Jason Fitch, age 16, of Twin Falls, Ids., for his question:
WHO WAS JOHN LOCKE?
John Locke was an English philosopher. His writings have had tremendous influence on political science as well as on philosophy. His work strongly influenced Thomas Jefferson in writing the Declaration of Independence.
Locke was born in 1632 and attended Oxford University. He moved to The Netherlands where he met Prince William and Princess Mary of Orange. When William and Mary became the rulers of England in 1689, Locke returned to England as a court favorite.
Until his death in 1704 at the age of 72, Locke wrote widely on such subjects as education, reform, freedom of the press and religious tolerance.
Locke’s major work was “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding” in 1690. It tells his theory of how the mind functions in learning about the world.
The philosopher declared that there were two kinds of experience: outer and inner. Outer experience was acquired through the senses of sight, taste, hearing, smell and touch, which provide information about the external world. Inner experience was acquired through thinking about the mental processes involved in shifting these data, which furnish information about the mind.
According to Locke, a good life was a life of pleasure. Ethical action involved determining which act in a given situation would produce the greatest pleasure—and then performing that act.
Locke believed that God had established divine law. This law could be discovered by reason, and to disobey it was morally wrong. Locke thought that divine law and the pleasure principle were compatible.
Locke also believed that man by his nature had certain rights and duties. These rights included liberty, life and ownership of property.
By liberty, Locke meant political equity. The task of any state, he said, was to protect man’s rights. States inconvenience men in various ways. Therefore, the justification for a state’s existence had to be found in its ability to protect human rights better than individuals could on their own.
Locke declared that if a government did not adequately protect the rights of its citizens, they had the right to find other rulers. He believed that the people should decide who governs them.
The philosopher argued against the doctrine of innate ideas, which stated that ideas were part of the mind at birth and not learned or acquired later from outside sources. Locke claimed that all ideas were placed in the mind by experience.
Locke believed that the universe contained three kinds of things: minds, various types of bodies and God. Bodies had two kinds of properties. One kind was mathematically measurable, such as length and weight, and existed in the bodies themselves. The second kind was qualitative, such as sound and color. These properties were not in the bodies themselves but were simply powers that the bodies had to produce ideas of colors and sounds in the mind.