John Locke
John Locke FRS (; 29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704) was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of
Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "father of
liberalism". Considered one of the first of the British
empiricists, following the tradition of
Francis Bacon, Locke is equally important to
social contract theory. His work greatly affected the development of
epistemology and
political philosophy. His writings influenced
Voltaire and
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and many
Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, as well as the
American Revolutionaries. His contributions to
classical republicanism and
liberal theory are reflected in the
United States Declaration of Independence. Internationally, Locke's political-legal principles continue to have a profound influence on the theory and practice of limited representative government and the protection of basic rights and freedoms under the rule of law.
Locke's
theory of mind is often cited as the origin of modern conceptions of
''identity'' and the
''self'', figuring prominently in the work of later philosophers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau,
David Hume, and
Immanuel Kant.
He postulated that, at birth, the
mind was a blank slate, or ''
tabula rasa''. Contrary to
Cartesian philosophy based on pre-existing concepts, he maintained that we are born without
innate ideas, and that
knowledge is instead determined only by experience derived from
sense perception, a concept now known as ''
empiricism''.
Locke is often credited for describing
private property as a
Natural Law principle arguing that when a person mixes their labor with nature, the labor enters the object conferring
individual ownership.
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