes within itself, and observing a constant change of its ideas, sometimes by the impression of outward objects on the senses, and sometimes by the determination of its own choice; and concluding from what it has so constantly observed to have been, that the like changes will for the future be made in the same things, by like agents, and by the like ways, considers in one thing the possibility of having any of its simple ideas changed, and in another the possibility of making that change; and so comes by that idea which we call power . Thus we say, fire has a power to melt gold, i.e., to destroy the consistency of its insensible parts, and consequently its hardness, and make it fluid … In which, and the like cases, the power we consider is in reference to the change of perceivable ideas. For we cannot observe any alteration to be made in, or operation upon anything, but by the observable change of its sensible ideas; nor conceive any alteration to be made, but by conceiving a change of some of its ideas.

(From II.xxi.2— Power, active and passive ) Power thus considered is two-fold, viz. As able to make, or able to receive any change. The one may be called active , and the other passive power. Whether matter be not wholly destitute of active power, as its author, God, is truly above all passive power; and whether the intermediate state of created spirits be not that alone which is capable of both active and passive power, may be worth consideration. I shall not now enter into that inquiry, my present business being not to search into the original of power, but how we come by the idea of it. But since active powers make so great a part of our complex ideas of natural substances, (as we shall see hereafter,) and I mention them as such, according to common apprehension; yet they being not, perhaps, so truly active powers as our hasty thoughts are apt to represent them, I judge it not amiss, by this intimation, to direct our minds to the consideration of god and spirits, for the clearest idea of active power.

(From II.xxi.3— Power includes Relation ) I confess power includes in it some kind of relation (a relation to action or change,) as indeed which of our ideas of what kind soever, when attentively considered, does not. For, our ideas of extension, duration, and number, do they not all contain in them a secret relation of the parts? figure and motion have something relative in them much more visibly. … Our idea therefore of power, I think, may well have a place amongst other simple ideas , and be considered as one of them; being one of those that make a principal ingredient in our complex ideas of substances, as we shall hereafter have occasion to observe.

(From II.xxi.4— The clearest Idea of active Power had from Spirit ) [I]f we will consider it attentively, bodies, by our senses, do not afford us so clear and distinct an idea of active power, as we have from reflection on the operations of our minds. For all power relating to action, and there being but two sorts of action whereof we have an idea, viz. Thinking and motion, let us consider whence we have the clearest ideas of the powers which produce these actions.

Of thinking, body affords us no idea at all; it is only from reflection that we have that. Neither have we from body any idea of the beginning of motion. A body at rest affords us no idea of any active power to move; and when it is set in motion itself, that motion is rather a passion than an action in it. For, when the ball obeys the motion of a billiard-stick, it is not any action of the ball, but bare passion. Also when by impulse it sets another ball in motion that lay in its way, it only communicates the motion it had received from another, and loses in itself so much as the other received: which gives us but a very obscure idea of an active power of moving in body, whilst we observe it only to transfer , but not produce any motion.

Is the idea of power a simple idea or not? What turns on this?
How does the mind form an idea of power?
Why does sensation not give us an idea of active power?

II.viii is intended as a further discussion of simple ideas. Locke draws what should by now be a familiar distinction. Can you reconstruct Locke’s argument?

(From II.viii.7— Ideas in the Mind, Qualities in Bodies ) To discover the nature of our ideas the better, and to, discourse of them intelligibly, it will be convenient to distinguish them as they are ideas or perceptions in our minds ; and as they are modifications of matter in the bodies that cause such perceptions in us …

(From II.viii.8— Our Ideas and the Qualities of Bodies ) Whatsoever the mind perceives in itself , or is the immediate object of perception, thought, or understanding, that I call idea ; and the power to produce any idea in our mind, I call quality of the subject wherein that power is. Thus a snowball having the power to produce in us the ideas of white, cold, and round—the power to produce those ideas in us, as they are in the snowball, I call qualities; and as they are sensations or perceptions in our understandings, I call them ideas; which ideas , if I speak of sometimes as in the things themselves, I would be understood to mean those qualities in the objects which produce them in us.

(From II.viii.9— Primary Qualities of Bodies ) Concerning these qualities, we, I think, observe these primary ones in bodies that produce simple ideas in us, viz. solidity, extension, motion or rest , nubmer or figure . These, which I call original or primary qualities of body, are wholly inseparable from it; and such as in all the alterations and changes it suffers, all the force can be used upon it, it constantly keeps; and such as sense constantly finds in every particle of matter which has bulk enough to be perceived; and the mind finds inseparable from every particle of matter, though less than to make itself singly be perceived by our senses: e.g., take a grain of wheat, divide it into two parts; each part has still solidity, extension, figure, and mobility: divide it again, and it retains still the same qualities …

(From II.viii.11— How Bodies produce Ideas in us ) The next thing to be considered is, how bodies operate one upon another; and that is manifestly by impulse, and nothing else. It being impossible to conceive that body should operate on what it does not touch (which is all one as to imagine it can operate where it is not), or when it does touch, operate any other way than by motion.

(From II.viii.13— How secondary Qualities produce their ideas ) After the same manner that the ideas of these original qualities are produced in us, we may conceive that the ideas of secondary qualities are also produced, viz. By the operation of insensible particles on our senses. … [L]et us suppose at present that, the different motions and figures, bulk and number, of such particles, affecting the several organs of our senses, produce in us those different sensations which we have from the colours and smells of bodies … It being no more impossible to conceive that god should annex such ideas to such motions, with which they have no similitude, than that he should annex the idea of pain to the motion of a piece of steel dividing our flesh, with which that idea hath no resemblance.

(From II.viii.14— They depend on the primary Qualities ) What I have said concerning colours and smells may be understood also of tastes and sounds, and other the like sensible qualities; which, whatever reality we by mistake attribute to them, are in truth nothing in the objects themselves, but powers to produce various sensations in us; and depend on those primary qualities, viz. Bulk, figure, texture, and motion of parts and therefore I call them secondary qualities .

(From II.viii.15— Ideas of primary Qualities are Resemblances; of secondary, not ) From whence I think it easy to draw this observation, that the ideas of primary qualities of bodies are resemblances of them, and their patterns do really exist in the bodies themselves, but the ideas produced in us by these secondary qualities have no resemblance of them at all. There is nothing like our ideas, existing in the bodies themselves. They are, in the bodies we denominate from them, only a power to produce those sensations in us …

(From II.viii.17— The ideas of the Primary alone really exist ) The particular bulk, number, figure, and motion of the parts of fire or snow are really in them, whether any one’s senses perceive them or no: and therefore they may be called real qualities, because they really exist in those bodies. But light, heat, whiteness, or coldness, are no more really in them than sickness or pain is in manna. Take away the sensation of them; let not the eyes see light or colours, nor the can hear sounds; let the palate not taste, nor the nose smell, and all colours, tastes, odours, and sounds, as they are such particular ideas , vanish and cease, and are reduced to their causes, i.e., bulk, figure, and motion of parts.

(From II.viii.19— Examples ) Let us consider the red and white colours in porphyry. Hinder light from striking on it, and its colours vanish; it no longer produces any such ideas in us: upon the return of light it produces these appearances on us again. Can any one think any real alterations are made in the porphyry by the presence or absence of light; and that those ideas of whiteness and redness are really in porphyry in the light, when it is plain it has no colour in the dark ? It has, indeed, such a configuration of particles, both night and day, as are apt, by the rays of light rebounding from some parts of that hard stone, to produce in us the idea of redness, and from others the idea of whiteness; but whiteness or redness are not in it at any time, but such a texture that hath the power to produce such a sensation in us.

(From II.viii.20) Pound an almond, and the clear white colour will be altered into a dirty one, and the sweet taste into an oily one. What real alteration can the beating of the pestle make in an body, but an alteration of the texture of it?

(From II.viii.21— Explains how water felt as cold by one hand may be warm to the other ) Ideas being thus distinguished and understood, we may be able to give an account how the same water, at the same time, may produce the idea of cold by one hand and of heat by the other: whereas it is impossible that the same water, if those ideas were really in it, should at the same time be both hot and cold. For, if we imagine warmth , as it is in our hands, to be nothing but a certain sort and degree of motion in the minute particles of our nerves or animal spirits, we may understand how it is possible that the same water may, at the same time, produce the sensations of heat in one hand and cold in the other; which yet figure never does, that never producing the idea of a square by one hand which has produced the idea of a globe by another.

Locke argues for three theses in this chapter:

Ideas of secondary qualities do not resemble anything in the objects that ‘have’ them
Secondary qualities depend on primary
Secondary qualities are nothing but powers in objects to produce certain ideas in us

If there were no observers or perceivers, what would the world be like, according to Locke? That is, what qualities does a physical object have in itself?

How does Locke argue for his three theses? Let’s start with (i): ideas of secondary qualities resemble nothing in the objects.

Recall Aquinas’s picture of (bodily) causation: one object (e.g., fire) produces in another the same kind of quality it has in itself (e.g., heat). Why does Locke think that there isn’t really any heat in the first object? Let’s take a case where fire produces a sensation of heat in a person. If our sensation of heat resembled any quality in the object, that quality would have to be the cause of the heat that it produces.

Why does Locke reject this? (see especially II.viii.11 above).
Locke argues for a further thesis:

Why think that the color of an object (i.e., the color ideas it produces in us) depends on its primary qualities? (Hint: use II.viii.20)

Finally, what about thesis (iii): secondary qualities are nothing but powers in objects to produce certain ideas in us? Well, this is just to combine (i) and (ii). If they’re not resemblances, and they depend on the primary qualities, then to say that a body has a particular color is just to say that its parts are so arranged as to produce a given idea in us. (Note that primary qualities are powers and genuine qualities in objects; secondary are merely powers.)

Think of as many different ways to change the color of this room as you can.

So far, we’ve dealt only with simple ideas. But our experience doesn’t seem to come to us packaged in simple, discrete elements. So Locke needs to deal with how we generate experiences (and thoughts) of ordinary objects—what he calls ‘substances’– out of simple ideas.

(From II.xii.1— Made by the Mind out of simple Ones ) We have hitherto considered those ideas, in the reception whereof the mind is only passive, which are those simple ones received from sensation and reflection before mentioned, whereof the mind cannot make one to itself, nor have any idea which does not wholly consist of them. … Ideas thus made up of several simple ones put together, I call complex .

(From II.xii.2— Made voluntarily ) In this faculty of repeating and joining together its ideas, the mind has great power in varying and multiplying the objects of its thoughts, infinitely beyond what sensation or reflection furnished it with: but all this still confined to those simple ideas which it received from those two sources, and which are the ultimate materials of all its compositions.

(From II.xii.3— Complex ideas are either of Modes, Substances, or Relations )

(From II.xxiii.1— Ideas of substances, how made ) The mind being, as I have declared, furnished with a great number of the simple ideas, conveyed in by the senses as they are found in exterior things, or by reflection on its own operations, takes notice also that a certain number of these simple ideas go constantly together; which being presumed to belong to one thing, and words being suited to common apprehensions, and made use of for quick dispatch are called, so united in one subject, by one name; which, by inadvertency, we are apt afterward to talk of and consider as one simple idea, which indeed is a complication of many ideas together: because, as I have said, not imagining how these simple ideas can subsist by themselves, we accustom ourselves to suppose some substratum wherein they do subsist, and from which they do result, which therefore we call substance .

List the ideas necessary to construct an idea of a substance like Helga (a dog).

Our simple ideas represent qualities; to think of a substance like a dog, however, we need to think of these qualities as inhering in or being unified by some underlying substratum (which he sometimes also calls ‘pure substance in general’). What is Locke’s attitude toward this substratum, and our knowledge of it?

(From II.xiii.19— Substance and accidents of little use in Philosophy ) They who first ran into the notion of accidents , as a sort of real beings that needed something to inhere in, were forced to find out the word substance to support them. Had the poor Indian philosopher (who imagined that the earth also wanted something to bear it up) but thought of this word substance, he needed not to have been at the trouble to find an elephant to support it, and a tortoise to support his elephant: the word substance would have done it effectually. And he that inquired might have taken it for as good an answer from an Indian philosopher—that substance, without knowing what it is, is that which supports the earth, as take it for a sufficient answer and good doctrine from our european philosophers—that substance, without knowing what it is, is that which supports accidents. So that of substance, we have no idea of what it is, but only a confused obscure one of what it does.

(From II.xiii.20— Sticking on and under-propping ) Whatever a learned man may do here, an intelligent american, who inquired into the nature of things, would scarce take it for a satisfactory account, if, desiring to learn our architecture, he should be told that a pillar is a thing supported by a basis, and a basis something that supported a pillar. Would he not think himself mocked, instead of taught, with such an account as this? … Were the latin words, inhaerentia and substantio , put into the plain english ones that answer them, and were called sticking on and under-propping , they would better discover to us the very great clearness there is in the doctrine of substance and accidents, and show of what use they are in deciding of questions in philosophy.

(From II.xxiii.23— Our obscure Idea of Substance in general ) So that if any one will examine himself concerning his notion of pure substance in general, he will find he has no other idea of it at all, but only a supposition of he knows not what support of such qualities which are capable of producing simple ideas in us; which qualities are commonly called accidents. If any one should be asked, what is the subject wherein colour or weight inheres, he would have nothing to say, but the solid extended parts; and if he were demanded, what is it that solidity and extension adhere in, he would not be in a much better case than the Indian before mentioned who, saying that the world was supported by a great elephant, was asked what the elephant rested on; to which his answer was—a great tortoise: but being again pressed to know what gave support to the broad-backed tortoise, replied— something, he knew not what .

It’s vital to see that by ‘substance’ Locke means here ‘substratum’: that in which properties inhere. This notion is akin to Aristotle’s notion of prime matter. Why might one say that Locke has a love/hate relationship with substratum?

Now that we know how we think about individual substances (e.g., an elephant), we need to know how we can think about kinds or sorts of things. I’m not limited to thinking (or talking) about individual substances; I can make claims that apply to groups or sorts of substances. Locke’s abstraction is the mechanism by which we move from purely determinate ideas to general ones.

Keep in mind that Locke has two kinds of fish to fry in this context: the Cartesians, who think that the essence of body is just extension, and the Aristotelians, who think that the world presents itself to us as if it were ‘carved at the joints’ into innumerable distinct natural kinds. In this context, Locke’s role as an ‘under-labourer’ to science is most in evidence.

(From III.ii.6— How general Words are made ) … Words become general by being made the signs of general ideas: and ideas become general, by separating from them the circumstances of time and place, and any other ideas that may determine them to this or that particular existence. By this way of abstraction they are made capable of representing more individuals than one; each of which having in it a conformity to that abstract idea, is (as we call it) of that sort.

(From III.ii.7— Shown by the way we enlarge our complex ideas from infancy ) … [T]here is nothing more evident, than that the ideas of the persons children converse with (to instance in them alone) are, like the persons themselves, only particular. The ideas of the nurse and the mother are well framed in their minds; and, like pictures of them there, represent only those individuals. The names they first gave to them are confined to these individuals; and the names of nurse and mamma , the child uses, determine themselves to those persons. Afterwards, when time and a larger acquaintance have made them observe that there are a great many other things in the world, that in some common agreements of shape, and several other qualities, resemble their father and mother, and those persons they have been used to, they frame an idea, which they find those many particulars do partake in; and to that they give, with others, the name man , for example. And thus they come to have a general name, and a general idea. Wherein they make nothing new; but only leave out of the complex idea they had of Peter and James, Mary and Jane, that which is peculiar to each, and retain only what is common to them all.

(From III.iii.11— General and Universal are Creatures of the Understanding, and belong not to the Real Existence of things ) [I]t is plain, by what has been said, that general and universal belong not to the real existence of things; but are the inventions and creatures of the understanding, made by it for its own use, and concern only signs, whether words or ideas. … [I]deas are general when they are set up as the representatives of many particular things: but universality belongs not to things themselves, which are all of them particular in their existence, even those words and ideas which in their signification are general. When therefore we quit particulars, the generals that rest are only creatures of our own making; their general nature being nothing but the capacity they are put into, by the understanding, of signifying or representing many particulars. For the signification they have is nothing but a relation that, by the mind of man, is added to them.

(From III.iii.13— They are the Workmanship of the Understanding, but have their Foundation in the Similitude of Things ) I would not here be thought to forget, much less to deny, that Nature, in the production of things, makes several of them alike: there is nothing more obvious, especially in the races of animals, and all things propagated by seed. But yet I think we may say, the sorting of them under names is the workmanship of the understanding, taking occasion, from the similitude it observes amongst them, to make abstract general ideas , and set them up in the mind, with names annexed to them, as patterns or forms, (for, in that sense, the word form has a very proper signification,) to which as particular things existing are found to agree, so they come to be of that species, have that denomination, or are put into that class .

(From III.iii.15— Several significations of the word Essence ) But since the essences of things are thought by some (and not without reason) to be wholly unknown, it may not be amiss to consider the several significations of the word essence .

Real essences . First, essence may be taken for the very being of anything, whereby it is what it is. And thus the real internal, but generally (in substances) unknown constitution of things, whereon their discoverable qualities depend, may be called their essence. This is the proper original signification of the word, as is evident from the formation of it; essential in its primary notation, signifying properly, being. And in this sense it is still used, when we speak of the essence of particular things, without giving them any name. Nominal essences . Secondly, the learning and disputes of the schools having been much busied about genus and species, the word essence has almost lost its primary signification: and, instead of the real constitution of things, has been almost wholly applied to the artificial constitution of genus and species. It is true, there is ordinarily supposed a real constitution of the sorts of things; and it is past doubt there must be some real constitution, on which any collection of simple ideas co-existing must depend. But, it being evident that things are ranked under names into sorts or species, only as they agree to certain abstract ideas, to which we have annexed those names, the essence of each genus , or sort, comes to be nothing but that abstract idea which the general, or sortal (if I may have leave so to call it from sort, as I do general from genus,) name stands for. And this we shall find to be that which the word essence imports in its most familiar use. These two sorts of essences, I suppose, may not unfitly be termed, the one the real , the other nominal essence .

(From III.iii.17— Supposition, that Species are distinguished by their real Essences useless ) [The opinion that considers] real essences as a certain number of forms or moulds, wherein all natural things that exist are cast, and do equally partake, has, I imagine, very much perplexed the knowledge of natural things. The frequent productions of monsters, in all the species of animals, and of changelings, and other strange issues of human birth, carry with them difficulties, not possible to consist with this hypothesis; since it is as impossible that two things partaking exactly of the same real essence should have different properties, as that two figures partaking of the same real essence of a circle should have different properties. But were there no other reason against it, yet the supposition of essences that cannot be known; and the making of them, nevertheless, to be that which distinguishes the species of things, is so wholly useless and unserviceable to any part of our knowledge, that that alone were sufficient to make us lay it by …

(From III.vi.6— Even the real essences of individual substances imply potential sorts ) It is true, I have often mentioned a real essence , distinct in substances from those abstract ideas of them, which I call their nominal essence. By this real essence I mean, that real constitution of anything, which is the foundation of all those properties that are combined in, and are constantly found to co-exist with the nominal essence; that particular constitution which everything has within itself, without any relation to anything without it. But essence, even in this sense, relates to a sort, and supposes a species . For, being that real constitution on which the properties depend, it necessarily supposes a sort of things, properties belonging only to species, and not to individuals: e.g., supposing the nominal essence of gold to be a body of such a peculiar colour and weight, with malleability and fusibility, the real essence is that constitution of the parts of matter on which these qualities and their union depend; and is also the foundation of its solubility in aqua regia and other properties, accompanying that complex idea. Hre are essences and properties, but all upon supposition of a sort or general abstract idea, which is considered as immutable; but there is no individual parcel of matter to which any of these qualities are so annexed as to be essential to it or inseparable from it.

(From III.vi.50) For, let us consider, when we affirm that ‘all gold is fixed,’ either it means that fixedness is a part of the definition, i.e., part of the nominal essence the word ‘gold’ stands for; and so this affirmation, ‘all gold is fixed,’ contains nothing but the signification of the term ‘gold’.

Or else it means, that fixedness, not being a part of the definition of ‘gold’, is a property of that substance itself: in which case it is plain that the word ‘gold’ stands in the place of a substance, having the real essence of a species of things made by nature. In which way of substitution it has so confused and uncertain a signification, that, though this proposition—‘gold is fixed’—be in that sense an affirmation of something real; yet it is a truth will always fail us in its particular application, and so is of no real use or certainty. For let it be ever so true, that all gold, i.e., all that has the real essence of gold, is fixed, what serves this for, whilst we know not, in this sense, what is or is not gold? For if we know not the real essence of gold, it is impossible we should know what parcel of matter has that essence, and so whether it be true gold or no.

In this passage, Locke argues that all general claims about kinds (e.g., ‘gold is fixed’) are either trivial or uncertain. Using the gold example, explain each of these alternatives. In what way can it be taken as trivial? As uncertain?

Now that we have some story about how our ideas of substances are constructed, we need to look at the two main kinds of substance we seem to find in the world: mind and body. Notice Locke’s argument against Descartes’s conflation of body and extension. Locke also replies here to Leibniz’s argument against Newtonian space, namely, that it must be either a substance or an accident, and neither makes much sense.

(From II.xiii.17— Cohesion of solid parts and Impulse, the primary ideas peculiar to Body ) The primary ideas we have peculiar to body , as contradistinguished to spirit, are the cohesion of solid, and consequently separable, parts , and a power of communicating motion by impulse . These, I think, are the original ideas proper and peculiar to body; for figure is but the consequence of finite extension.

(From II.xiii.11— Extension and Body not the same ) There are some that would persuade us, that body and extension are the same thing … If, therefore, they mean by body and extension the same that other people do, viz. By body something that is solid and extended, whose parts are separable and movable different ways; and by extension , only the space that lies between the extremities of those solid coherent parts, and which is possessed by them, [then] they confound very different ideas one with another; for I appeal to every man’s own thoughts, whether the idea of space be not as distinct from that of solidity, as it is from the idea of scarlet colour? It is true, solidity cannot exist without extension, neither can scarlet colour exist without extension, but this hinders not, but that they are distinct ideas.

And if it be a reason to prove that spirit is different from body, because thinking includes not the idea of extension in it; the same reason will be as valid, I suppose, to prove that space is not body, because it includes not the idea of solidity in it; space and solidity being as distinct ideas as thinking and extension , and as wholly separable in the mind one from another … Extension includes no solidity, nor resistance to the motion of body, as body does.

(From II.xiii.3— Space and Extension ) This space, considered barely in length between any two beings, without considering anything else between them, is called distance : if considered in length, breadth, and thickness, I think it may be called capacity . When considered between the extremities of matter, which fills the capacity of space with something solid, tangible, and moveable, it is properly called extension . And so extension is an idea belonging to body only; but space may, as is evident, be considered without it.

(From II.xiii.17— Substance, which we know not, no proof against space without body ) If it be demanded (as usually it is) whether this space, void of body, be substance or accident , I shall readily answer I know not; nor shall be ashamed to own my ignorance, till they that ask show me a clear distinct idea of substance.

Locke here sets out the constituent ideas that make up the complex idea of the mind. He also launches an attack against Descartes’s claim that thought is the essence of the soul. Most famously, he denies that we can be sure that what thinks in us in an immaterial substance.

(From II.xxiii.18. Thinking and motivity ) The ideas we have belonging and peculiar to spirit , are thinking , and will , or a power of putting body into motion by thought, and, which is consequent to it, liberty . For, as body cannot but communicate its motion by impulse to another body, which it meets with at rest, so the mind can put bodies into motion, or forbear to do so, as it pleases. The ideas of existence , duration , and mobility , are common to them both.

(From II.i.10— The Soul thinks not always; for this wants Proofs ) … I confess myself to have one of those dull souls, that doth not perceive itself always to contemplate ideas; nor can conceive it any more necessary for the soul always to think, than for the body always to move: the perception of ideas being (as I conceive) to the soul, what motion is to the body; not its essence, but one of its operations. And therefore, though thinking be supposed never so much the proper action of the soul, yet it is not necessary to suppose that it should be always thinking, always in action. … To say that actual thinking is essential to the soul, and inseparable from it, is to beg what is in question, and not to prove it by reason; which is necessary to be done, if it be not a self-evident proposition But whether this, “That the soul always thinks,” be a self-evident proposition, that everybody assents to at first hearing, I appeal to mankind. It is doubted whether I thought at all last night or no. The question being about a matter of fact, it is begging it to bring, as a proof for it, an hypothesis, which is the very thing in dispute: by which way one may prove anything …

But men in love with their opinions may not only suppose what is in question, but allege wrong matter of fact. How else could any one make it an inference of mine, that a thing is not, because we are not sensible of it in our sleep? I do not say there is no soul in a man, because he is not sensible of it in his sleep; but I do say, he cannot think at any time, waking or sleeping, without being sensible of it. Our being sensible of it is not necessary to anything but to our thoughts; and to them it is; and to them it always will be necessary, till we can think without being conscious of it.

Locke begins with an argument from experience. How does it work? We can think of it as a reductio ad absurdum :

Premise 1: The soul’s essence is to think (Descartes’s view) Premise 2: Given 1, it follows that the soul _______ (since this is part of what it is to be an essential property) Premise 3: But experience shows _______. Conclusion: _______.

Now, Locke realizes that the Cartesian will not leave things at that; he will insist that minds think even during sleep, though they do not remember it. Locke thinks this move has a heavy price:

(From II.i.11— It is not always conscious of [thinking] ) I grant that the soul, in a waking man, is never without thought, because it is the condition of being awake. But whether sleeping without dreaming be not an affection of the whole man, mind as well as body, may be worth a waking man’s consideration; it being hard to conceive that anything should think and not be conscious of it. If the soul doth think in a sleeping man without being conscious of it, I ask whether, during such thinking, it has any pleasure or pain, or be capable of happiness or misery? I am sure the man is not; no more than the bed or earth he lies on. For to be happy or miserable without being conscious of it, seems to me utterly inconsistent and impossible. Or if it be possible that the soul can, whilst the body is sleeping, have its thinking, enjoyments, and concerns, its pleasures or pain, apart, which the man is not conscious of nor partakes in—it is certain that Socrates asleep and Socrates awake is not the same person; but his soul when he sleeps, and Socrates the man, consisting of body and soul, when he is waking, are two persons: since waking Socrates has no knowledge of, or concernment for that happiness or misery of his soul, which it enjoys alone by itself whilst he sleeps, without perceiving anything of it; no more than he has for the happiness or misery of a man in the indies, whom he knows not. For, if we take wholly away all consciousness of our actions and sensations, especially of pleasure and pain, and the concernment that accompanies it, it will be hard to know wherein to place personal identity.

What price does Locke think Descartes must pay, in order to hang on to his claim that the soul always thinks?

(From II.xxiii.5— As clear an idea of spiritual substance as of corporeal substance ) The same thing happens concerning the operations of the mind, viz. thinking, reasoning, fearing, &c., which we concluding not to subsist of themselves, nor apprehending how they can belong to body, or be produced by it, we are apt to think these the actions of some other substance , which we call spirit ; whereby yet it is evident that, having no other idea or notion of matter, but something wherein those many sensible qualities which affect our senses do subsist; by supposing a substance wherein thinking, knowing, doubting, and a power of moving, &c., do subsist, we have as clear a notion of the substance of spirit, as we have of body; the one being supposed to be (without knowing what it is) the substratum to those simple ideas we have from without; and the other supposed (with a like ignorance of what it is) to be the substratum to those operations we experiment in ourselves within. It is plain then, that the idea of corporeal substance in matter is as remote from our conceptions and apprehensions, as that of spiritual substance , or spirit: and therefore, from our not having, any notion of the substance of spirit, we can no more conclude its non-existence, than we can, for the same reason, deny the existence of body …

(From II.xxiii.16— No Idea of abstract Substance either in Body or Spirit ) By the complex idea of extended, figured, coloured, and all other sensible qualities, which is all that we know of it, we are as far from the idea of the substance of body, as if we knew nothing at all: nor after all the acquaintance and familiarity which we imagine we have with matter, and the many qualities men assure themselves they perceive and know in bodies, will it perhaps upon examination be found, that they have any more or clearer primary ideas belonging to body, than they have belonging to immaterial spirit.

(From II.xxiii.23— Cohesion of solid Parts in Body as hard to be conceived as thinking in a Soul ) [I]f [a man] says he knows not how he thinks, I answer, Neither knows he how he is extended, how the solid parts of body are united or cohere together to make extension. For though the pressure of the particles of air may account for the cohesion of several parts of matter that are grosser than the particles of air, and have pores less than the corpuscles of air, yet the weight or pressure of the air will not explain, nor can be a cause of the coherence of the particles of air themselves. And if the pressure of the aether, or any subtiler matter than the air, may unite, and hold fast together, the parts of a particle of air, as well as other bodies, yet it cannot make bonds for itself , and hold together the parts that make up every the least corpuscle of that materia subtilis .

(From II.xxiii.28— Communication of Motion by Impulse, or by Thought, equally unintelligible ) Another idea we have of body is, the power of communication of motion by impulse ; and of our souls, the power of exciting motion by thought . These ideas, the one of body, the other of our minds, every day’s experience clearly furnishes us with: but if here again we inquire how this is done, we are equally in the dark. For, in the communication of motion by impulse, wherein as much motion is lost to one body as is got to the other, which is the ordinariest case, we can have no other conception, but of the passing of motion out of one body into another; which, I think, is as obscure and inconceivable as how our minds move or stop our bodies by thought, which we every moment find they do. We have by daily experience clear evidence of motion produced both by impulse and by thought; but the manner how, hardly comes within our comprehension: we are equally at a loss in both. So that, however we consider motion, and its communication, either from body or spirit, the idea which belongs to spirit is at least as clear as that which belongs to body. And if we consider the active power of moving, or, as I may call it, motivity, it is much clearer in spirit than body; since two bodies, placed by one another at rest, will never afford us the idea of a power in the one to move the other, but by a borrowed motion. …

Locke is here raising the problem of transference: how can one body give its motion to another? See Aquinas , Summa Contra Gentiles Chapter Sixty-nine, Section Seven , and Descartes’s Principles (Part II, sections xxiv-v). How would each react to what Locke says here?

(From IV.iii.6— Our Knowledge, therefore narrower than our Ideas ) From all which it is evident, that the extent of our knowledge comes not only short of the reality of things, but even of the extent of our own ideas. Though our knowledge be limited to our ideas, and cannot exceed them either in extent or perfection; … Yet it would be well with us if our knowledge were but as large as our ideas, and there were not many doubts and inquiries concerning the ideas we have , whereof we are not, nor I believe ever shall be in this world resolved. Nevertheless, I do not question but that human knowledge, under the present circumstances of our beings and constitutions, may be carried much further than it has hitherto been, if men would sincerely, and with freedom of mind, employ all that industry and labour of thought, in improving the means of discovering truth, which they do for the colouring or support of falsehood, to maintain a system, interest, or party they are once engaged in.

… We have the ideas of a square , a circle , and equality ; and yet, perhaps, shall never be able to find a circle equal to a square, and certainly know that it is so. We have the ideas of matter and thinking , but possibly shall never be able to know whether [any mere material being] thinks or no; it being impossible for us, by the contemplation of our own ideas, without revelation, to discover whether Omnipotency has not given to some systems of matter, fitly disposed, a power to perceive and think, or else joined and fixed to matter, so disposed, a thinking immaterial substance: it being, in respect of our notions, not much more remote from our comprehension to conceive that God can, if he pleases, superadd to matter a faculty of thinking , than that he should superadd to it another substance with a faculty of thinking ; since we know not wherein thinking consists, nor to what sort of substances the Almighty has been pleased to give that power, which cannot be in any created being, but merely by the good pleasure and bounty of the Creator. For I see no contradiction in it, that the first Eternal thinking Being, or Omnipotent Spirit, should, if he pleased, give to certain systems of created senseless matter, put together as he thinks fit, some degrees of sense, perception, and thought: though, as I think I have proved, lib. iv. Ch. 10, Section 14, &c., it is no less than a contradiction to suppose matter (which is evidently in its own nature void of sense and thought) should be that Eternal first-thinking Being. What certainty of knowledge can any one have, that some perceptions, such as, e.g., pleasure and pain, should not be in some bodies themselves, after a certain manner modified and moved, as well as that they should be in an immaterial substance, upon the motion of the parts of body: Body, as far as we can conceive, being able only to strike and affect body, and motion, according to the utmost reach of our ideas, being able to produce nothing but motion; so that when we allow it to produce pleasure or pain, or the idea of a colour or sound, we are fain to quit our reason, go beyond our ideas, and attribute it wholly to the good pleasure of our Maker. For, since we must allow He has annexed effects to motion which we can no way conceive motion able to produce, what reason have we to conclude that He could not order them as well to be produced in a subject we cannot conceive capable of them, as well as in a subject we cannot conceive the motion of matter can any way operate upon? I say not this, that I would any way lessen the belief of the soul’s immateriality: I am not here speaking of probability, but knowledge, and I think not only that it becomes the modesty of philosophy not to pronounce magisterially, where we want that evidence that can produce knowledge; but also, that it is of use to us to discern how far our knowledge does reach; for the state we are at present in, not being that of vision, we must in many things content ourselves with faith and probability: and in the present question, about the Immateriality of the Soul, if our faculties cannot arrive at demonstrative certainty, we need not think it strange. All the great ends of morality and religion are well enough secured, without philosophical proofs of the soul’s immateriality … since it is evident, that he who made us at the beginning to subsist here, sensible intelligent beings, and for several years continued us in such a state, can and will restore us to the like state of sensibility in another world, and make us capable there to receive the retribution he has designed to men, according to their doings in this life.

And therefore it is not of such mighty necessity to determine one way or the other, as some, over-zealous for or against the immateriality of the soul, have been forward to make the world believe. Who, either on the one side, indulging too much their thoughts immersed altogether in matter, can allow no existence to what is not material: or who, on the other side, finding not cogitation within the natural powers of matter, examined over and over again by the utmost intention of mind, have the confidence to conclude—that Omnipotency itself cannot give perception and thought to a substance which has the modification of solidity. He that considers how hardly sensation is, in our thoughts, reconcilable to extended matter; or existence to anything that has no extension at all, will confess that he is very far from certainly knowing what his soul is. It is a point which seems to me to be put out of the reach of our knowledge: and he who will give himself leave to consider freely, and look into the dark and intricate part of each hypothesis, will scarce find his reason able to determine him fixedly for or against the soul’s materiality. Since, on which side soever he views it, either as an unextended substance , or as a thinking extended matter , the difficulty to conceive either will, whilst either alone is in his thoughts, still drive him to the contrary side. …

It is past controversy, that we have in us something that thinks; our very doubts about what it is, confirm the certainty of its being, though we must content ourselves in the ignorance of what kind of being it is: and it is in vain to go about to be sceptical in this, as it is unreasonable in most other cases to be positive against the being of anything, because we cannot comprehend its nature. For I would fain know what substance exists, that has not something in it which manifestly baffles our understandings …

Can Locke make good on his claim that ‘all the great ends of religion and morality’ can be served, even without a proof of the soul’s immortality? Both religion and morality require, Locke thinks, the certainty of post-mortem rewards and harms. But how can we make sense of the self surviving the death of the body, if we cannot show that the self is immaterial?

(From II.xxvii.8— Idea of identity suited to the idea it is applied to ) It is not therefore unity of substance that comprehends all sorts of identity, or will determine it in every case; but to conceive and judge of it aright, we must consider what idea the word it is applied to stands for: it being one thing to be the same substance , another the same man , and a third the same person , if person , man , and substance , are three names standing for three different ideas;—for such as is the idea belonging to that name, such must be the identity; which, if it had been a little more carefully attended to, would possibly have prevented a great deal of that confusion which often occurs about this matter, with no small seeming difficulties, especially concerning personal identity, which therefore we shall in the next place a little consider.

(From II.xxvii.4) [L]et us suppose an atom, i.e., a continued body under one immutable superficies, existing in a determined time and place; it is evident, that, considered in any instant of its existence, it is in that instant the same with itself. For, being at that instant what it is, and nothing else, it is the same, and so must continue as long as its existence is continued; for so long it will be the same, and no other. In like manner, if two or more atoms be joined together into the same mass, every one of those atoms will be the same, by the foregoing rule: and whilst they exist united together, the mass, consisting of the same atoms, must be the same mass, or the same body, let the parts be ever so differently jumbled. But if one of these atoms be taken away, or one new one added, it is no longer the same mass or the same body. In the state of living creatures, their identity depends not on a mass of the same particles, but on something else. For in them the variation of great parcels of matter alters not the identity: an oak growing from a plant to a great tree, and then lopped, is still the same oak; and a colt grown up to a horse, sometimes fat, sometimes lean, is all the while the same horse: though, in both these cases, there may be a manifest change of the parts; so that truly they are not either of them the same masses of matter, though they be truly one of them the same oak, and the other the same horse. The reason whereof is, that, in these two cases—a mass of matter and a living body —identity is not applied to the same thing.

(From II.xxvii.5– Identity of Vegetables ) We must therefore consider wherein an oak differs from a mass of matter, and that seems to me to be in this, that the one is only the cohesion of particles of matter any how united, the other such a disposition of them as constitutes the parts of an oak; and such an organization of those parts as is fit to receive and distribute nourishment, so as to continue and frame the wood, bark, and leaves, &c., of an oak, in which consists the vegetable life. That being then one plant which has such an organization of parts in one coherent body, partaking of one common life, it continues to be the same plant as long as it partakes of the same life, though that life be communicated to new particles of matter vitally united to the living plant, in a like continued organization conformable to that sort of plants. For this organization, being at any one instant in any one collection of matter, is in that particular concrete distinguished from all other, and is that individual life, which existing constantly from that moment both forwards and backwards, in the same continuity of insensibly succeeding parts united to the living body of the plant, it has that identity which makes the same plant, and all the parts of it, parts of the same plant, during all the time that they exist united in that continued organization, which is fit to convey that common life to all the parts so united.

(From II.xxvii.6– Identity of Animals ) The case is not so much different in brutes but that any one may hence see what makes an animal and continues it the same. Something we have like this in machines, and may serve to illustrate it. For example, what is a watch? it is plain it is nothing but a fit organization or construction of parts to a certain end, which, when a sufficient force is added to it, it is capable to attain. If we would suppose this machine one continued body, all whose organized parts were repaired, increased, or diminished by a constant addition or separation of insensible parts, with one common life, we should have something very much like the body of an animal …

(From II.xxvii.7— The Identity of Man ) This also shows wherein the identity of the same man consists; viz. in nothing but a participation of the same continued life, by constantly fleeting particles of matter, in succession vitally united to the same organized body.

(From II.xxvii.11— Personal Identity ) This being premised, to find wherein personal identity consists, we must consider what person stands for; which, I think, is a thinking intelligent being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking thing, in different times and places; which it does only by that consciousness which is inseparable from thinking, and, as it seems to me, essential to it: it being impossible for any one to perceive without perceiving that he does perceive. When we see, hear, smell, taste, feel, meditate, or will anything, we know that we do so. Thus it is always as to our present sensations and perceptions: and by this every one is to himself that which he calls self —it not being considered, in this case, whether the same self be continued in the same or divers substances. For, since consciousness always accompanies thinking, and it is that which makes every one to be what he calls self, and thereby distinguishes himself from all other thinking things, in this alone consists personal identity, i.e., the sameness of a rational being: and as far as this consciousness can be extended backwards to any past action or thought, so far reaches the identity of that person; it is the same self now it was then; and it is by the same self with this present one that now reflects on it, that that action was done.

(From II.xxvii.12— Consciousness makes personal Identity ) But it is further inquired, whether it be the same identical substance. This few would think they had reason to doubt of, if these perceptions, with their consciousness, always remained present in the mind, whereby the same thinking thing would be always consciously present, and, as would be thought, evidently the same to itself. But that which seems to make the difficulty is this, that this consciousness being interrupted always by forgetfulness, there being no moment of our lives wherein we have the whole train of all our past actions before our eyes in one view, but even the best memories losing the sight of one part whilst they are viewing another; and we sometimes, and that the greatest part of our lives, not reflecting on our past selves, being intent on our present thoughts, and in sound sleep having no thoughts at all, or at least none with that consciousness which remarks our waking thoughts—I say, in all these cases, our consciousness being interrupted, and we losing the sight of our past selves, doubts are raised whether we are the same thinking thing, i.e., the same substance or no. Which, however reasonable or unreasonable, concerns not personal identity at all. … For as far as any intelligent being can repeat the idea of any past action with the same consciousness it had of it at first, and with the same consciousness it has of any present action; so far it is the same personal self. For it is by the consciousness it has of its present thoughts and actions, that it is self to itself now, and so will be the same self, as far as the same consciousness can extend to actions past or to come; and would be by distance of time, or change of substance, no more two persons, than a man be two men by wearing other clothes to-day than he did yesterday, with a long or a short sleep between: the same consciousness uniting those distant actions into the same person, whatever substances contributed to their production.

(From II.xxvii.14— Personality in Change of Substance ) But the question is, Whether if the same substance which thinks be changed, it can be the same person; or, remaining the same, it can be different persons? And to this I answer: First, This can be no question at all to those who place thought in a purely material animal constitution, void of an immaterial substance. For, whether their supposition be true or no, it is plain they conceive personal identity preserved in something else than identity of substance; as animal identity is preserved in identity of life, and not of substance. And therefore those who place thinking in an immaterial substance only, before they can come to deal with these men, must show why personal identity cannot be preserved in the change of immaterial substances, or variety of particular immaterial substances, as well as animal identity is preserved in the change of material substances, or variety of particular bodies …

(From II.xxvii.15— Whether in Change of thinking Substances there can be one Person ) [I]t must be allowed, that, if the same consciousness (which, as has been shown, is quite a different thing from the same numerical figure or motion in body) can be transferred from one thinking substance to another, it will be possible that two thinking substances may make but one person. For the same consciousness being preserved, whether in the same or different substances, the personal identity is preserved.

(From II.xxvii.17— The body, as well as the soul, goes to the making of a Man ) And thus may we be able, without any difficulty, to conceive the same person at the resurrection, though in a body not exactly in make or parts the same which he had here, the same consciousness going along with the soul that inhabits it. But yet the soul alone, in the change of bodies, would scarce to any one but to him that makes the soul the man, be enough to make the same man. For should the soul of a prince, carrying with it the consciousness of the prince’s past life, enter and inform the body of a cobbler, as soon as deserted by his own soul, every one sees he would be the same person with the prince, accountable only for the prince’s actions: but who would say it was the same man ?

(From II.xxvii.19— Self depends on Consciousness, not on Substance ) Self is 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.

(From II.xxvii.20— Persons, not Substances, the Objects of Reward and Punishment ) In this personal identity is founded all the right and justice of reward and punishment; happiness and misery being that for which every one is concerned for himself , and not mattering what becomes of any substance , not joined to, or affected with that consciousness.

(From II.xxvii.21— Which shows wherein Personal identity consists ) This may show us wherein personal identity consists: not in the identity of substance, but, as I have said, in the identity of consciousness … if Socrates waking and sleeping do not partake of the same consciousness, Socrates waking and sleeping is not the same person. And to punish Socrates waking for what sleeping Socrates thought, and waking Socrates was never conscious of, would be no more of right, than to punish one twin for what his brother-twin did, whereof he knew nothing, because their outsides were so like, that they could not be distinguished; for such twins have been seen.

(From II.xxvii.24— Objection ) But is not a man drunk and sober the same person? Why else is he punished for the fact he commits when drunk, though he be never afterwards conscious of it? Just as much the same person as a man that walks, and does other things in his sleep, is the same person, and is answerable for any mischief he shall do in it. Human laws punish both, with a justice suitable to their way of knowledge; because, in these cases, they cannot distinguish certainly what is real, what counterfeit: and so the ignorance in drunkenness or sleep is not admitted as a plea. But in the great day, wherein the secrets of all hearts shall be laid open, it may be reasonable to think, no one shall be made to answer for what he knows nothing of; but shall receive his doom, his conscience accusing or excusing him.

What is Locke’s sortal relativity thesis?
Atom over time?
Mass of atoms?
What does Descartes think accounts for personal identity over time?
What does Locke think is wrong with Descartes’s answer?

It now makes sense to turn to Locke’s official discussion of the limits of knowledge. Keep in mind that the two orders of classification Locke introduces (manners or degrees of knowledge and the objects known) cut across each other. I’ve chosen to frame the discussion in terms of the objects of knowledge: identity (known by intuition), relation (by demonstration), co-existence, and real existence (by sensation).

(From IV.i.1— Our Knowledge conversant about our Ideas only ) Since the mind, in all its thoughts and reasonings, hath no other immediate object but its own ideas, which it alone does or can contemplate, it is evident that our knowledge is only conversant about them.

(From IV.i.2— Knowledge is the perception of the agreement or disagreement of two ideas ) Knowledge then seems to me to be nothing but the perception of the connexion of and agreement, or disagreement and repugnancy of any of our ideas . In this alone it consists. Where this perception is, there is knowledge, and where it is not, there, though we may fancy, guess, or believe, yet we always come short of knowledge. For when we know that white is not black, what do we else but perceive, that these two ideas do not agree? when we possess ourselves with the utmost security of the demonstration, that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right ones, what do we more but perceive, that equality to two right ones does necessarily agree to, and is inseparable from, the three angles of a triangle?

(From IV.i.3— This Agreement or Disagreement may be any of four sorts ) But to understand a little more distinctly wherein this agreement or disagreement consists, I think we may reduce it all to these four sorts: i. identity , or diversity . ii. relation . iii. co-existence , or necessary connexion . iv. real existence .

(From IV.i.4— First, of Identity, or Diversity in ideas ) First , as to the first sort of agreement or disagreement, viz. identity or diversity . It is the first act of the mind, when it has any sentiments or ideas at all, to perceive its ideas; and so far as it perceives them, to know each what it is, and thereby also to perceive their difference, and that one is not another.

(From IV.i.5— Secondly, of abstract Relations between ideas ) Secondly , the next sort of agreement or disagreement the mind perceives in any of its ideas may, I think, be called relative , and is nothing but the perception of the relation between any two ideas, of what kind soever, whether substances, modes, or any other.

(From IV.i.6— Thirdly, of their necessary Co-existence in Substances ) The third sort of agreement or disagreement to be found in our ideas, which the perception of the mind is employed about, is co-existence or non-co-existence in the same subject ; and this belongs particularly to substances. Thus when we pronounce concerning gold, that it is fixed, our knowledge of this truth amounts to no more but this, that fixedness, or a power to remain in the fire unconsumed, is an idea that always accompanies and is joined with that particular sort of yellowness, weight, fusibility, malleableness, and solubility in aqua regia , which make our complex idea signified by the word ‘gold’.

(From IV.iii.9– Of their Co-existence, extends only a very little way ) [A]s to the … agreement or disagreement of our ideas in co-existence , in this our knowledge is very short; though in this consists the greatest and most material part of our knowledge concerning substances. For our ideas of the species of substances being, as I have showed, nothing but certain collections of simple ideas united in one subject, and so co-existing together; e.g., our idea of flame is a body hot, luminous, and moving upward; of gold, a body heavy to a certain degree, yellow, malleable, and fusible: for these, or some such complex ideas as these, in men’s minds, do these two names of the different substances, flame and gold, stand for. When we would know anything further concerning these, or any other sort of substances, what do we inquire, but what other qualities or powers these substances have or have not? which is nothing else but to know what other simple ideas do, or do not co-exist with those that make up that complex idea?

(From IV.iii.10— Because the Connexion between simple Ideas in substances is for the most part unknown ) This, how weighty and considerable a part soever of human science, is yet very narrow, and scarce any at all. The reason whereof is, that the simple ideas whereof our complex ideas of substances are made up are, for the most part, such as carry with them, in their own nature, no visible necessary connexion or inconsistency with any other simple ideas, whose co-existence with them we would inform ourselves about.

(From IV.iii.25) If a great, nay, far the greatest part of the several ranks of bodies in the universe escape our notice by their remoteness, there are others that are no less concealed from us by their minuteness. These insensible corpuscles , being the active parts of matter, and the great instruments of nature, on which depend not only all their secondary qualities, but also most of their natural operations, our want of precise distinct ideas of their primary qualities keeps us in an incurable ignorance of what we desire to know about them.

I doubt not but if we could discover the figure, size, texture, and motion of the minute constituent parts of any two bodies, we should know without trial several of their operations one upon another; as we do now the properties of a square or a triangle. Did we know the mechanical affections of the particles of rhubarb, hemlock, opium, and a man, as a watchmaker does those of a watch, whereby it performs its operations; and of a file, which by rubbing on them will alter the figure of any of the wheels; we should be able to tell beforehand that rhubarb will purge, hemlock kill, and opium make a man sleep: as well as a watchmaker can, that a little piece of paper laid on the balance will keep the watch from going till it be removed; or that, some small part of it being rubbed by a file, the machine would quite lose its motion, and the watch go no more. The dissolving of silver in aqua fortis , and gold in aqua regia , and not vice versa , would be then perhaps no more difficult to know than it is to a smith to understand why the turning of one key will open a lock, and not the turning of another. But whilst we are destitute of senses acute enough to discover the minute particles of bodies, and to give us ideas of their mechanical affections, we must be content to be ignorant of their properties and ways of operation; nor can we be assured about them any further than some few trials we make are able to reach. But whether they will succeed again another time, we cannot be certain. This hinders our certain knowledge of universal truths concerning natural bodies: and our reason carries us herein very little beyond particular matter of fact.

(From IV.vi.9— No discoverable necessary connexion between nominal essence gold, and other simple ideas ) As there is no discoverable connexion between fixedness and the colour, weight, and other simple ideas of that nominal essence of gold; so, if we make our complex idea of gold, a body yellow, fusable, ductile, weighty, and fixed, we shall be at the same uncertainty concerning solubility in aqua regia , and for the same reason. Since we can never, from consideration of the ideas themselves, with certainty affirm or deny of a body whose complex idea is made up of yellow, very weighty, ductile, fusible, and fixed, that it is soluble in aqua regia : and so on of the rest of its qualities. I would gladly meet with one general affirmation concerning any will, no doubt, be presently objected, is not this an universal proposition, “all gold is malleable” ? to which I answer, it is a very complex idea the word ‘gold’ stands for. But then here is nothing affirmed of gold, but that that sound stands for an idea in which malleableness is contained: and such a sort of truth and certainty as this it is, to say a centaur is four-footed. But if malleableness make not a part of the specific essence the name of ‘gold’ stands for, it is plain, “all gold is malleable” , is not a certain proposition. Because, let the complex idea of gold be made up of whichsoever of its other qualities you please, malleableness will not appear to depend on that complex idea, nor follow from any simple one contained in it: the connexion that malleableness has (if it has any) with those other qualities being only by the intervention of the real constitution of its insensible parts; which, since we know not, it is impossible we should perceive that connexion, unless we could discover that which ties them together.

(From IV.i.7— Fourthly, of real Existence agreeing to any idea ) The fourth and last sort is that of actual real existence agreeing to any idea.

(From IV.ii.1— Of the degrees, or differences in clearness, of our Knowledge )

Intuitive: The different clearness of our knowledge seems to me to lie in the different way of perception the mind has of the agreement or disagreement of any of its ideas. For if we will reflect on our own ways of thinking, we will find, that sometimes the mind perceives the agreement or disagreement of two ideas immediately by themselves , without the intervention of any other: and this I think we may call intuitive knowledge .

(From IV.ii.2)

Demonstrative: The next degree of knowledge is, where the mind perceives the agreement or disagreement of any ideas, but not immediately. Though wherever the mind perceives the agreement or disagreement of any of its ideas, there be certain knowledge; yet it does not always happen, that the mind sees that agreement or disagreement, which there is between them, even where it is discoverable; and in that case remains in ignorance, and at most gets no further than a probable conjecture. … In this case then, when the mind cannot so bring its ideas together as by their immediate comparison, and as it were juxta-position or application one to another, to perceive their agreement or disagreement, it is fain, by the intervention of other ideas , (one or more, as it happens) to discover the agreement or disagreement which it searches; and this is that which we call reasoning . …

(From IV.ii.14)

Sensitive knowledge of the particular existence of finite beings without us. These two, viz. intuition and demonstration, are the degrees of our knowledge ; whatever comes short of one of these, with what assurance soever embraced, is but faith or opinion , but not knowledge, at least in all general truths. There is, indeed, another perception of the mind, employed about the particular existence of finite beings without us, which, going beyond bare probability, and yet not reaching perfectly to either of the foregoing degrees of certainty, passes under the name of knowledge . There can be nothing more certain than that the idea we receive from an external object is in our minds: this is intuitive knowledge. But whether there be anything more than barely that idea in our minds; whether we can thence certainly infer the existence of anything without us, which corresponds to that idea, is that whereof some men think there may be a question made; because men may have such ideas in their minds, when no such thing exists, no such object affects their senses. But yet here I think we are provided with an evidence that puts us past doubting. For I ask any one, whether he be not invincibly conscious to himself of a different perception, when he looks on the sun by day, and thinks on it by night; when he actually tastes wormwood, or smells a rose, or only thinks on that savour or odour? We as plainly find the difference there is between any idea revived in our minds by our own memory, and actually coming into our minds by our senses, as we do between any two distinct ideas. If any one say, a dream may do the same thing, and all these ideas may be produced, in us without any external objects; he may please to dream that I make him this answer:

That it is no great matter, whether I remove his scruple or no: where all is but dream, reasoning and arguments are of no use, truth and knowledge nothing. That I believe he will allow a very manifest difference between dreaming of being in the fire, and being actually in it. But yet if he be resolved to appear so sceptical as to maintain, that what I call being actually in the fire is nothing but a dream; and that we cannot thereby certainly know, that any such thing as fire actually exists without us: I answer, that we certainly finding that pleasure or pain follows upon the application of certain objects to us, whose existence we perceive, or dream that we perceive, by our senses; this certainty is as great as our happiness or misery, beyond which we have no concernment to know or to be. So that, I think, we may add to the two former sorts of knowledge this also, of the existence of particular external objects, by that perception and consciousness we have of the actual entrance of ideas from them, and allow these three degrees of knowledge, viz. intuitive , demonstrative , and sensitive ; in each of which there are different degrees and ways of evidence and certainty.

(From IV.iv.1— Objection: “Knowledge placed in our ideas may be all unreal or chimerical” ) I doubt not but my reader, by this time, may be apt to think that I have been all this while only building a castle in the air; and be ready to say to me: To what purpose all this stir? knowledge, say you, is only the perception of the agreement or disagreement of our own ideas: but who knows what those ideas may be? Is there anything so extravagant as the imaginations of men’s brains? where is the head that has no chimeras in it? … If it be true, that all knowledge lies only in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of our own ideas, the visions of an enthusiast and the reasonings of a sober man will be equally certain.

(From IV.iv.2— Answer Not so, where Ideas agree with Things ) To which I answer, That if our knowledge of our ideas terminate in them, and reach no further, where there is something further intended, our most serious thoughts will be of little more use than the reveries of a crazy brain. … But I hope, before I have done, to make it evident, that this way of certainty, by the knowledge of our own ideas, goes a little further than bare imagination: and I believe it will appear that all the certainty of general truths a man has lies in nothing else.

(From IV.iv.3— But what shall be the criterion of this agreement? ) It is evident the mind knows not things immediately, but only by the intervention of the ideas it has of them. Our knowledge, therefore, is real only so far as there is a conformity between our ideas and the reality of things. But what shall be here the criterion? How shall the mind, when it perceives nothing but its own ideas, know that they agree with things themselves? this, though it seems not to want difficulty, yet, I think, there be two sorts of ideas that we may be assured agree with things.

(From IV.iv.4— As, first all simple ideas are really conformed to things ) First , the first are simple ideas, which since the mind, as has been showed, can by no means make to itself, must necessarily be the product of things operating on the mind, in a natural way, and producing therein those perceptions which by the Wisdom and Will of our Maker they are ordained and adapted to. From whence it follows, that simple ideas are not fictions of our fancies, but the natural and regular productions of things without us, really operating upon us; and so carry with them all the conformity which is intended; or which our state requires: for they represent to us things under those appearances which they are fitted to produce in us: whereby we are enabled to distinguish the sorts of particular substances, to discern the states they are in, and so to take them for our necessities, and apply them to our uses. Thus the idea of whiteness, or bitterness, as it is in the mind, exactly answering that power which is in any body to produce it there, has all the real conformity it can or ought to have, with things without us. And this conformity between our simple ideas and the existence of things, is sufficient for real knowledge.

What is the difference between knowledge and ‘real’ knowledge?
How can we know whether we have ‘real’ knowledge or not?

Scholars disagree on just how Locke means to respond to skepticism. But it certainly looks as if he is invoking God at some crucial points in his defense of the reality of knowledge. What follows is Locke’s sketch of his argument for God’s existence; the details are to be found later in IV.x.

(From IV.x.1— We are capable of knowing certainly that there is a God ) Though God has given us no innate ideas of himself; though he has stamped no original characters on our minds, wherein we may read his being; yet having furnished us with those faculties our minds are endowed with, he hath not left himself without witness …

(From IV.x.2— For Man knows that he himself exists ) I think it is beyond question, that man has a clear idea of his own being; he knows certainly he exists, and that he is something. He that can doubt whether he be anything or no, I speak not to … This, then, I think I may take for a truth, which every one’s certain knowledge assures him of, beyond the liberty of doubting, viz. that he is something that actually exists .

(From IV.x.3— He knows also that Nothing cannot produce a Being; therefore something must have existed from Eternity ) In the next place, man knows, by an intuitive certainty, that bare nothing can no more produce any real being, than it can be equal to two right angles . [I]t is [thus] an evident demonstration, that from eternity there has been something ; since what was not from eternity had a beginning; and what had a beginning must be produced by something else.

(From IV.x.4— And that eternal being must be most powerful ) Next, it is evident, that what had its being and beginning from another, must also have all that which is in and belongs to its being from another too. All the powers it has must be owing to and received from the same source. This eternal source, then, of all being must also be the source and original of all power; and so this eternal being must be also the most powerful .

(From IV.x.5— And most knowing ) Again, a man finds in himself perception and knowledge. We have then got one step further; and we are certain now that there is not only some being, but some knowing, intelligent being in the world. There was a time, then, when there was no knowing being, and when knowledge began to be; or else there has been also a knowing being from eternity . If it be said, there was a time when no being had any knowledge, when that eternal being was void of all understanding; I reply, that then it was impossible there should ever have been any knowledge: it being as impossible that things wholly void of knowledge, and operating blindly, and without any perception, should produce a knowing being, as it is impossible that a triangle should make itself three angles bigger than two right ones. For it is as repugnant to the idea of senseless matter, that it should put into itself sense, perception, and knowledge, as it is repugnant to the idea of a triangle, that it should put into itself greater angles than two right ones.

(From IV.x.6— And therefore God ) 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’s argument for God’s existence, as presented in these passages, looks pretty weak. What’s wrong with it?

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The first amendment, historic document, an essay concerning human understanding (1690).

John Locke | 1690

Lithograph by de Fonroug of John Locke, head-and-shoulders portrait.

John Locke (1632-1704) was the author of A Letter Concerning Toleration (1689), An Essay concerning Human Understanding (1690), Two Treatises on Government (1690), and other works. Prior to the American Revolution, Locke was best known in America for his epistemological work. Contrary to the Cartesian view of innate ideas, Locke claimed that the human mind is a tabula rasa and that knowledge is accessible to us through sense perception and experience. Of the significance of Locke’s contribution to the theory of knowledge, James Madison compared him to Sir Isaac Newton’s discoveries in natural science: Both established “immortal systems, the one [Newton] in matter, the other [Locke] in mind” ("Spirit of Governments," 1791).

Selected by

Professor of History and Charles O. Lee and Louise K. Lee Chair in the Western Heritage at Hillsdale College

Jeffrey Rosen

President and CEO, National Constitution Center

Colleen A. Sheehan

Professor of Politics at the Arizona State University School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership

CHAP. II.: No Innate Principles in the Mind.

The way shewn how we come by any knowledge, sufficient to prove it not innate.

§ 1. It is an established opinion amongst some men, that there are in the understanding certain innate principles; some primary notions, ϰοιναὶ ἔννοιαι, characters, as it were, stamped upon the mind of man, which the soul receives in its very first being; and brings into the world with it. It would be sufficient to convince unprejudiced readers of the falseness of this supposition, if I should only shew (as I hope I shall in the following parts of this discourse) how men, barely by the use of their natural faculties, may attain to all the knowledge they have, without the help of any innate impressions; and may arrive at certainty, without any such original notions or principles. For I imagine any one will easily grant, that it would be impertinent to suppose, the ideas of colours innate in a creature, to whom God hath given sight, and a power to receive them by the eyes, from external objects: and no less unreasonable would it be to attribute several truths to the impressions of nature, and innate characters, when we may observe in ourselves faculties, fit to attain as easy and certain knowledge of them, as if they were originally imprinted on the mind. . . .

CHAP. I: Of Idea in general, and their Original.

§ 2. Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper, void of all characters, without any ideas: —How comes it to be furnished? Whence comes it by that vast store which the busy and boundless fancy of man has painted on it with an almost endless variety? Whence has it all the materials of reason and knowledge? To this I answer, in one word, from EXPERIENCE. In that all our knowledge is founded, and from that it ultimately derives itself. Our observation employed either, about external sensible objects, or about the internal operations of our minds perceived and reflected on by ourselves, is that which supplies our understandings with all the materials of thinking. These two are the fountains of knowledge, from whence all the ideas we have, do spring. . . .

CHAP. XI.: Of Discerning, and other Operations of the Mind.

§ 17. I pretend not to teach, but to inquire, and therefore cannot but confess here again, that external and internal sensation are the only passages that I can find of knowledge to the understanding. These alone, as far as I can discover, are the windows by which light is let into this dark room: for methinks the understanding is not much unlike a closet wholly shut from light, with only some little opening left, to let in external visible resemblances, or ideas of things without: would the pictures coming into such a dark room but stay there, and lie so orderly as to be found upon occasion, it would very much resemble the understanding of a man, in reference to all objects of sight, and the ideas of them. . . .

CHAP. XXI.: Of Power.

§ 51. As therefore the highest perfection of intellectual nature lies in a careful and constant pursuit of true and solid happiness, so the care of ourselves, that we mistake not imaginary for real happiness, is the necessary foundation of our liberty. The stronger ties we have to an unalterable pursuit of happiness in general, which is our greatest good, and which, as such, our desires always follow, the more are we free from any necessary determination of our will to any particular action, and from a necessary compliance with our desire, set upon any particular, and then appearing preferable good, till we have duly examined, whether it has a tendency to, or be inconsistent with our real happiness: and therefore till we are as much informed upon this inquiry, as the weight of the matter, and the nature of the case demands; we are, by the necessity of preferring and pursuing true happiness as our greatest good, obliged to suspend the satisfaction of our desires in particular cases.

§ 52. This is the hinge on which turns the liberty of intellectual beings, in their constant endeavours after and a steady prosecution of true felicity, that they can suspend this prosecution in particular cases, till they have looked before them, and informed themselves whether that particular thing, which is then proposed or desired, lie in the way to their main end, and make a real part of that which is their greatest good: for the inclination and tendency of their nature to happiness is an obligation and motive to them, to take care not to mistake or miss it; and so necessarily puts them upon caution, deliberation, and wariness, in the direction of their particular actions, which are the means to obtain it. Whatever necessity determines to the pursuit of real bliss, the same necessity with the same force establishes suspense, deliberation, and scrutiny of each successive desire, whether the satisfaction of it does not interfere with our true happiness, and mislead us from it. This, as seems to me, is the great privilege of finite intellectual beings; and I desire it may be well considered, whether the great inlet and exercise of all the liberty men have, are capable of, or can be useful to them, and that whereon depends the turn of their actions, does not lie in this, that they can suspend their desires, and stop them from determining their wills to any action, till they have duly and fairly examined the good and evil of it, as far forth as the weight of the thing requires.

§ 2. . . . Sense and intuition reach but a very little way. The greatest part of our knowledge depends upon deductions and intermediate ideas: and in those cases, where we are fain to substitute assent instead of knowledge, and take propositions for true, without being certain they are so, we have need to find out, examine, and compare the grounds of their probability. In both these cases, the faculty which finds out the means, and rightly applies them to discover certainty in the one, and probability in the other, is that which we call reason. For as reason perceives the necessary and indubitable connexion of all the ideas or proofs one to another, in each step of any demonstration that produces knowledge: so it likewise perceives the probable connexion of all the ideas or proofs one to another, in every step of a discourse, to which it will think assent due. This is the lowest degree of that which can be truly called reason. . . .

§ 23. By what has been before said of reason, we may be able to make some guess at the distinction of things, into those that are according to, above, and contrary to reason. 1. According to reason are such propositions, whose truth we can discover by examining and tracing those ideas we have from sensation and reflection; and by natural deduction find to be true or probable. 2. Above reason are such propositions, whose truth or probability we cannot by reason derive from those principles. 3. Contrary to reason are such propositions, as are inconsistent with, or irreconcileable to, our clear and distinct ideas. Thus the existence of one God is according to reason; the existence of more than one God, contrary to reason; the resurrection of the dead, above reason. . . .

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The Cambridge Companion to Locke's "Essay Concerning Human Understanding"

Lex Newman (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Locke's "Essay Concerning Human Understanding" , Cambridge University Press, 2007, 486pp., $29.99 (pbk), ISBN 9780521542258.

Reviewed by Raffaella De Rosa, Rutgers University

John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689) occupies a prominent position not only among the texts of early modern philosophy but of philosophy of all times. It is a philosophical landmark. And The Cambridge Companion to Locke's "Essay Concerning Human Understanding" is a terrific collection of fifteen essays on this masterpiece.

Locke's Essay divides into four Books. Books I and II are about the origin of mental content and lay out Locke's empiricist account of concept acquisition and empiricist epistemology. After disputing nativism in Book I, Locke proceeds, in Book II, to the difficult task of providing an empiricist account of the origin of all our ideas. Book III develops a theory of language on the basis of his theory of ideas; and Book IV examines the scope of human knowledge and the grounds and degrees of belief and opinion. Each book develops philosophical themes whose ingenuity and originality establish Locke as one of the greatest philosophers of all times. The anti-nativist arguments of Book I not only threaten the doctrine of innate ideas commonly held in Locke's times by Descartes, the Cambridge Platonists, and members of the Anglican Church, but are still considered some of the most powerful arguments against current nativist accounts of the origin of concepts. His empiricist account of the origin of mental content set "the standard for subsequent accounts" (1) and some contemporary philosophers still invoke Locke's theory as a model for their own. The discussion of the metaphysics of primary and secondary qualities, his reflection on identity, the distinction between nominal and real essences, and his theory of language were not only grounded in seventeenth century debates, but are still the starting point of speculation for current theories about the metaphysics of color properties, personal identity and the problem of meaning and signification.

The Cambridge Companion to Locke's "Essay Concerning Human Understanding" follows the structure of Locke's Essay . It contains, in order of appearance, two essays on Book I, six on Book II, two on Book III and five on Book IV. The difference in the number of essays devoted to each book reflects the difference in length, rather than relevance, among the books in Locke's Essay . The only peculiar structural choice of the volume is making Thomas Lennon's essay "Locke on Ideas and Representation" chapter eight of the volume. Given the significance of Locke's theory of ideas and mental representation in the Essay , one might have expected Lennon's essay to appear first or at least first in the series of essays on Book II. But perhaps the editor thought that by chapter eight a reader will have already read various chapters on Locke's views on different types of ideas (ideas of sensation, ideas of power and substance) and thus be positioned to follow the discussion of ideas in general (though the argument could easily go the other way 'round).

The essays in this volume share two common features. First, most (with some variation in emphasis) start with an explanation of the topics at hand, offer a survey of the various exegetical and theoretical problems raised by these topics, present various solutions from the literature and propose their own conclusions on how to solve or dissolve these problems. This essay format promotes not only understanding but also critical reflection on key themes of the Essay and thereby renders the volume ideal for any student of Locke (undergraduate, graduate or scholar). Second, each contributor not only discusses central themes of the Essay in the context of the Scholastic background or seventeenth century debates, but also points out Locke's timeless contribution to various topics in contemporary philosophy.

Unfortunately, I will not be able to devote to each article the attention it deserves. I will present the content of some essays and comment more extensively on others. The volume opens with an essay by G.A.J. Rogers. In "The Intellectual Setting and Aims of the Essay ," Rogers provides an informative account of the aim and scope of the Essay and of the intellectual development behind it. Of particular interest is the detailed analysis by which Rogers tracks Descartes' and Boyle's influences on Locke's philosophy.

The second essay, "Locke's Polemic against Nativism," is written by Samuel Rickless. As Rickless notes, "a proper understanding of Locke's polemic serves to deepen one's understanding of the whole book" (66) since, for example, the anti-nativist arguments of Book I lead to the detailed discussion of the origin of every idea in Book II. Rickless begins by identifying the type of nativism (dispositional nativism) that Locke's polemic is directed against and its supporters. This part of the essay is useful inasmuch as it allows Rickless to dismiss the widespread view that Locke was addressing a straw man in his polemic (59). But the most impressive part of the essay consists in identifying and analyzing in detail the various arguments Locke provides against nativism. This is no easy task and Rickless does an exceptionally good job. He argues that although Locke is successful in criticizing the nativist "Argument from Universal Consent", Locke's own arguments against nativism are much less successful. I particularly agree with Rickless that Locke's appeal to memory in the argument that Rickless calls "The Argument from Lack of Universal Consent" "gives solace to the dispositional nativist" (61). Locke's account of memory (E.II.x.2) allows for the possibility that an idea can be in the mind without being brought to consciousness. But "if we say this, then why can't we say, in defense of dispositional nativism, that ideas that are never brought to consciousness but we have the ability to 'paint' on the canvas of our minds without any accompanying perceptions of having had them before [that is, innate ideas] are also in the mind?" (61) In cases like this, in my view, Locke blatantly begs the question against dispositional nativists like Descartes (at least in the case of some ideas). I also concur with Rickless that Locke's "argument from lack of innate ideas" (roughly the argument that there are no innate principles because their constitutive ideas are not innate) rests on the questionable premise that the ideas, for example, of identity and substance are unclear and hence not innate. But unlike Rickless I do not see the force of Locke's argument that it would be pointless for God to give us innate latent principles. "If Men can be ignorant or doubtful of what is innate, innate Principles are insisted on, and urged to no purpose" (E.iii.13), argues Locke. But why should these principles' not being known to us imply that they serve no purpose for us? In fact, in a famous passage where Descartes discusses the innateness of the idea of a triangle in an exchange with Gassendi, he argues that the latent presence of the idea of the triangle allows us to recognize triangular shapes in the physical world although we may never be aware of the true idea of the triangle.

Book II of Locke's Essay contains a taxonomy of ideas of central importance for the rest of the Essay and, in particular, for what Locke will argue about the reality of ideas in Book IV. Moreover, it is in this context that Locke lays the foundation of his empiricist epistemology and completes his attack on nativism by providing an empiricist story of the origin of all ideas. Martha Bolton's essay, "The Taxonomy of Ideas in Locke's Essay " (chapter three), is the first of six articles dedicated to Book II. Bolton presents Locke's classification of ideas and points out difficulties with which such a prima facie neat taxonomy is fraught. She offers textual evidence against the common reading -- certainly encouraged by Locke -- of simple ideas as atomic and of complex ideas as compositional ("Ideas that have compositional and noncompositional structure are found on both sides of the divide" (77)). She points out that Locke's taxonomy imposes constraints on his account of ideas and leaves no room for ideas we actually have (88, 100). Finally, Bolton shows, convincingly in my view, that a detailed analysis of Locke's account of simple ideas of sensation and of complex ideas of relation and substance reveals possible limitations of Locke's anti-nativism (73, 78, 89, 99).

In Book II, Locke draws the famous distinction between primary and secondary qualities. Michael Jacovides's essay, "Locke's Distinctions between Primary and Secondary Qualities" (chapter four), argues that Locke did not draw one distinction but many. One of the greatest merits of the essay is Jacovides's insightful analysis of the various arguments that Locke provides in favor of such distinctions.

The longest chapter of the Essay is chapter XXI of Book II, the chapter on power. Vere Chappell, in the essay "Power in Locke's Essay" (chapter five), explains what Locke meant by "power" in general and then devotes most of his attention to an examination of Locke's views on human will, freedom and motivation.

Locke's discussion of substance in chapter XXIII of Book II is one of the most fascinating discussions of Book II, but it also raises many interpretative issues. Edwin McCann, in "Locke on Substance" (chapter six), presents the traditional interpretation of substance as the logical notion of a substratum to qualities or the subject of predication. In light of the difficulties of reconciling this view of substance with Locke's corpuscularianism, alternative interpretations of Locke's account of substance have been offered in the literature. McCann, however, argues that the traditional interpretation fares better as an interpretation of Locke's views than any alternative reading. Particularly interesting is McCann's criticism of what is the most common alternative way of interpreting Locke's account, that is, the view according to which Locke identifies the substratum with the real essence of body. There are good grounds for this alternative reading. First, although, as McCann points out, Locke never explicitly identifies the substratum with real essence (186), there is strong circumstantial evidence for such identification. The reasoning sustaining the alternative view is that since, according to Locke, the sensible properties of a thing are observable to us but its substance is not, and similarly the real essence of a body is not observable to us but the sensible qualities flowing from it are, Locke identifies substance with the real essence or unknown constitution of things (185-186). Second, although it is true that the notion of a substratum is a logical one whereas the notion of real essence is a causal one, there is no inconsistency in one thing being related both logically and causally to the same qualities. Finally, this alternative interpretation "avoids saddling Locke with a commitment to substrata as real, distinct entities" (190). Despite the fact that McCann admits these points, he insists that especially Locke's correspondence with Stillingfleet provides evidence against this identification (187-189).

Gideon Yaffe, in his essay "Locke on Identity and Diversity" (chapter seven), offers an original reading of Locke's theory of personal identity. Yaffe argues that the simple-memory (216) and appropriation (221) theories of personal identity are mistaken because they fail to appreciate the link Locke creates between the metaphysical question of personal identity and the moral question of punishment and reward. According to Yaffe, Locke's theory is a "susceptibility-to-punishment theory" (226), according to which "the assumed order of priority of the metaphysical and the moral [is reversed]: the metaphysical facts -- the facts about who is the same person as whom -- just are moral facts; they are facts about who is appropriately punished or rewarded for those past acts" (229). This is certainly a thought-provoking interpretation of Locke's views on personal identity. One worry is whether this theory is free of the problem of circularity that famously troubles other readings of Locke's theory (226). However, Yaffe has an interesting (but possibly counterintuitive) response to this worry (226-228). According to Yaffe, the "susceptibility-to-punishment theory" is not circular because "[who] is identical to whom depends on who is rightly rewarded or punished rather than the reverse" (226). Since it is the laws of nature ("God's laws linking crimes with punishments and good acts with rewards" (226)) that determine the identity between actor and sufferer, "whether or not a later and earlier act of consciousness are the same depends on the content of natural laws" (227) and, so, the circularity is broken.

Thomas Lennon, in "Locke on Ideas and Representation" (chapter eight), discusses one of the key concepts of Locke's Essay . What are ideas, for Locke? How do they represent things to us? Do they represent things to us as proxies between the mind and extra-mental reality, hence lifting the so-called veil of ideas? Or are ideas simply modes of presenting these objects to the mind? Lennon argues for the latter reading of Locke's account of ideas throughout the article and addresses other interesting questions such as, what is it that makes an idea represent one object rather than another for Locke?

In Book III, Locke presents his theory of language and draws the famous distinction between nominal and real essences. In "Locke on Essences and Classification" (chapter nine), Margaret Atherton discusses Locke's distinction between nominal and real essences. Locke's critical target is the Scholastic view that our classification of things into kinds is grounded in reality. According to Locke, instead, this classification depends on nominal essences or abstract ideas and, hence, it is the "Workmanship of the Understanding." Although the general picture is clear enough, there are pressing questions raised by the distinction. Atherton addresses these questions while developing her own interpretation. Of particular interest is Atherton's persuasive defense of the interpretation according to which Locke's distinction between nominal and real essence is "mandated by his new theory of ideas" (267) rather than being motivated by his ontological commitment to corpuscularianism (268-278).

In chapter ten, "Language, Meaning, and Mind in Locke's Essay ," Michael Losonsky defends the view that Locke's theory of language presents a theory of meaning along the lines of Frege's distinction between sense and reference against recent commentators who have challenged this view and argued that the relation between words and ideas, according to Locke, is not a semantic relation.

In Book IV, Locke defines knowledge in general as "the perception of the connexion and agreement, or disagreement and repugnancy of any of our ideas" (E IV.i.2). This definition raises many questions. For example, how is this definition compatible with sensitive knowledge, given that sensitive knowledge is about external things? In chapter eleven, "Locke on Knowledge," Lex Newman argues that there is no tension between the definition of knowledge and sensitive knowledge (324-325; 331-333; and 349-350) or between such a definition and other claims Locke makes in Book IV. Of particular interest is Newman's argument (against the common view) that all knowable truths are analytic for Locke. In Book IV, tension emerges between Locke's "epistemic modesty" (352) and his ontological commitments about the ultimate nature of body and the mind. Notoriously, Locke admitted the possibility of thinking matter (E.IV.iii), but in the course of his argument for the existence of God (E.IV.x), "Locke seems to argue that no materialist account of thought […] is possible" (353).

Lisa Downing, in "Locke's Ontology" (chapter twelve), argues that the tensions between Locke's dogmatism and skepticism can be dissolved.

In chapter thirteen, "The Moral Epistemology of Locke's Essay ," Catherine Wilson argues that "Locke is the first philosopher to treat morality as a set of anthropological and psychological phenomena" (404) while addressing the difficult question of the tension between Locke's realism and relativism about moral principles and ideas. In Book IV, Locke distinguishes between knowledge and belief. Knowledge is defined as the perception of the agreement among our ideas whereas belief is defined as the presumption of such an agreement.

David Owen, in "Locke on Judgment" (chapter fourteen), examines Locke's account of judgment and belief. After arguing that unlike Descartes, Locke held a "single-act theory of judgment" (according to which understanding a proposition and affirming or denying it are the same thing (409-418)), Owen examines Locke's account of the grounds of belief formation.

The volume closes with an essay by Nicholas Jolley, "Locke on Faith and Reason". Jolley discusses the arguments (based mainly on the principles of Locke's epistemology) by which Locke "clips the wings of revelation" (441) and argues against the accusation that Locke's defense of reason in the context of his discussion of faith is either inconsistent or circular.

Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding is a rich and challenging text. The apparent neatness of the taxonomy of ideas can actually generate confusion for the reader; his empiricist account of the origin of ideas reveals wrinkles here and there that make one wonder about the limits and scope of Locke' empiricism; his discussion of the metaphysics of primary and secondary qualities can be puzzling. (What are Locke's arguments, if any, for the reality of primary qualities? What is the ontological status of secondary qualities for Locke exactly?) One could go on. This collection renders the intellectual journey through the Essay much smoother. There are numerous articles written on any aspect of Locke's philosophy but the very nature of this new volume and the way in which it has been thought out and edited by Lex Newman makes it an ideal accompanying tool in the study of Locke's Essay . After finishing reading this collection, a reader will not only have acquired information about the main topics of the Essay and the philosophical context that led to Locke's discussions of them, but will be knowledgeable about the current status of the secondary literature on these topics and will have a better sense of Locke's timeless contribution to philosophy. The Cambridge Companion to Locke's "Essay Concerning Human Understanding" perfectly accomplishes the aim it was designed to accomplish. It is a perfect (if not in size certainly in content) vade mecum to Locke's Essay . Present and future generations of students and scholars will benefit from the appearance of this volume.

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约翰洛克报名激增至2.8倍，浑朴仍有5学员获High Distinction&Distinction奖项

原标题：约翰洛克报名激增至2.8倍，浑朴仍有5学员获High Distinction&Distinction奖项

近期，2023约翰洛克论文竞赛（John Locke Essay Competition）最终结果公布。据其官网公布，2023共19100人注册报名，较去年相比激增至2.8倍。在难度升级的情况下，浑朴仍有 1位学员获得High Distiction奖项， 4位学员获得Distinction奖项。

以下是具体获奖名单，让我们恭喜各位同学！

High Distinction=入围人数的top5%

Distinction=入围人数的top15%

2022年约翰洛克的入围率为20%左右，如果2023年也与这一比例持平的话，那么获得High Distiction的概率为20%*5%=1%；获得Distinction的概率则为20%*15%=3% 。比藤校的录取率还低！实在是可喜可贺！

除上述同学以外，浑朴今年辅导学生入围比例高达 65.6% ，恭喜另外 16位同学也获得约翰洛克颁发的 Commendation荣誉！

约翰洛克作为含金量极高的论文写作竞赛，向来被大家称为“ 藤校试金石 ”。竞赛涉及7大学科：经济、历史、政治、哲学、神学、法律、心理学，适合对人文学科方向感兴趣，或是想展现自己人文特质的理工科学生。

Ariel同学获哲学High Commendation（往年的奖项分类），最终录取哥伦比亚大学、达特茅斯学院、剑桥大学三一学院；

Ryan同学获哲学Shortlist，最终录取约翰霍普金斯大学；

Emily同学获政治Shortlist，最终录取斯沃斯莫尔学院；

Erica同学获政治Shortlist，最终录取韦尔斯利学院。

以下是2023季的约翰洛克时间线，供想要2024年参加比赛的同学们参考：

3.15 注册报名开始

5.31 注册报名截止

6.30 论文提交截止

7.10 论文逾期提交截止（需在7月1日之前支付20美元费用）

7.31 入围候选人通知

9月学术会议&颁奖晚宴

（P.S. 以上时间均为GMT格林威治时间）

我们建议参赛学生最好具备以下条件：

明确自己的学术兴趣和学科方向
对学科有一定的学术知识储备，最好已经有其他学术项目经历做支撑
有学术写作基础或有着较好的英文阅读、表达能力

因此感兴趣的同学们最好能提前半年~1年开始逐步提高以上能力，最终向约翰洛克这个文科竞赛天花板发起冲击。

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BHS students earn distinction in international essay competition

A group of students at Bermuda High School were recognised for their entry into a major international essay competition.

Sienna Spurling, Joy Ella Yammine and Aditi Varwandkar were all shortlisted for their entries in the junior category of this year’s John Locke Institute 2023 Global Essay Prize, while both Sienna and Joy were awarded distinctions.

The three travelled to Oxford last week for the prize giving ceremony.

While about 19,000 entries were made in the competition, distinctions were only awarded to 15 per cent of the shortlisted entries.

The junior category challenged students to produce an essay based on one of five topics including if safety is more important than fun, how the writer would spend $10 billion to make the world better and why John Locke is sometimes called the father of liberalism.

Essays are judged on understanding of the relevant material, the use of evidence, quality of argumentation, originality, structure, writing style and persuasive force.

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Eric Zhou: CGA's High Distinction Achiever at the John Locke Awards

Meet Eric Zhou, one of CGA's exceptional students , who proudly secured a High Distinction at the renowned John Locke Awards — an event that unfolded in the historic Sheldonian Theatre, a venue nearly 400 years old. In this interview, Eric shares his unique experience , insights, and inspiring moments from this prestigious event.

The John Locke Awards Ceremony was nothing short of extraordinary. As Eric recalls, "Watching the influx of shortlisted students and parents enter the impressive building, and then entering it myself, to then choosing and waiting in a seat was an incredibly unique and unforgettable experience."

A Learning Journey Beyond Expectations

The lectures presented during the event left an indelible mark on Eric's mind. For the Economics category, students were treated to a series of enlightening lectures, one including a lecture from Director of the John Locke Institute and Economist Martin Cox on the analysis of sweatshops and the economic lessons that can be learned from them.

These lectures provided a glimpse into the academic rigour of Oxford University, where insights were shared on different essay topics. Eric reflects, "The combination of these lectures gave students a perspective of what the lectures at Oxford University feel like, as well as the personal tutoring sessions such as our introductory lectures that follow Oxford's collegiate system."

Eric's award-winning essay, titled "What Would Happen if We Banned Billionaires," ventured into the intricate dynamics of economics. Beyond the surface of this seemingly simple question, he explored multiple layers of economics , including economic history, politics, philosophy, and legislation. His structured approach, complete with thoughtful subtitles, enabled a comprehensive analysis. As Eric puts it, "I believed that this approach allowed me to construct a holistic and comprehensive analysis of the issue, and create an essay that I was extremely proud of."

A Sense of Camaraderie and Inspiration

Being tied for 4th place among High Distinction recipients was an achievement in itself. With over 19,000 participants worldwide, the competition was fierce, but Eric found more camaraderie than competition among his fellow achievers.

In his words, "Sharing the achievement of High Distinction brought upon a sense of relief and pride." As he was a lot younger than most the other recipients, he was able to learn from them, “ learning the pathway they have taken, and the amazing accomplishments that they have achieved makes me want to push myself even further to reach my dream.”

Connections Beyond Academics

While discussions naturally gravitated towards academics, there were moments of personal connection beyond the books . Conversations spanned topics like personal motivations, backgrounds, and aspirations for the future. Laughter filled the air as they shared entertaining high school stories.

In addition to the discussions with his peers, Eric was able to have an insightful conversation with Mr Casas, an Economics PHD student who previously presented a lecture on "What Would Happen if We Banned Billionaires?” where he got to ask about life at Oxford, finding and pursuing your passions, employability and internships.

Eric sat down with CGA’s Co-Founder Jamie Beaton!

Among his fantastic achievement at the John Locke Awards, Eric also recently had the privilege of sitting down with CGA’s Co-Founder, Jamie Beaton for an inspiring interview.

From being named in the Forbes 30 under 30, and now a successful Author, Jamie shared many unique insights into his own high-school life, his book, and his company.

To hear more of this interview and information on his new book ‘Accepted!’ which compiles some the best advice on the daunting college admissions process, watch the full video below.

DISCOVER THE CGA ADVANTAGE

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Locke’s Political Philosophy

John Locke (1632–1704) is among the most influential political philosophers of the modern period. In the Two Treatises of Government , he defended the claim that men are by nature free and equal against claims that God had made all people naturally subject to a monarch. He argued that people have rights, such as the right to life, liberty, and property, that have a foundation independent of the laws of any particular society. Locke used the claim that men are naturally free and equal as part of the justification for understanding legitimate political government as the result of a social contract where people in the state of nature conditionally transfer some of their rights to the government in order to better ensure the stable, comfortable enjoyment of their lives, liberty, and property. Since governments exist by the consent of the people in order to protect the rights of the people and promote the public good, governments that fail to do so can be resisted and replaced with new governments. Locke is thus also important for his defense of the right of revolution. Locke also defends the principle of majority rule and the separation of legislative and executive powers. In the Letter Concerning Toleration , Locke denied that coercion should be used to bring people to (what the ruler believes is) the true religion and also denied that churches should have any coercive power over their members. Locke elaborated on these themes in his later political writings, such as the Second Letter on Toleration and Third Letter on Toleration .

For a more general introduction to Locke’s history and background, the argument of the Two Treatises , and the Letter Concerning Toleration , see Section 1 , Section 4 , and Section 5 , respectively, of the main entry on John Locke in this encyclopedia. The present entry focuses on eight central concepts in Locke’s political philosophy.

1. Natural Law and Natural Rights

2. state of nature, 3. property, 4. consent, political obligation, and the ends of government, 5. locke and punishment, 6. separation of powers and the dissolution of government, 7. toleration, 8. education and politics, select primary sources, select secondary sources, other internet resources, related entries.

Perhaps the most central concept in Locke’s political philosophy is his theory of natural law and natural rights. The natural law concept existed long before Locke as a way of expressing the idea that there were certain moral truths that applied to all people, regardless of the particular place where they lived or the agreements they had made. The most important early contrast was between laws that were by nature, and thus generally applicable, and those that were conventional and operated only in those places where the particular convention had been established. This distinction is sometimes formulated as the difference between natural law and positive law.

Natural law is also distinct from divine law in that the latter, in the Christian tradition, normally referred to those laws that God had directly revealed through prophets and other inspired writers. Natural law can be discovered by reason alone and applies to all people, while divine law can be discovered only through God’s special revelation and applies only to those to whom it is revealed and whom God specifically indicates are to be bound. Thus some seventeenth-century commentators, Locke included, held that not all of the 10 commandments, much less the rest of the Old Testament law, were binding on all people. The 10 commandments begin “Hear O Israel” and thus are only binding on the people to whom they were addressed ( Works 6:37). (Spelling and formatting are modernized in quotations from Locke in this entry). As we will see below, even though Locke thought natural law could be known apart from special revelation, he saw no contradiction in God playing a part in the argument, so long as the relevant aspects of God’s character could be discovered by reason alone. In Locke’s theory, divine law and natural law are consistent and can overlap in content, but they are not coextensive. Thus there is no problem for Locke if the Bible commands a moral code that is stricter than the one that can be derived from natural law, but there is a real problem if the Bible teaches what is contrary to natural law. In practice, Locke avoided this problem because consistency with natural law was one of the criteria he used when deciding the proper interpretation of Biblical passages.

The language of natural rights also gained prominence through the writings of thinkers in the generation before Locke, such as Grotius and Hobbes, and of his contemporary Pufendorf. Whereas natural law emphasized duties, natural rights normally emphasized privileges or claims to which an individual was entitled. There is considerable disagreement as to how these factors are to be understood in relation to each other in Locke’s theory. Leo Strauss (1953), and many of his followers, take rights to be paramount, going so far as to portray Locke’s position as essentially similar to that of Hobbes. They point out that Locke defended a hedonist theory of human motivation ( Essay 2.20) and claim that he must agree with Hobbes about the essentially self-interested nature of human beings. Locke, they claim, recognizes natural law obligations only in those situations where our own preservation is not in conflict, further emphasizing that our right to preserve ourselves trumps any duties we may have.

On the other end of the spectrum, more scholars have adopted the view of Dunn (1969), Tully (1980), and Ashcraft (1986) that it is natural law, not natural rights, that is primary. They hold that when Locke emphasized the right to life, liberty, and property he was primarily making a point about the duties we have toward other people: duties not to kill, enslave, or steal. Most scholars also argue that Locke recognized a general duty to assist with the preservation of mankind, including a duty of charity to those who have no other way to procure their subsistence ( Two Treatises 1.42). These scholars regard duties as primary in Locke because rights exist to ensure that we are able to fulfill our duties. Simmons (1992) takes a position similar to the latter group, but claims that rights are not just the flip side of duties in Locke, nor merely a means to performing our duties. Instead, rights and duties are equally fundamental because Locke believes in a “robust zone of indifference” in which rights protect our ability to make choices. While these choices cannot violate natural law, they are not a mere means to fulfilling natural law either. Brian Tierney (2014) questions whether one needs to prioritize natural law or natural right since both typically function as corollaries. He argues that modern natural rights theories are a development from medieval conceptions of natural law that included permissions to act or not act in certain ways.

There have been some attempts to find a compromise between these positions. Michael Zuckert’s (1994) version of the Straussian position acknowledges more differences between Hobbes and Locke. Zuckert still questions the sincerity of Locke’s theism, but thinks that Locke does develop a position that grounds property rights in the fact that human beings own themselves, something Hobbes denied. Adam Seagrave (2014) has gone a step further. He argues that the contradiction between Locke’s claim that human beings are owned by God and that human beings own themselves is only apparent. He bases this argument on passages from Locke’s other writings (especially the Essay Concerning Human Understanding ). In the passages about divine ownership, Locke is speaking about humanity as a whole, while in the passages about self-ownership he is talking about individual human beings with the capacity for property ownership. God created human beings who are capable of having property rights with respect to one another on the basis of owning their labor. Both of them emphasize differences between Locke’s use of natural rights and the earlier tradition of natural law.

Another point of contestation has to do with the extent to which Locke thought natural law could, in fact, be known by reason. Both Strauss (1953) and Peter Laslett (Introduction to Locke’s Two Treatises ), though very different in their interpretations of Locke generally, see Locke’s theory of natural law as filled with contradictions. In the Essay Concerning Human Understanding , Locke defends a theory of moral knowledge that negates the possibility of innate ideas ( Essay Book 1) and claims that morality is capable of demonstration in the same way that Mathematics is ( Essay 3.11.16, 4.3.18–20). Yet nowhere in any of his works does Locke make a full deduction of natural law from first premises. More than that, Locke at times seems to appeal to innate ideas in the Second Treatise (2.11), and in The Reasonableness of Christianity ( Works 7:139) he admits that no one has ever worked out all of natural law from reason alone. Strauss infers from this that the contradictions exist to show the attentive reader that Locke does not really believe in natural law at all. Laslett, more conservatively, simply says that Locke the philosopher and Locke the political writer should be kept very separate.

Many scholars reject this position. Yolton (1958), Colman (1883), Ashcraft (1987), Grant (1987), Simmons (1992), Tuckness (1999), Israelson (2013), Rossiter (2016), Connolly (2019), and others all argue that there is nothing strictly inconsistent in Locke’s admission in The Reasonableness of Christianity . That no one has deduced all of natural law from first principles does not mean that none of it has been deduced. The supposedly contradictory passages in the Two Treatises are far from decisive. While it is true that Locke does not provide a deduction in the Essay , it is not clear that he was trying to. Section 4.10.1–19 of that work seems more concerned to show how reasoning with moral terms is possible, not to actually provide a full account of natural law. Nonetheless, it must be admitted that Locke did not treat the topic of natural law as systematically as one might like. Attempts to work out his theory in more detail with respect to its ground and its content must try to reconstruct it from scattered passages in many different texts.

To understand Locke’s position on the ground of natural law it must be situated within a larger debate in natural law theory that predates Locke, the so-called “voluntarism-intellectualism,” or “voluntarist-rationalist” debate. At its simplest, the voluntarist declares that right and wrong are determined by God’s will and that we are obliged to obey the will of God simply because it is the will of God. Unless these positions are maintained, the voluntarist argues, God becomes superfluous to morality since both the content and the binding force of morality can be explained without reference to God. The intellectualist replies that this understanding makes morality arbitrary and fails to explain why we have an obligation to obey God. Graedon Zorzi (2019) has argued that “person” is a relational term for Locke, indicating that we will be held accountable by God for whether we have followed the law.

With respect to the grounds and content of natural law, Locke is not completely clear. On the one hand, there are many instances where he makes statements that sound voluntarist to the effect that law requires a legislator with authority ( Essay 1.3.6, 4.10.7). Locke also repeatedly insists in the Essays on the Law of Nature that created beings have an obligation to obey their creator ( Political Essays 116–120). On the other hand there are statements that seem to imply an external moral standard to which God must conform ( Two Treatises 2.195; Works 7:6). Locke clearly wants to avoid the implication that the content of natural law is arbitrary. Several solutions have been proposed. One solution suggested by Herzog (1985) makes Locke an intellectualist by grounding our obligation to obey God on a prior duty of gratitude that exists independent of God. A second option, suggested by Simmons (1992), is simply to take Locke as a voluntarist since that is where the preponderance of his statements point. A third option, suggested by Tuckness (1999) (and implied by Grant 1987 and affirmed by Israelson 2013), is to treat the question of voluntarism as having two different parts, grounds and content. On this view, Locke was indeed a voluntarist with respect to the question “why should we obey the law of nature?” Locke thought that reason, apart from the will of a superior, could only be advisory. With respect to content, divine reason and human reason must be sufficiently analogous that human beings can reason about what God likely wills. Locke takes it for granted that since God created us with reason in order to follow God’s will, human reason and divine reason are sufficiently similar that natural law will not seem arbitrary to us.

Those interested in the contemporary relevance of Locke’s political theory must confront its theological aspects. Straussians make Locke’s theory relevant by claiming that the theological dimensions of his thought are primarily rhetorical; they were “cover” to keep him from being persecuted by the religious authorities of his day. Others, such as Dunn (1969) and Stanton (2018), take Locke to be of only limited relevance to contemporary politics precisely because so many of his arguments depend on religious assumptions that are no longer widely shared. Some authors, such as Simmons (1992) and Vernon (1997), have tried to separate the foundations of Locke’s argument from other aspects of it. Simmons, for example, argues that Locke’s thought is over-determined, containing both religious and secular arguments. He claims that for Locke the fundamental law of nature is that “as much as possible mankind is to be preserved” ( Two Treatises 2.135). At times, he claims, Locke presents this principle in rule-consequentialist terms: it is the principle we use to determine the more specific rights and duties that all have. At other times, Locke hints at a more Kantian justification that emphasizes the impropriety of treating our equals as if they were mere means to our ends. Waldron (2002) explores the opposite claim: that Locke’s theology actually provides a more solid basis for his premise of political equality than do contemporary secular approaches that tend to simply assert equality.

With respect to the specific content of natural law, Locke never provides a comprehensive statement of what it requires. In the Two Treatises , Locke frequently states that the fundamental law of nature is that as much as possible mankind is to be preserved. Simmons (1992) argues that in Two Treatises 2.6 Locke presents (1) a duty to preserve one’s self, (2) a duty to preserve others when self-preservation does not conflict, (3) a duty not to take away the life of another, and (4) a duty not to act in a way that “tends to destroy” others. Libertarian interpreters of Locke tend to downplay duties of type 1 and 2. Locke presents a more extensive list in his earlier, and unpublished in his lifetime, Essays on the Law of Nature . Interestingly, Locke here includes praise and honor of the deity as required by natural law as well as what we might call good character qualities.

Locke’s concept of the state of nature has been interpreted by commentators in a variety of ways. At first glance it seems quite simple. Locke writes “want [lack] of a common judge, with authority, puts all men in a state of nature” and again, “Men living together according to reason, without a common superior on earth, with authority to judge between them, is properly the state of nature.” ( Two Treatises 2.19) Many commentators have taken this as Locke’s definition, concluding that the state of nature exists wherever there is no legitimate political authority able to judge disputes and where people live according to the law of reason. On this account the state of nature is distinct from political society, where a legitimate government exists, and from a state of war where men fail to abide by the law of reason.

Simmons (1993) presents an important challenge to this view. Simmons points out that the above statement is worded as a sufficient rather than necessary condition. Two individuals might be able, in the state of nature, to authorize a third to settle disputes between them without leaving the state of nature, since the third party would not have, for example, the power to legislate for the public good. Simmons also claims that other interpretations often fail to account for the fact that there are some people who live in states with legitimate governments who are nonetheless in the state of nature: visiting aliens ( Two Treatises 2.9), children below the age of majority (2.15, 118), and those with a “defect” of reason (2.60). He claims that the state of nature is a relational concept describing a particular set of moral relations that exist between particular people, rather than a description of a particular geographical territory where there is no government with effective control. The state of nature is just the way of describing the moral rights and responsibilities that exist between people who have not consented to the adjudication of their disputes by the same legitimate government. The groups just mentioned either have not or cannot give consent, so they remain in the state of nature. Thus A may be in the state of nature with respect to B, but not with C.

Simmons’ account stands in sharp contrast to that of Strauss (1953). According to Strauss, Locke presents the state of nature as a factual description of what the earliest society is like, an account that when read closely reveals Locke’s departure from Christian teachings. State of nature theories, he and his followers argue, are contrary to the Biblical account in Genesis and evidence that Locke’s teaching is similar to that of Hobbes. As noted above, on the Straussian account Locke’s apparently Christian statements are only a façade designed to conceal his essentially anti-Christian views. According to Simmons, since the state of nature is a moral account, it is compatible with a wide variety of social accounts without contradiction. If we know only that a group of people are in a state of nature, we know only the rights and responsibilities they have toward one another; we know nothing about whether they are rich or poor, peaceful or warlike.

A complementary interpretation is made by John Dunn (1969) with respect to the relationship between Locke’s state of nature and his Christian beliefs. Dunn claimed that Locke’s state of nature is less an exercise in historical anthropology than a theological reflection on the condition of man. On Dunn’s interpretation, Locke’s state of nature thinking is an expression of his theological position, that man exists in a world created by God for God’s purposes but that governments are created by men in order to further those purposes.

Locke’s theory of the state of nature will thus be tied closely to his theory of natural law, since the latter defines the rights of persons and their status as free and equal persons. The stronger the grounds for accepting Locke’s characterization of people as free, equal, and independent, the more helpful the state of nature becomes as a device for representing people. Still, it is important to remember that none of these interpretations claims that Locke’s state of nature is only a thought experiment, in the way Kant and Rawls are normally thought to use the concept. Locke did not respond to the argument “where have there ever been people in such a state” by saying it did not matter since it was only a thought experiment. Instead, he argued that there are and have been people in the state of nature ( Two Treatises 2.14). It seems important to him that at least some governments have actually been formed in the way he suggests. How much it matters whether they have been or not will be discussed below under the topic of consent, since the central question is whether a good government can be legitimate even if it does not have the actual consent of the people who live under it; hypothetical contract and actual contract theories will tend to answer this question differently.

Locke’s treatment of property is generally thought to be among his most important contributions in political thought, but it is also one of the aspects of his thought that has been most heavily criticized. There are important debates over what exactly Locke was trying to accomplish with his theory. One interpretation, advanced by C.B. Macpherson (1962), sees Locke as a defender of unrestricted capitalist accumulation. On Macpherson’s interpretation, Locke is thought to have set three restrictions on the accumulation of property in the state of nature: (1) one may only appropriate as much as one can use before it spoils ( Two Treatises 2.31), (2) one must leave “enough and as good” for others (the sufficiency restriction) (2.27), and (3) one may (supposedly) only appropriate property through one’s own labor (2.27). Macpherson claims that as the argument progresses, each of these restrictions is transcended. The spoilage restriction ceases to be a meaningful restriction with the invention of money because value can be stored in a medium that does not decay (2.46–47). The sufficiency restriction is transcended because the creation of private property so increases productivity that even those who no longer have the opportunity to acquire land will have more opportunity to acquire what is necessary for life (2.37). According to Macpherson’s view, the “enough and as good” requirement is itself merely a derivative of a prior principle guaranteeing the opportunity to acquire, through labor, the necessities of life. The third restriction, Macpherson argues, was not one Locke actually held at all. Though Locke appears to suggest that one can only have property in what one has personally labored on when he makes labor the source of property rights, Locke clearly recognized that even in the state of nature, “the Turfs my Servant has cut” (2.28) can become my property. Locke, according to Macpherson, thus clearly recognized that labor can be alienated. As one would guess, Macpherson is critical of the “possessive individualism” that Locke’s theory of property represents. He argues that its coherence depends upon the assumption of differential rationality between capitalists and wage-laborers and on the division of society into distinct classes. Because Locke was bound by these constraints, we are to understand him as including only property owners as voting members of society.

Macpherson’s understanding of Locke has been criticized from several different directions. Alan Ryan (1965) argued that since property for Locke includes life and liberty as well as estate ( Two Treatises 2.87), even those without land could still be members of political society. The dispute between the two would then turn on whether Locke was using “property” in the more expansive sense in some of the crucial passages. James Tully (1980) attacked Macpherson’s interpretation by pointing out that the First Treatise specifically includes a duty of charity toward those who have no other means of subsistence (1.42). While this duty is consistent with requiring the poor to work for low wages, it does undermine the claim that those who have wealth have no social duties to others.

Tully also argued for a fundamental reinterpretation of Locke’s theory. Previous accounts had focused on the claim that since persons own their own labor, when they mix their labor with that which is unowned it becomes their property. Robert Nozick (1974) criticized this argument with his famous example of mixing tomato juice one rightfully owns with the sea. When we mix what we own with what we do not, why should we think we gain property instead of losing it? On Tully’s account, focus on the mixing metaphor misses Locke’s emphasis on what he calls the “workmanship model.” Locke believed that makers have property rights with respect to what they make just as God has property rights with respect to human beings because he is their maker. Human beings are created in the image of God and share with God, though to a much lesser extent, the ability to shape and mold the physical environment in accordance with a rational pattern or plan. Waldron (1988) has criticized this interpretation on the grounds that it would make the rights of human makers absolute in the same way that God’s right over his creation is absolute. Sreenivasan (1995) has defended Tully’s argument against Waldron’s response by claiming a distinction between creating and making. Only creating generates an absolute property right, and only God can create, but making is analogous to creating and creates an analogous, though weaker, right.

Another controversial aspect of Tully’s interpretation of Locke is his interpretation of the sufficiency condition and its implications. On his analysis, the sufficiency argument is crucial for Locke’s argument to be plausible. Since Locke begins with the assumption that the world is owned by all, individual property is only justified if it can be shown that no one is made worse off by the appropriation. In conditions where the good taken is not scarce, where there is much water or land available, an individual’s taking some portion of it does no harm to others. Where this condition is not met, those who are denied access to the good do have a legitimate objection to appropriation. According to Tully, Locke realized that as soon as land became scarce, previous rights acquired by labor no longer held since “enough and as good” was no longer available for others. Once land became scarce, property could only be legitimated by the creation of political society.

Waldron (1988) claims that, contrary to Macpherson (1962), Tully (1980), and others, Locke did not recognize a sufficiency condition at all. He notes that, strictly speaking, Locke makes sufficiency a sufficient rather than necessary condition when he says that labor generates a title to property “at least where there is enough, and as good left in common for others” ( Two Treatises 2.27). Waldron takes Locke to be making a descriptive statement, not a normative one, about the conditions that initially existed. Waldron also argues that in the text “enough and as good” is not presented as a restriction and is not grouped with other restrictions. Waldron thinks that the condition would lead Locke to the absurd conclusion that in circumstances of scarcity everyone must starve to death since no one would be able to obtain universal consent and any appropriation would make others worse off.

One of the strongest defenses of Tully’s position is presented by Sreenivasan (1995). He argues that Locke’s repetitious use of “enough and as good” indicates that the phrase is doing some real work in the argument. In particular, it is the only way Locke can be thought to have provided some solution to the fact that the consent of all is needed to justify appropriation in the state of nature. If others are not harmed, they have no grounds to object and can be thought to consent, whereas if they are harmed, it is implausible to think of them as consenting. Sreenivasan does depart from Tully in some important respects. He takes “enough and as good” to mean “enough and as good opportunity for securing one’s preservation,” not “enough and as good of the same commodity (such as land).” This has the advantage of making Locke’s account of property less radical since it does not claim that Locke thought the point of his theory was to show that all original property rights were invalid at the point where political communities were created. The disadvantage of this interpretation, as Sreenivasan admits, is that it saddles Locke with a flawed argument. Those who merely have the opportunity to labor for others at subsistence wages no longer have the liberty that individuals had before scarcity to benefit from the full surplus of value they create. Moreover, poor laborers no longer enjoy equality of access to the materials from which products can be made. Sreenivasan thinks that Locke’s theory is thus unable to solve the problem of how individuals can obtain individual property rights in what is initially owned by all people without consent.

Simmons (1992) presents a still different synthesis. He sides with Waldron (1988) and against Tully (1980) and Sreenivasan (1995) in rejecting the workmanship model. He claims that the references to “making” in chapter five of the Two Treatises are not making in the right sense of the word for the workmanship model to be correct. Locke thinks we have property in our own persons even though we do not make or create ourselves. Simmons claims that while Locke did believe that God had rights as creator, human beings have a different limited right as trustees , not as makers. Simmons bases this in part on his reading of two distinct arguments he takes Locke to make: the first justifies property based on God’s will and basic human needs, the second based on “mixing” labor. According to the former argument, at least some property rights can be justified by showing that a scheme allowing appropriation of property without consent has beneficial consequences for the preservation of mankind. This argument is overdetermined, according to Simmons, in that it can be interpreted either theologically or as a simple rule-consequentialist argument. With respect to the latter argument, Simmons takes labor not to be a substance that is literally “mixed” but rather as a purposive activity aimed at satisfying needs and conveniences of life. Like Sreenivasan, Simmons sees this as flowing from a prior right of people to secure their subsistence, but Simmons also adds a prior right to self-government. Labor can generate claims to private property because private property makes individuals more independent and able to direct their own actions. Simmons thinks Locke’s argument is ultimately flawed because he underestimated the extent to which wage labor would make the poor dependent on the rich, undermining self-government. He also joins the chorus of those who find Locke’s appeal to consent to the introduction of money inadequate to justify the very unequal property holdings that now exist.

Some authors have suggested that Locke may have had an additional concern in mind in writing the chapter on property. Tully (1993) and Barbara Arneil (1996) point out that Locke was interested in and involved in the affairs of the American colonies and that Locke’s theory of labor led to the convenient conclusion that the labor of Native Americans generated property rights only over the animals they caught, not the land on which they hunted which Locke regarded as vacant and available for the taking. David Armitage (2004) even argues that there is evidence that Locke was actively involved in revising the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina at the same time he was drafting the chapter on property for the Second Treatise . Mark Goldie (1983), however, cautions that we should not miss the fact that political events in England were still Locke’s primary focus in writing the Second Treatise .

A final question concerns the status of those property rights acquired in the state of nature after civil society has come into being. It seems clear that at the very least Locke allows taxation to take place by the consent of the majority rather than requiring unanimous consent (2.140). Nozick (1974) takes Locke to be a libertarian, with the government having no right to take property to use for the common good without the consent of the property owner. On his interpretation, the majority may only tax at the rate needed to allow the government to successfully protect property rights. At the other extreme, Tully (1980) thinks that, by the time government is formed, land is already scarce and so the initial holdings of the state of nature are no longer valid and thus are no constraint on governmental action. Waldron’s (1988) view is in between these, acknowledging that property rights are among the rights from the state of nature that continue to constrain the government, but seeing the legislature as having the power to interpret what natural law requires in this matter in a fairly substantial way.

The most direct reading of Locke’s political philosophy finds the concept of consent playing a central role. His analysis begins with individuals in a state of nature where they are not subject to a common legitimate authority with the power to legislate or adjudicate disputes. From this natural state of freedom and independence, Locke stresses individual consent as the mechanism by which political societies are created and individuals join those societies. While there are of course some general obligations and rights that all people have from the law of nature, special obligations come about only when we voluntarily undertake them. Locke clearly states that one can only become a full member of society by an act of express consent ( Two Treatises 2.122). The literature on Locke’s theory of consent tends to focus on how Locke does or does not successfully answer the following objection: few people have actually consented to their governments so no, or almost no, governments are actually legitimate. This conclusion is problematic since it is clearly contrary to Locke’s intention.

Locke’s most obvious solution to this problem is his doctrine of tacit consent. Simply by walking along the highways of a country a person gives tacit consent to the government and agrees to obey it while living in its territory. This, Locke thinks, explains why resident aliens have an obligation to obey the laws of the state where they reside, though only while they live there. Inheriting property creates an even stronger bond, since the original owner of the property permanently put the property under the jurisdiction of the commonwealth. Children, when they accept the property of their parents, consent to the jurisdiction of the commonwealth over that property ( Two Treatises 2.120). There is debate over whether the inheritance of property should be regarded as tacit or express consent. On one interpretation, by accepting the property, Locke thinks a person becomes a full member of society, which implies that he must regard this as an act of express consent. Grant (1987) suggests that Locke’s ideal would have been an explicit mechanism of society whereupon adults would give express consent and this would be a precondition of inheriting property. On the other interpretation, Locke recognized that people inheriting property did not in the process of doing so make any explicit declaration about their political obligation.

However this debate is resolved, there will be in any current or previously existing society many people who have never given express consent, and thus some version of tacit consent seems needed to explain how governments could still be legitimate. Simmons finds it difficult to see how merely walking on a street or inheriting land can be thought of as an example of a “deliberate, voluntary alienating of rights” (Simmons 1993, 69). It is one thing, he argues, for a person to consent by actions rather than words; it is quite another to claim a person has consented without being aware that they have done so. To require a person to leave behind all of their property and emigrate in order to avoid giving tacit consent is to create a situation where continued residence is not a free and voluntary choice. Simmons’ approach is to agree with Locke that real consent is necessary for political obligation but disagree about whether most people in fact have given that kind of consent. Simmons claims that Locke’s arguments push toward “philosophical anarchism,” the position that most people do not have a moral obligation to obey the government, even though Locke himself would not have made this claim.

Hannah Pitkin (1965) takes a very different approach. She claims that the logic of Locke’s argument makes consent far less important in practice than it might appear. Tacit consent is indeed a watering down of the concept of consent, but Locke can do this because the basic content of what governments are to be like is set by natural law and not by consent. If consent were truly foundational in Locke’s scheme, we would discover the legitimate powers of any given government by finding out what contract the original founders signed. Pitkin, however, thinks that for Locke the form and powers of government are determined by natural law. What really matters, therefore, is not previous acts of consent but the quality of the present government, whether it corresponds to what natural law requires. Locke does not think, for example, that walking the streets or inheriting property in a tyrannical regime means we have consented to that regime. It is thus the quality of the government, not acts of actual consent, that determine whether a government is legitimate. Simmons objects to this interpretation, saying that it fails to account for the many places where Locke does indeed say a person acquires political obligations only by his own consent.

John Dunn (1967) takes a still different approach. He claims that it is anachronistic to read into Locke a modern conception of what counts as “consent.” While modern theories do insist that consent is truly consent only if it is deliberate and voluntary, Locke’s concept of consent was far broader. For Locke, it was enough that people be “not unwilling.” Voluntary acquiescence, on Dunn’s interpretation, is all that is needed. As evidence Dunn can point to the fact that many of the instances of consent Locke uses, such as “consenting” to the use of money, make more sense on this broad interpretation. Simmons objects that this ignores the instances where Locke does talk about consent as a deliberate choice and that, in any case, it would only make Locke consistent at the price of making him unconvincing.

Recent scholarship has continued to probe these issues. Davis (2014) closely examines Locke’s terminology and argues that we must distinguish between political society and legitimate government. Only those who have expressly consented are members of political society, while the government exercises legitimate authority over various types of people who have not so consented. The government is supreme in some respects, but there is no sovereign. He also argues (2017) that one could give actual consent in Locke’s day by declaring one’s intent to cast a vote, rather than by voting for a particular candidate. The former is more plausibly interpreted as an act of affirmative consent to be a member of a political society. Registering to vote, as opposed to actually voting, would be a contemporary analogue. Van der Vossen (2015) makes a related argument, claiming that the initial consent of property owners is not the mechanism by which governments come to rule over a particular territory. Rather, Locke thinks that people (probably fathers initially) simply begin exercising political authority and people tacitly consent. This tacit consent is sufficient to justify a rudimentary state that rules over the consenters. Treaties between these governments would then fix the territorial borders. Hoff (2015) goes still further, arguing that we need not even think of specific acts of tacit consent (such as deciding not to emigrate) as necessary for generating political obligation. Instead, consent is implied if the government itself functions in ways that show it is answerable to the people.

A related question has to do with the extent of our obligation once consent has been given. The interpretive school influenced by Strauss emphasizes the primacy of preservation. Since the duties of natural law apply only when our preservation is not threatened ( Two Treatises 2.6), then our obligations cease in cases where our preservation is directly threatened. This has important implications if we consider a soldier who is being sent on a mission where death is extremely likely. Grant (1987) points out that Locke believes a soldier who deserts from such a mission (2.139) is justly sentenced to death. Grant takes Locke to be claiming not only that desertion laws are legitimate in the sense that they can be blamelessly enforced (something Hobbes would grant) but that they also imply a moral obligation on the part of the soldier to give up his life for the common good (something Hobbes would deny). According to Grant, Locke thinks that our acts of consent can, in fact, extend to cases where living up to our commitments will risk our lives. The decision to enter political society is a permanent one for precisely this reason: the society will have to be defended and if people can revoke their consent to help protect it when attacked, the act of consent made when entering political society would be pointless since the political community would fail at the very point where it is most needed. People make a calculated decision when they enter society, and the risk of dying in combat is part of that calculation. Grant also thinks Locke recognizes a duty based on reciprocity since others risk their lives as well.

Most of these approaches focus on Locke’s doctrine of consent as a solution to the problem of political obligation. A different approach asks what role consent plays in determining, here and now, the legitimate ends that governments can pursue. One part of this debate is captured by the debate between Seliger (1968) and Kendall (1959), the former viewing Locke as a constitutionalist and the latter viewing him as giving almost unlimited power to majorities. On the former interpretation, a constitution is created by the consent of the people as part of the creation of the commonwealth. On the latter interpretation, the people create a legislature which rules by majority vote. A third view, advanced by Tuckness (2002a), holds that Locke was flexible at this point and gave people considerable flexibility in constitutional drafting.

A second part of the debate focuses on ends rather than institutions. Locke states in the Two Treatises that the power of the Government is limited to the public good. It is a power “that hath no other end but preservation” and therefore cannot justify killing, enslaving, or plundering the citizens (2.135). Libertarians like Nozick (1974) read this as stating that governments exist only to protect people from infringements on their rights. An alternate interpretation, advanced by Tuckness (2002b, 2008a), draws attention to the fact that in the following sentences the formulation of natural law that Locke focuses on is a positive one, that “as much as possible” mankind is to be preserved. On this second reading, government is limited to fulfilling the purposes of natural law, but these include positive goals as well as negative rights. On this view, the power to promote the common good extends to actions designed to increase population, improve the military, strengthen the economy and infrastructure, and so on, provided these steps are indirectly useful to the goal of preserving the society. This would explain why Locke, in the Letter , describes government promotion of “arms, riches, and multitude of citizens” as the proper remedy for the danger of foreign attack ( Works 6: 42).

John Locke defined political power as “a right of making laws with penalties of death, and consequently all less Penalties” ( Two Treatises 2.3). Locke’s theory of punishment is thus central to his view of politics and part of what he considered innovative about his political philosophy. But he also referred to his account of punishment as a “very strange doctrine” (2.9), presumably because it ran against the assumption that only political sovereigns could punish. Locke believed that punishment requires that there be a law, and since the state of nature has the law of nature to govern it, it is permissible to describe one individual as “punishing” another in that state. Locke’s rationale is that since the fundamental law of nature is that mankind be preserved and since that law would “be in vain” with no human power to enforce it ( Two Treatises 2.7), it must, therefore, be legitimate for individuals to punish each other even before government exists. In arguing this, Locke was disagreeing with Samuel Pufendorf (1934). Samuel Pufendorf had argued strongly that the concept of punishment made no sense apart from an established positive legal structure.

Locke realized that the crucial objection to allowing people to act as judges with power to punish in the state of nature was that such people would end up being judges in their own cases. Locke readily admitted that this was a serious inconvenience and a primary reason for leaving the state of nature ( Two Treatises 2.13). Locke insisted on this point because it helped explain the transition into civil society. Locke thought that in the state of nature men had a liberty to engage in “innocent delights” (actions that are not a violation of any applicable laws), to seek their own preservation within the limits of natural law, and to punish violations of natural law. The power to seek one’s preservation is limited in civil society by the law, and the power to punish is transferred to the government ( Two Treatises 2.128–130). The power to punish in the state of nature is thus the foundation for the right of governments to use coercive force.

The situation becomes more complex, however, if we look at the principles which are to guide punishment. Rationales for punishment are often divided into those that are forward-looking and backward-looking. Forward-looking rationales include deterring crime, protecting society from dangerous persons, and rehabilitation of criminals. Backward-looking rationales normally focus on retribution, inflicting on the criminal harm comparable to the crime. Locke may seem to conflate these two rationales in passages like the following:

And thus in the state of nature, one Man comes by a power over another, but yet no absolute or arbitrary Power, to use a criminal when he has got him in his hands, according to the passionate heats, or boundless extravagancy of his own will, but only to retribute to him, so far as calm reason and conscience dictates, what is proportionate to his transgression, which is so much as may serve for reparation and restraint. For these two are the only reasons, why one man may lawfully do harm to another, which is that [which] we call punishment. ( Two Treatises 2.8)

Locke talks both of retribution and of punishing only for reparation and restraint. Simmons argues that this is evidence that Locke is combining both rationales for punishment in his theory. A survey of other seventeenth-century natural rights justifications for punishment, however, indicates that it was common to use words like “retribute” in theories that reject what we would today call retributive punishment (Tuckness 2010a). In the passage quoted above, Locke is saying that the proper amount of punishment is the amount that will provide restitution to injured parties, protect the public, and deter future crime. Locke’s attitude toward punishment in his other writings on toleration, education, and religion consistently follows this path toward justifying punishment on grounds other than retribution. Tuckness claims that Locke’s emphasis on restitution is interesting because restitution is backward looking in a sense (it seeks to restore an earlier state of affairs) but also forward looking in that it provides tangible benefits to those who receive the restitution. There is a link here between Locke’s understanding of natural punishment and his understanding of legitimate state punishment. Even in the state of nature, a primary justification for punishment is that it helps further the positive goal of preserving human life and human property. The emphasis on deterrence, public safety, and restitution in punishments administered by the government mirrors this emphasis.

A second puzzle regarding punishment is the permissibility of punishing internationally. Locke describes international relations as a state of nature, and so in principle, states should have the same power to punish breaches of the natural law in the international community that individuals have in the state of nature. This would legitimize, for example, punishment of individuals for war crimes or crimes against humanity even in cases where neither the laws of the particular state nor international law authorize punishment. Thus in World War II, even if “crimes of aggression” was not at the time recognized as a crime for which individual punishment was justified, if the actions violated the natural law principle that one should not deprive another of life, liberty, or property, the guilty parties could still be liable to criminal punishment. The most common interpretation has thus been that the power to punish internationally is symmetrical with the power to punish in the state of nature.

Tuckness (2008a), however, has argued that there is an asymmetry between the two cases because Locke also talks about states being limited in the goals that they can pursue. Locke often says that the power of the government is to be used for the protection of the rights of its own citizens, not for the rights of all people everywhere ( Two Treatises 1.92, 2.88, 2.95, 2.131, 2.147). Locke argues that in the state of nature a person is to use the power to punish to preserve his society, which is mankind as a whole. After states are formed, however, the power to punish is to be used for the benefit of his own particular society. In the state of nature, a person is not required to risk his life for another ( Two Treatises 2.6), and this presumably would also mean a person is not required to punish in the state of nature when attempting to punish would risk the life of the punisher. Locke may therefore be objecting to the idea that soldiers can be compelled to risk their lives for altruistic reasons. In the state of nature, a person could refuse to attempt to punish others if doing so would risk his life and so Locke reasons that individuals may not have consented to allow the state to risk their lives for altruistic punishment of international crimes.

Locke claims that legitimate government is based on the idea of separation of powers. First and foremost of these is the legislative power. Locke describes the legislative power as supreme ( Two Treatises 2.149) in having ultimate authority over “how the force for the commonwealth shall be employed” (2.143). The legislature is still bound by the law of nature and much of what it does is set down laws that further the goals of natural law and specify appropriate punishments for them (2.135). The executive power is then charged with enforcing the law as it is applied in specific cases. Interestingly, Locke’s third power is called the “federative power” and it consists of the right to act internationally according to the law of nature. Since countries are still in the state of nature with respect to each other, they must follow the dictates of natural law and can punish one another for violations of that law in order to protect the rights of their citizens.

The fact that Locke does not mention the judicial power as a separate power becomes clearer if we distinguish powers from institutions. Powers relate to functions. To have a power means that there is a function (such as making the laws or enforcing the laws) that one may legitimately perform. When Locke says that the legislative is supreme over the executive, he is not saying that parliament is supreme over the king. Locke is simply affirming that “what can give laws to another, must needs be superior to him” ( Two Treatises 2.150). Moreover, Locke thinks that it is possible for multiple institutions to share the same power; for example, the legislative power in his day was shared by the House of Commons, the House of Lords, and the King. Since all three needed to agree for something to become law, all three are part of the legislative power (1.151). He also thinks that the federative power and the executive power are normally placed in the hands of the executive, so it is possible for the same person to exercise more than one power (or function). There is, therefore, no one-to-one correspondence between powers and institutions (Tuckness 2002a).

Locke is not opposed to having distinct institutions called courts, but he does not see interpretation as a distinct function or power. For Locke, legislation is primarily about announcing a general rule stipulating what types of actions should receive what types of punishments. The executive power is the power to make the judgments necessary to apply those rules to specific cases and administer force as directed by the rule ( Two Treatises 2.88–89). Both of these actions involve interpretation. Locke states that positive laws “are only so far right, as they are founded on the law of nature, by which they are to be regulated and interpreted” (2.12). In other words, the executive must interpret the laws in light of its understanding of natural law. Similarly, legislation involves making the laws of nature more specific and determining how to apply them to particular circumstances (2.135) which also calls for interpreting natural law. Locke did not think of interpreting law as a distinct function because he thought it was a part of both the legislative and executive functions (Tuckness 2002a).

If we compare Locke’s formulation of separation of powers to the later ideas of Montesquieu (1989), we see that they are not so different as they may initially appear. Although Montesquieu gives the more well known division of legislative, executive, and judicial, as he explains what he means by these terms he reaffirms the superiority of the legislative power and describes the executive power as having to do with international affairs (Locke’s federative power) and the judicial power as concerned with the domestic execution of the laws (Locke’s executive power). It is more the terminology than the concepts that have changed. Locke considered arresting a person, trying a person, and punishing a person as all part of the function of executing the law rather than as a distinct function (Tuckness 2002a).

Locke believed that it was important that the legislative power contain an assembly of elected representatives, but as we have seen the legislative power could contain monarchical and aristocratic elements as well. Locke believed the people had the freedom to create “mixed” constitutions that utilize all of these. For that reason, Locke’s theory of separation of powers does not dictate one particular type of constitution and does not preclude unelected officials from having part of the legislative power. Locke was more concerned that the people have representatives with sufficient power to block attacks on their liberty and attempts to tax them without justification. This is important because Locke also affirms that the community remains the real supreme power throughout. The people retain the right to “remove or alter” the legislative power ( Two Treatises 2.149). This can happen for a variety of reasons. The entire society can be dissolved by a successful foreign invasion (2.211), but Locke is more interested in describing the occasions when the people take power back from the government to which they have entrusted it. If the rule of law is ignored, if the representatives of the people are prevented from assembling, if the mechanisms of election are altered without popular consent, or if the people are handed over to a foreign power, then they can take back their original authority and overthrow the government (2.212–17). They can also rebel if the government attempts to take away their rights (2.222). Locke thinks this is justifiable since oppressed people will likely rebel anyway, and those who are not oppressed will be unlikely to rebel. Moreover, the threat of possible rebellion makes tyranny less likely to start with (2.224–6). For all these reasons, while there are a variety of legitimate constitutional forms, the delegation of power under any constitution is understood to be conditional.

Locke’s understanding of separation of powers is complicated by the doctrine of prerogative. Prerogative is the right of the executive to act without explicit authorization for a law, or even contrary to the law, in order to better fulfill the laws that seek the preservation of human life. A king might, for example, order that a house be torn down in order to stop a fire from spreading throughout a city ( Two Treatises 2.159). Locke defines it more broadly as “the power of doing public good without a rule” (2.166). This poses a challenge to Locke’s doctrine of legislative supremacy. Locke handles this by explaining that the rationale for this power is that general rules cannot cover all possible cases and that inflexible adherence to the rules would be detrimental to the public good and that the legislature is not always in session to render a judgment (2.160). The relationship between the executive and the legislature depends on the specific constitution. If the chief executive has no part in the supreme legislative power, then the legislature could overrule the executive’s decisions based on prerogative when it reconvenes. If, however, the chief executive has a veto, the result would be a stalemate between them. Locke describes a similar stalemate in the case where the chief executive has the power to call parliament and can thus prevent it from meeting by refusing to call it into session. In such a case, Locke says, there is no judge on earth between them as to whether the executive has misused prerogative and both sides have the right to “appeal to heaven” in the same way that the people can appeal to heaven against a tyrannical government (2.168).

The concept of an “appeal to heaven” is an important concept in Locke’s thought. Locke assumes that people, when they leave the state of nature, create a government with some sort of constitution that specifies which entities are entitled to exercise which powers. Locke also assumes that these powers will be used to protect the rights of the people and to promote the public good. In cases where there is a dispute between the people and the government about whether the government is fulfilling its obligations, there is no higher human authority to which one can appeal. The only appeal left, for Locke, is the appeal to God. The “appeal to heaven,” therefore, involves taking up arms against your opponent and letting God judge who is in the right.

In Locke’s Letter Concerning Toleration , he develops several lines of argument that are intended to establish the proper spheres for religion and politics. His central claims are that government should not use force to try to bring people to the true religion and that religious societies are voluntary organizations that have no right to use coercive power over their own members or those outside their group. One recurring line of argument that Locke uses is explicitly religious. Locke argues that neither the example of Jesus nor the teaching of the New Testament gives any indication that force is a proper way to bring people to salvation. He also frequently points out what he takes to be clear evidence of hypocrisy, namely that those who are so quick to persecute others for small differences in worship or doctrine are relatively unconcerned with much more obvious moral sins that pose an even greater threat to their eternal state.

In addition to these and similar religious arguments, Locke gives three reasons that are more philosophical in nature for barring governments from using force to encourage people to adopt religious beliefs ( Works 6:10–12). First, he argues that the care of men’s souls has not been committed to the magistrate by either God or the consent of men. This argument resonates with the structure of argument used so often in the Two Treatises to establish the natural freedom and equality of mankind. There is no command in the Bible telling magistrates to bring people to the true faith, and people could not consent to such a goal for government because it is not possible for people, at will, to believe what the magistrate tells them to believe. Their beliefs are a function of what they think is true, not what they will. Locke’s second argument is that since the power of the government is only force, while true religion consists of genuine inward persuasion of the mind, force is incapable of bringing people to the true religion. Locke’s third argument is that even if the magistrate could change people’s minds, a situation where everyone accepted the magistrate’s religion would not bring more people to the true religion. Many of the magistrates of the world believe religions that are false.

Locke’s contemporary, Jonas Proast (1999a), responded by saying that Locke’s three arguments really amount to just two, that true faith cannot be forced and that we have no more reason to think that we are right than anyone else has. Proast argued that force can be helpful in bringing people to the truth “indirectly, and at a distance.” His idea was that although force cannot directly bring about a change of mind or heart, it can cause people to consider arguments that they would otherwise ignore or prevent them from hearing or reading things that would lead them astray. If force is indirectly useful in bringing people to the true faith, then Locke has not provided a persuasive argument. As for Locke’s argument about the harm of a magistrate whose religion is false using force to promote it, Proast claimed that this was irrelevant since there is a morally relevant difference between affirming that the magistrate may promote the religion he thinks true and affirming that he may promote the religion that actually is true. Proast thought that unless one was a complete skeptic, one must believe that the reasons for one’s own position are objectively better than those for other positions.

Jeremy Waldron (1993) restated the substance of Proast’s objection for a contemporary audience. He argued that, leaving aside Locke’s Christian arguments, his main position was that it was instrumentally irrational, from the perspective of the persecutor, to use force in matters of religion because force acts only on the will, and belief is not something that we change at will. Waldron pointed out that this argument blocks only one particular reason for persecution, not all reasons. Thus it would not stop someone who used religious persecution for some end other than religious conversion, such as preserving the peace. Even in cases where persecution does have a religious goal, Waldron agrees with Proast that force may be indirectly effective in changing people’s beliefs. Some of the current discussion about Locke’s contribution to contemporary political philosophy in the area of toleration centers on whether Locke has a good reply to these objections from Proast and Waldron. Tuckness (2008b) and Tate (2016) argue that Locke deemphasized the rationality argument in his later writings.

Some contemporary commentators try to rescue Locke’s argument by redefining the religious goal that the magistrate is presumed to seek. Susan Mendus (1989), for example, notes that successful brainwashing might cause a person to sincerely utter a set of beliefs, but that those beliefs might still not count as genuine. Beliefs induced by coercion might be similarly problematic. Paul Bou Habib (2003) argues that what Locke is really after is sincere inquiry and that Locke thinks inquiry undertaken only because of duress is necessarily insincere. These approaches thus try to save Locke’s argument by showing that force really is incapable of bringing about the desired religious goal.

Other commentators focus on Locke’s first argument about proper authority, and particularly on the idea that authorization must be by consent. David Wootton (1993) argues that even if force occasionally works at changing a person’s belief, it does not work often enough to make it rational for persons to consent to the government exercising that power. A person who has good reason to think he will not change his beliefs even when persecuted has good reason to prevent the persecution scenario from ever happening. Richard Vernon (1997) argues that we want not only to hold right beliefs, but also to hold them for the right reasons. Since the balance of reasons rather than the balance of force should determine our beliefs, we would not consent to a system in which irrelevant reasons for belief might influence us. Richard Tate (2016) argues that the strongest argument of Locke for toleration is rooted in the fact that we do not consent to giving government authority in this area, only the promotion of our secular interests, interests that Locke thought a policy of toleration would further.

Still other commentators focus on the third argument, that the magistrate might be wrong. Here the question is whether Locke’s argument is question-begging or not. The two most promising lines of argument are the following. Wootton (1993) argues that there are very good reasons, from the standpoint of a given individual, for thinking that governments will be wrong about which religion is true. Governments are motivated by the quest for power, not truth, and are unlikely to be good guides in religious matters. Since there are so many different religions held by rulers, if only one is true then likely my own ruler’s views are not true. Wootton thus takes Locke to be showing that it is irrational, from the perspective of the individual, to consent to government promotion of religion. A different interpretation of the third argument is presented by Tuckness. He argues that the likelihood that the magistrate may be wrong generates a principle of toleration based on what is rational from the perspective of a legislator, not the perspective of an individual citizen or ruler. Drawing on Locke’s later writings on toleration, he argues that Locke’s theory of natural law assumes that God, as author of natural law, takes into account the fallibility of those magistrates who will carry out the commands of natural law. If “use force to promote the true religion” were a command of natural law addressed to all magistrates, it would not promote the true religion in practice because so many magistrates wrongly believe that their religion is the true one. Tuckness claims that in Locke’s later writings on toleration he moved away from arguments based on what it is instrumentally rational for an individual to consent to. Instead, he emphasized human fallibility and the need for universal principles.

Locke’s epistemological positions in the Essay Concerning Human Understanding lead him to take education to be extremely important for his political philosophy. His attack on innate ideas increases the importance of giving children the right sort of education to help them get the right sorts of ideas. He also notes in the Essay that human beings govern themselves by a variety of different laws, the most practically efficacious of which is the “ Law of Opinion or Reputation .” ( Essay 2.28.10) Since people are often highly motivated to be well thought of by others, the moral standards that are operative within a society for allocating praise and blame are powerful and important. Ideally, these social norms will reinforce natural law and thus help stabilize political society. Locke’s educational writings suggest how children might be raised in such a way that they will be the sorts of citizens who function well in a liberal society (Tarcov 1984). Some think that Locke’s approach to education, which centers education within the family, gives the state too little influence over the formation of future citizens (Gutmann 1999), while others think Locke actually gives the state considerable power to regulate education (Tuckness 2010b).

Locke’s main educational writing is Some Thoughts Concerning Education , and it is based on letters of advice that Locke wrote to his friend Edward Clarke. This context means that the book assumes a person of relative wealth who will be overseeing the education of his son. The book was extremely popular and went through numerous editions in the century after its publication. One of the striking features of the book is the way parents are encouraged to develop and augment the child’s love for praise and esteem ( Some Thoughts , 56–62). Cultivating this desire helps the child learn to hold in check other harmful desires, such as the desire for dominion, and to learn to control impulses by not acting on them until after reflecting on them.

Some contemporary critics of Locke, inspired by Foucault, argue that Locke’s education is not a recipe for liberty but for forming children who will be compliant subjects of liberal regimes (Baltes 2016, Carrig 2001, Metha 1992). Locke encourages parents to tightly regulate the social environments of children to avoid children being corrupted by the wrong ideas and influences. Locke hopes for children who have internalized strong powers of self-denial and a work ethic that will make them compliant in an emerging modern economy. If parents are tightly controlling the child’s educational environment with the goal of producing a particular sort of child, and if in reality people are primarily guided by the repetitional norms that govern praise and blame, critics claim that this reveals the autonomous liberal subject to be, in reality, a guise for imposed conformity.

Defenders of Locke argue that this critique underestimates the orientation of Locke’s education toward meaningful freedom. There are reasons for thinking that, under normal circumstances, the law of nature and the law of reputation will coincide with each other, minimizing the potential harms that come from people following the law of reputation (Stuart-Buttle 2017). Locke’s education is designed to increase compliance with natural law (Brady 2013). Much depends on whether one thinks conformity with natural law decreases or increases freedom. While it is true that Locke recognizes the social nature of the Lockean subject, Locke does not think habituation and autonomy are necessarily opposed (Koganzon 2016, Nazar 2017). Because human beings naturally conform to the prevailing norms in their society, in the absence of a Lockean education people would not be more free because they would simply conform to those norms. Locke’s education is designed to give children the ability, when they are older, to evaluate critically, and possibly reject, prevailing norms. Locke also assumes that the isolation of early childhood will end and that adolescent children will normally think differently from their parents (Koganzon 2016). In fact, Locke may even use custom to help people rationally evaluate their customary prejudices (Grant 2012).

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How to cite this entry . Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society . Look up topics and thinkers related to this entry at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO). Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers , with links to its database.

The Works of John Locke , 1824 edition; several volumes, including the Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Two Treatises of Government, all four Letters on Toleration, and his writings on money.
John Locke’s Political Philosophy , entry by Alexander Moseley, in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
John Locke Bibliography , maintained by John Attig (Pennsylvania State University).
Images of Locke , at the National Portrait Gallery, Great Britain.

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The editors would like to thank Sally Ferguson for pointing out a number of typographical and other infelicitous errors in this entry.

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An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding is a work by John Locke concerning the foundation of human knowledge and understanding. It first appeared in 1689 (although dated 1690) with the printed title An Essay Concerning Humane 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.
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September 28th 2023. Awards. We are delighted to share the news that Hussain A and Bruno A-N were both selected as finalists in the 2023 John Locke Institute Global Essay Competition. Only the highest quality essays were shortlisted for a prize. The two boys were invited to Oxford to celebrate their achievement, and to participate in an ...
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It is a defining component of development, more important than historical similarities or differences. Locke justifies the state through tacit consent: the acceptance of state systems and benefits. High social cohesion measures citizens' acceptance of and willingness to work with one another and the state, thus embodying tacit consent.
John Locke
John Locke (b. 1632, d. 1704) was a British philosopher, Oxford academic and medical researcher. Locke's monumental An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689) is one of the first great defenses of modern empiricism and concerns itself with determining the limits of human understanding in respect to a wide spectrum of topics. It thus tells us in some detail what one can legitimately claim ...
John Locke's (1632-1704) Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689
6. John Locke's (1632-1704) Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689) As Locke admits, his Essay is something of a mess, from an editorial point of view. What follows are what I take to be some of the most important passages from the book, grouped under topical headings in an attempt to make a coherent and systematic whole.
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)
John Locke (1632-1704) was the author of A Letter Concerning Toleration (1689), An Essay concerning Human Understanding (1690), Two Treatises on Government (1690), and other works. Prior to the American Revolution, Locke was best known in America for his epistemological work. Contrary to the Cartesian view of innate ideas, Locke claimed that the human mind is a tabula rasa and that knowledge ...
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, work by the English philosopher John Locke, published in 1689, that presents an elaborate and sophisticated empiricist account of the nature, origins, and extent of human knowledge. The influence of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding was enormous,
Selected Works of John Locke An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
NOTE: This is a single-section Summary & Analysis of Essay Concering Human Understanding.SparkNotes also offers a full-length study guide of with 16 sections of Summary & Analysis and other useful features here.. John Locke's Essay Concering Human Understanding presents a detailed, systematic philosophy of mind and thought.The Essay wrestles with fundamental questions about how we think and ...
BHS students win honours in global essay competition
The contest was named for the English philosopher John Locke and asks students 18 and under to ponder questions such as why John Locke is considered the father of liberalism; why safety is more ...
Essay Concerning Human
Summary. Under the unassuming heading "Other Considerations Concerning Simple Ideas," Locke next introduces one of the most important topics in the entire Essay Concerning Human Understanding: the distinction between primary and secondary qualities.Locke tells us that there is a crucial difference between two kinds of simple ideas we receive from sensation.
Essay Concerning Human Understanding: Full Work Summary
A short summary of John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding. This free synopsis covers all the crucial plot points of Essay Concerning Human Understanding. ... Chapter 8 contains Locke's argument for a distinction between primary and secondary qualities. He attempts to show that there are two very different sorts of relations that can ...
The Cambridge Companion to Locke's "Essay Concerning Human
John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689) occupies a prominent position not only among the texts of early modern philosophy but of philosophy of all times. It is a philosophical landmark. ... Of particular interest is Atherton's persuasive defense of the interpretation according to which Locke's distinction between nominal and ...
约翰洛克报名激增至2.8倍，浑朴仍有5学员获High Distinction&Distinction奖项_同学_竞赛_学术
近期，2023约翰洛克论文竞赛（John Locke Essay Competition）最终结果公布。据其官网公布，2023共19100人注册报名，较去年相比激增至2.8倍。在难度升级的情况下，浑朴仍有1位学员获得High Distiction奖项，4位学员获得Distinction奖项。
BHS students earn distinction in international essay competition
BHS students Joy Ella Yammine and Sienna Spurling with their certificates of distinction awarded in the John Locke Institute's 2023 Global Essay competition (Photograph supplied)
Essay Concerning Human Understanding: Distinction Between ...
John Locke and Background on Essay Concerning Human Understanding ... Distinction Between Primary and Secondary Qualities. In Book 2 Locke distinguishes two very different relations that can hold between an idea and a quality out on the world. Our ideas of primary qualities (size, shape, and motion) resemble the qualities actually in the world ...
Eric Zhou: CGA's High Distinction Achiever at the John Locke Awards
Meet Eric Zhou, one of CGA's exceptional students, who proudly secured a High Distinction at the renowned John Locke Awards — an event that unfolded in the historic Sheldonian Theatre, a venue nearly 400 years old.In this interview, Eric shares his unique experience, insights, and inspiring moments from this prestigious event.. The John Locke Awards Ceremony was nothing short of extraordinary.
Essay Concerning Human
A summary of Book 4: Chapter 9-11: Knowledge of the Existence of Things in John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Learn exactly what happened in this chapter, scene, or section of Essay Concerning Human Understanding and what it means. Perfect for acing essays, tests, and quizzes, as well as for writing lesson plans.
Locke's Political Philosophy
John Locke (1632-1704) is among the most influential political philosophers of the modern period. In the Two Treatises of Government, he defended the claim that men are by nature free and equal against claims that God had made all people naturally subject to a monarch.He argued that people have rights, such as the right to life, liberty, and property, that have a foundation independent of ...
Essay Concerning Human
A summary of Book 2: Chapters 24-26: Ideas of Relation in John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Learn exactly what happened in this chapter, scene, or section of Essay Concerning Human Understanding and what it means. Perfect for acing essays, tests, and quizzes, as well as for writing lesson plans.

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