| John Locke- A pioneers in modern thinking. (1632-1704) The English philosopher, who founded the school of
empiricism.
Empiricism: Empiricism emphasizes the importance of the experience of the senses in pursuit of knowledge rather than intuitive speculation or deduction. The empiricist doctrine was first expounded by the English philosopher and statesman Francis Bacon early in the 17th century, but Locke gave it systematic expression. Empiricists deal in the observable world, not in purely theoretical creations.They rely on everyday experience, scientific observation, and common sense. Empiricism contrasts with Rationalism. Rationalists like Descartes, Leibnitz, and Spinoza, place emphasis on using pure reason to obtain knowledge. Rationalists believe in intuition or theories of innate conceptions.. |
John Locke was born in Wrington, Somerset, on August 29, 1632. He was the son of a wealthy Puritan lawyer who fought for Cromwell in the English Civil War. He was educated at Westminster School and Oxford. Later, at the University of Oxford he lectured on Greek, rhetoric, and moral philosophy. His friends urged him to enter the Church of England, but he decided that he was not fitted for the calling. He had long been interested in meteorology and the experimental sciences, especially chemistry. He turned to medicine and became known as one of the most skilled practitioners of his day. He made great contributions in studies of politics, government, and psychology. Locke was always very interested in psychology. In 1670, friends urged him to write a paper on the limitations of human judgment. He started to write a few paragraphs, but 20 years passed before he finished. The result was his great and famous 'Essay Concerning Human Understanding'. In this work he stressed the theory that the mind of a person at birth as a tabula rasa, a blank slate upon which experience imprinted knowledge. The mind has no inborn ideas, as most men of the time believed. Throughout life it forms its ideas only from impressions (sense experiences) that are made upon its surface. This was to be known as Empiricism. Locke is remembered today largely as a political philosopher. He preached the doctrine that men naturally possess certain large rights, the chief being life, liberty, and property. Rulers, he said, derived their power only from the consent of the people. He thought that government should be like a contract between the rulers and his subjects: The people give up certain of their rights in return for just rule, and the ruler should hold his power only so long as he uses it justly. Locke further held that revolution was not only a right but often an obligation, and he advocated a system of checks and balances in government, which was to comprise three branches, of which the legislative is more powerful than the executive or the judicial. He also believed in religious freedom and in the separation of church and state. These ideas had a tremendous effect on all future political thinking. The American Declaration of Independence clearly reflects Locke's teachings. During his later years he turned more and more to writing about religion. One of his later works was, 'The Reasonableness of Christianity' (1695). King William III, appointed Locke to the Board of Trade in 1696, a position from which he resigned because of ill health in 1700. He died in Oates, Essex, on October 28, 1704.
Sources: Compton’s Interactive
Encyclopedia |
