Major philosophical works. Pedagogical ideas of John Locke

John Locke was born on August 29, 1632 in a tiny cottage near the walls of the city church of Wrington, near Bristol, in the county of Somerset, into the family of John Locke and Agnes Kean. The son was named after his father. The father was a government lawyer and served in the Magistrates' Court in Chew Magna. At the beginning of the English Civil War, John Locke Sr. was a captain in the Parliamentary cavalry.

The boy was baptized immediately after birth. Following this, the Locke family moved to the market town of Pensford, and young Locke was brought up at the local Tudor residence in Bellewton. In 1647, John Jr. entered the prestigious Westminster School in London. His education is paid for by Alexander Popham, a member of Parliament and his father's former commander. After school, Locke entered Christ Church College, Oxford. However, not satisfied with the current curriculum, he enthusiastically studies the works of contemporary philosophers - such as Rene Descartes - and finds them much more interesting than the classical materials he was introduced to in college. A friend from the Westminster School, Richard Lower, introduced Locke to the world of medicine and experimental philosophy, the centers of which, at that time, in England were other universities and the English Royal Society, into which, a little later, Locke would enter. In 1656 he defended his bachelor's degree, and in 1658 - his master's degree. While studying at Oxford, Locke intensively studied medicine and worked with such outstanding scientists and thinkers as Robert Boyle, Thomas Willis, Robert Hook and Richard Lower, and in 1674 he became a bachelor medical sciences. In 1666, Locke met Lord Anthony Ashley Cooper, the first Earl of Shaftesbury. The views of the philosopher lord are amazing, and Locke subsequently works at his court.

Scientific activity

In 1667, Locke moved to the residence of the Earl of Shaftesbury on the Exeter estate in London, where he was appointed personal physician to Lord Ashley. He continues to study medicine under the guidance of Thomas Sydenham. It was Sydenham who had a decisive influence on the formation of Locke’s views on natural philosophy, which he sets out in his work “An Essay on Human Understanding.” The real test for Locke's accumulated medical knowledge is a fatal liver infection, seriously life-threatening Earl of Shaftesbury. After listening to the opinions of various experts, Locke tries with all his might to persuade the count to surgery to remove the tumor, which in those days was a very risky procedure. However, Earl Shaftesbury survives the operation successfully. From then on, a period of prosperity began in Locke's life. In 1671 he became Secretary of the Trade and Colonial Office and Secretary to the Lords Proprietors of North and South Carolina. With all his might, Locke strives to form his own vision of international trade and economics.

Earl Shaftesbury, founder of the Whig Party, has a huge influence on Locke's political views. In 1672, when Shaftesbury became Lord Chancellor of Great Britain, Locke became involved in the political life of the country. However, in 1675, Shaftesbury's rule fell, and therefore Locke would spend several years wandering around France, where he would give private lessons, and then become Caleb Banks' personal paramedic. In 1679 he returned to London. By that time, Earl Shaftesbury's career was on the rise again, and he convinced Locke to write the text of "Two Treatises of Government." From today's point of view, this work is a typical argument against absolute monarchy, as well as the basis for political legitimation labor agreement. His ideas about natural human rights and government will revolutionize the history of England.

In 1683, due to suspicions of participation in a conspiracy by representatives of the Whig party against King Charles II (the Rye House estate conspiracy), Locke had to flee to the Netherlands. There is practically no true evidence that he was one of the ideological masterminds of the conspiracy. The philosopher devotes most of his stay in the Netherlands to working on books: he rewrites his “Essay on Human Understanding” and compiles a “Letter on Tolerance.” He will return to his homeland only after the Glorious Revolution. In 1688, Locke accompanied the wife of William of Orange to England. Returning to his native lands, Locke published his works: “An Essay on Human Understanding”, “Two Treatises on Government” and “Letter on Tolerance”, among others. Locke lives with his close friend, Lady Masham, on her estate in Essex. By this time he becomes a true hero for the Whigs and often meets with such outstanding personalities as John Dryden and Isaac Newton.

Death

John Locke died on 28 October 1704 and was buried in the churchyard of High Lover, east of Harlow in Essex. In his entire life he was never married.

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LOCKE, JOHN(Locke, John) (1632–1704), English philosopher, sometimes called the "intellectual leader of the 18th century." and the first philosopher of the Enlightenment. His epistemology and social philosophy had a profound impact on cultural and social history, particularly on the development of the American Constitution. Locke was born on August 29, 1632 in Wrington (Somerset) into the family of a judicial official. Thanks to the victory of parliament in civil war, in which his father fought with the rank of cavalry captain, Locke was admitted at the age of 15 to Westminster School - at that time the leading educational institution in the country. The family adhered to Anglicanism, but were inclined to Puritan (Independent) views. At Westminster, royalist ideas found an energetic champion in Richard Buzby, who, through an oversight of parliamentary leaders, continued to run the school. In 1652 Locke entered Christ Church College, Oxford University. By the time of the Stuart restoration, his political views could be called right-wing monarchical and in many ways close to the views of Hobbes.

Locke was a diligent, if not brilliant, student. After receiving his master's degree in 1658, he was elected a “student” (i.e., research fellow) of the college, but soon became disillusioned with the Aristotelian philosophy that he was supposed to teach, began to practice medicine and helped in natural science experiments conducted at Oxford by R. Boyle and his students. However, he did not obtain any significant results, and when Locke returned from a trip to the Brandenburg court on a diplomatic mission, he was denied the sought-after degree of doctor of medicine. Then, at the age of 34, he met a man who influenced his entire subsequent life - Lord Ashley, later the first Earl of Shaftesbury, who was not yet the leader of the opposition. Shaftesbury was an advocate of liberty at a time when Locke still shared Hobbes's absolutist views, but by 1666 his position had changed and became closer to the views of his future patron. Shaftesbury and Locke saw kindred spirits in each other. A year later, Locke left Oxford and took the place of family physician, adviser and educator in the Shaftesbury family, who lived in London (among his pupils was Anthony Shaftesbury). After Locke operated on his patron, whose life was threatened by a suppurating cyst, Shaftesbury decided that Locke was too great to practice medicine alone, and took care of promoting his charge in other areas.

Under the roof of Shaftesbury's house, Locke found his true calling - he became a philosopher. Discussions with Shaftesbury and his friends (Anthony Ashley, Thomas Sydenham, David Thomas, Thomas Hodges, James Tyrrell) prompted Locke to write the first draft of his future masterpiece in his fourth year in London - Experiences about human understanding (). Sydenham introduced him to new methods clinical medicine. In 1668 Locke became a member of the Royal Society of London. Shaftesbury himself introduced him to the fields of politics and economics and gave him the opportunity to gain his first experience in public administration.

Shaftesbury's liberalism was quite materialistic. The great passion of his life was trade. He understood better than his contemporaries what kind of wealth - national and personal - could be obtained by freeing entrepreneurs from medieval extortions and taking a number of other bold steps. Religious tolerance allowed Dutch merchants to prosper, and Shaftesbury was convinced that if the English put an end to religious strife, they could create an empire not only superior to the Dutch, but equal in size to Rome. However, the great Catholic power France stood in the way of England, so he did not want to extend the principle of religious tolerance to the “papists,” as he called Catholics.

While Shaftesbury was interested in practical matters, Locke was busy developing the same political line in theory, justifying the philosophy of liberalism, which expressed the interests of nascent capitalism. In 1675–1679 he lived in France (Montpellier and Paris), where he studied, in particular, the ideas of Gassendi and his school, and also carried out a number of assignments for the Whigs. It turned out that Locke's theory was destined for a revolutionary future, since Charles II, and even more so his successor James II, turned to the traditional concept of monarchical rule to justify their policy of tolerance towards Catholicism and even its planting in England. After an unsuccessful attempt to rebel against the restoration regime, Shaftesbury eventually, after imprisonment in the Tower and subsequent acquittal by a London court, fled to Amsterdam, where he soon died. Having made an attempt to continue his teaching career at Oxford, Locke in 1683 followed his patron to Holland, where he lived from 1683–1689; in 1685, in the list of other refugees, he was named a traitor (participant in the Monmouth conspiracy) and was subject to extradition to the English government. Locke did not return to England until William of Orange's successful landing on the English coast in 1688 and the flight of James II. Returning to his homeland on the same ship with the future Queen Mary II, Locke published his work Two treatises on government (Two Treaties of Government, 1689, the year of publication in the book is 1690), outlining in it the theory of revolutionary liberalism. Having become a classic work in the history of political thought, this book also played a role important role, according to its author, in "vindicating the right of King William to be our ruler." In this book, Locke put forward the concept of the social contract, according to which the only true basis for the power of the sovereign is the consent of the people. If the ruler does not live up to the trust, people have the right and even the obligation to stop obeying him. In other words, people have the right to revolt. But how to decide when exactly a ruler stops serving the people? According to Locke, such a point occurs when a ruler passes from rule based on fixed principle to "fickle, uncertain, and arbitrary" rule. Most Englishmen were convinced that such a moment had come when James II began to pursue a pro-Catholic policy in 1688. Locke himself, along with Shaftesbury and his entourage, were convinced that this moment had already arrived under Charles II in 1682; it was then that the manuscript was created Two treatises.

Locke marked his return to England in 1689 with the publication of another work, similar in content to Treatises, namely the first Letters on Toleration (Letter for Tolerance, written mainly in 1685). He wrote the text in Latin ( Epistola de Tolerantia), in order to publish it in Holland, and by chance in English text there was a preface (written by the Unitarian translator William Pople), which declared that “absolute freedom ... is what we need.” Locke himself was not a supporter of absolute freedom. From his point of view, Catholics deserved persecution because they swore allegiance to a foreign ruler, the pope; atheists - because their oaths cannot be trusted. As for everyone else, the state must reserve for everyone the right to salvation in their own way. IN Letter on Tolerance Locke opposed the traditional view that secular power has the right to instill true faith and true morality. He wrote that force can only force people to pretend, but not to believe. And strengthening morality (in that it does not affect the security of the country and the preservation of peace) is the responsibility of the church, not the state.

Locke himself was a Christian and adhered to Anglicanism. But his personal creed was surprisingly brief and consisted of one single proposition: Christ is the Messiah. In ethics, he was a hedonist and believed that man's natural goal in life was happiness, and that the New Testament showed people the way to happiness in this life and the eternal life. Locke saw his task as warning people who seek happiness in short-term pleasures, for which they subsequently have to pay with suffering.

Returning to England during the Glorious Revolution, Locke initially intended to take up his post at Oxford University, from which he was dismissed on the orders of Charles II in 1684 after leaving for Holland. However, having discovered that the place had already been given to a certain young man, he abandoned this idea and devoted the remaining 15 years of his life to scientific research and public service. Locke soon discovered that he was famous, not because of his political writings, which were published anonymously, but as the author of a work Experience about human understanding(An Essay Concerning Human Understanding), which first saw the light of day in 1690, but began in 1671 and was mostly completed in 1686. Experience went through a number of editions during the author’s lifetime; the last fifth edition, containing corrections and additions, was published in 1706, after the death of the philosopher.

It is no exaggeration to say that Locke was the first modern thinker. His way of reasoning differed sharply from the thinking of medieval philosophers. The consciousness of medieval man was filled with thoughts about the otherworldly world. Locke's mind was distinguished by practicality, empiricism, this is the mind of an enterprising person, even a layman: “What is the use,” he asked, “of poetry?” He lacked the patience to understand the intricacies of the Christian religion. He did not believe in miracles and was disgusted by mysticism. I did not believe people to whom saints appeared, as well as those who constantly thought about heaven and hell. Locke believed that a person should fulfill his duties in the world in which he lives. “Our lot,” he wrote, “is here, in this small place on Earth, and neither we nor our worries are destined to leave its boundaries.”

Locke was far from despising London society, in which he moved thanks to the success of his writings, but he was unable to endure the stuffiness of the city. He suffered from asthma most of his life, and after sixty he suspected that he was suffering from consumption. In 1691 he accepted an offer to settle in a country house in Ots (Essex) - an invitation from Lady Masham, the wife of a member of Parliament and the daughter of the Cambridge Platonist Ralph Kedworth. However, Locke did not allow himself to completely relax in the cozy home atmosphere; in 1696 he became Commissioner for Trade and Colonies, which forced him to appear regularly in the capital. By that time he was intellectual leader Whigs, and many parliamentarians and statesmen They often turned to him for advice and requests. Locke participated in monetary reform and contributed to the repeal of laws that impeded freedom of the press. He was one of the founders of the Bank of England. At Otse, Locke was involved in raising Lady Masham's son and corresponded with Leibniz. There he was visited by I. Newton, with whom they discussed the letters of the Apostle Paul. However, his main occupation in this last period of his life was preparing for the publication of numerous works, the ideas of which he had previously nurtured. Among Locke's works are Second Letter on Toleration (A Second Letter Concerning Tolerance, 1690); Third Letter on Toleration (A Third Letter for Tolerance, 1692); Some thoughts on parenting (Some Thoughts Concerning Education, 1693); The reasonableness of Christianity as it is conveyed in Scripture (The Reasonability of Christianity, as Delivered in the Scriptures, 1695) and many others.

In 1700 Locke refused all positions and retired to Ots. Locke died at Lady Masham's house on October 28, 1704.

First, most general view, the task of studying the origin, reliability and scope of human knowledge was set by the English philosopher, a doctor by training and a politician by birth practical activities, John Locke (1632-1704).

D. Locke's main work, “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding,” on which he worked for almost 20 years, as well as many other works, played a major role in the development of materialist empiricism. Locke developed a sensualist theory of knowledge. The starting point of this theory was the thesis about the experimental origin of all human knowledge.

Locke considered the main obstacle on the path to knowledge to be the idealistic theory of innate knowledge created by Plato. According to this theory, our world is only a passive reflection of the supersensible world of ideas in which the human soul once lived. There she acquired a stock of knowledge. Once in the earthly shell, the soul must remember all knowledge - this is the task of knowledge. Denying the innateness of knowledge, Locke opposed the idealistic doctrine of the immaterial origin and essence of the soul and mind of man. Having rejected innate ideas, Locke also opposed the recognition of innate “practical principles”, moral rules. Every moral rule, he argued, requires a reason, proof. Without a basis in the practical activity of people and without a stable conviction in the mind, a moral rule can neither appear nor be in any way durable. About what innate practical principles of virtue, conscience, reverence for God, etc. there can be a conversation, Locke said, if there is not even a minimal agreement among people on all these issues. Many people and entire nations do not know God, are in a state of atheism, and among religiously minded people and nations there is no identical idea of God. Some people do with complete calm what others avoid. The idea of God is a human affair. There is no reason in nature, Locke argued, for the idea of God to arise in the mind under its influence. Man, left only to natural influences, does not and cannot know God. Man by nature is an atheist.

Locke was forced to defend himself against the charge of atheism, and in this defense he came to far-reaching conclusions. Attacking Locke's assumption about the possibility of the existence of thinking matter, theologians pointed out that he could not reveal and clearly imagine how matter thinks, what is the essence of the connection between thought and matter. Locke answered them: after Newton’s irrefutable proof of universal gravity inherent in matter, the creator of this theory himself admitted that he did not know the causes of gravity, apparently God gave matter such an ability. Why not assume that God gave some parts of matter the ability to think? Why is it not possible to assume that the mental powers of man are inherent in some part of matter?

Developing a sensualistic theory of knowledge, Locke distinguishes two types of experience, two sources of knowledge: external, consisting of a set of sensations, and internal, formed from observations of the mind over its internal activities. The source of external experience is the real world outside of us. Inner experience is “reflection,” the totality of the manifestation of all the diverse activities of the mind.

People are not born with ready-made ideas. The head of a newborn is a blank slate on which life draws its patterns - knowledge. If everything were not so, Locke argued, then knowledge would be known to all mankind and its content would be approximately the same for everyone. There is nothing in the mind that was not previously in sensation - this is Locke’s main thesis - The ability to think develops in the process of man’s cognition of the objective world. This is what external experience consists of. Internal experience (reflection) is the mind’s observation of its activity and the ways of its manifestation. However, in the interpretation of internal experience under the influence of rationalism, Locke still admits that the mind is inherent in a certain spontaneous force, independent of experience, that reflection, in addition to external experience, gives rise to ideas of existence, time, and number.

Rejecting innate ideas as extra-experimental and pre-experimental knowledge, Locke recognized the presence in the mind of certain inclinations or predispositions to one or another activity. This is the main contradiction in his philosophical system. Locke actually understood the second source as the work of thinking on sensations and ideas received from the outside, the comprehension of sensory material, as a result of which a number of new ideas actually arise. Both in content and in origin, the “second source” thereby became directly dependent on the first.

According to Locke, according to the methods of formation and formation of the entire idea, they are divided into simple and complex. Simple ideas contain monotonous ideas and perceptions and do not break down into any constituent elements. Simple ideas are all derived directly from the things themselves. Locke classifies as simple ideas the ideas of space, form, rest, motion, light, etc. According to their content, simple ideas, in turn, are divided into two groups. To the first group he includes ideas reflecting the primary or original qualities of external objects, which are completely inseparable from these objects, in whatever state they may be, and which our senses constantly find in every particle of matter, sufficient for the perception of volume. These are, for example, density, extension, shape, movement, rest. These qualities act upon the senses by an impulse, and give rise to us simple ideas of density, extension, form, motion, rest, or number. Locke argues that only the ideas of the primary qualities of bodies are similar to them and their prototypes actually exist in the bodies themselves, that is, the ideas of these qualities completely accurately reflect the objective properties of these bodies.

To the second group he includes ideas reflecting secondary qualities, which, in his opinion, are not found in the things themselves, but are forces that evoke in us various sensations with their primary qualities. (i.e. volume, shape, cohesion and movement of imperceptible particles of matter). Locke classifies as secondary qualities such qualities of things as color, sound, taste, etc. Thus, the manifestation of secondary qualities is associated by the English thinker not with the objective world itself, but with its perception in the human consciousness.

Complex ideas, according to Locke, are formed from simple ideas as a result of the initiative of the mind. Complex ideas are a collection, a sum, of simple ideas, each of which is a reflection of some individual quality of a thing. D. Locke identifies three main ways of forming complex ideas: combining several simple ideas into one complex idea; bringing together two ideas, no matter whether simple or complex, and comparing them with each other so as to observe them at once, but not combine them into one; the separation of ideas from all other ideas that accompany them in their real reality.

The mind creates complex ideas. The objective basis for the creation of the latter is the consciousness that outside of man there is something that connects into a single whole things that are separately perceived by sensory perception. In the limited accessibility to human knowledge of this objective existing connection things Locke saw the limitations of the mind's ability to penetrate the deep secrets of nature. However, he believes that the inability of the mind to obtain clear and distinct knowledge does not mean that a person is doomed to complete ignorance. A person’s task is to know what is important for his behavior, and such knowledge is quite accessible to him.

Locke identified three types of knowledge according to the degree of its obviousness: initial (sensual, immediate), giving knowledge of individual things; demonstrative knowledge through inference, for example through comparison and relation of concepts; the highest type is intuitive knowledge, that is, the direct assessment by the mind of the correspondence and inconsistency of ideas to each other.

The most reliable type of knowledge, according to Locke, is intuition. Intuitive knowledge is the clear and distinct perception of the agreement or inconsistency of two ideas through their direct comparison. Locke's demonstrative knowledge is in second place after intuition, in terms of reliability. In this type of cognition, the perception of the correspondence or inconsistency of two ideas is not accomplished directly, but indirectly, through a system of premises and conclusions. The third type of knowledge is sensual or sensitive knowledge. This type of cognition is limited to the perception of single objects outside world. In terms of its reliability, it stands at the lowest level of knowledge and does not achieve clarity and distinctness.

Thus, according to Locke's teaching, only ideal individual things exist. General ideas are the product of the abstracting activity of the mind. Words expressing the general are only signs of general ideas. Locke's conceptualism represents a seriously weakened medieval nominalism due to the strengthening of materialist tendencies. We have already said that Locke was a supporter of empiricism, but his empiricism was not simplistic. The theory of abstraction shows that Locke attached great importance to the rational form of knowledge. This rationalistic bias is clearly manifested in his doctrine of three types of knowledge: intuitive, demonstrative and experimental.

John Locke (1632-1704), English philosopher, founder of liberalism. In his “Essay on Human Understanding” (1689), he developed an empirical theory of knowledge. Rejecting the existence of innate ideas, he argued: all human knowledge stems from experience. He developed the doctrine of primary and secondary qualities and the theory of the formation of general ideas (abstractions). Locke's socio-political concept is based on natural law and the theory of social contract. In pedagogy, he proceeded from the decisive influence of the environment on education. Founder of associative psychology.

Milestones of life and creativity

He came from the family of a minor judicial official. Received philosophical and medical education at Oxford University. In the 60s, he experimented in the laboratory of the famous chemist Robert Boyle, and later became a teacher and doctor in the family of the first Earl of Shaftesbury, who at one time served as Lord Chancellor of England. The experience of educational activity formed the basis of Locke’s pedagogical theory, which was subsequently set forth in the treatise “Thoughts on Education” (1693). Together with Shaftesbury, he was in exile in France (where he became thoroughly acquainted with Cartesian philosophy) and in Holland (where he became close to William of Orange, who in 1688 became the English monarch as a result of the “glorious revolution”). Returning to his homeland in 1689, Locke enjoyed great honor and held a number of government positions, but devoted most of his time to philosophical creativity. He died at the home of Lady Mesham, daughter of the Cambridge Platonist Ralph Kedworth. He began writing his main work, “An Essay on Human Understanding,” in 1671 and published it only in 1689. In addition, he wrote “An Epistle on Tolerance” (1689), “Two Treatises on Government” (1690), and “The Reasonability of Christianity” ( 1695) etc.

Socio-political views

Locke is considered the father of Western liberalism, the theorist of constitutional monarchy and the separation of powers into legislative, executive (including judicial) and federal (external relations), which are in a state of dynamic equilibrium in a properly structured state. Unlike Thomas Hobbes, who interpreted " natural state“Society as a “war of all against all,” Locke considered such a state of freedom and equality of people living by their own labor. However, he believed that the main natural right of people - the right to property - should be secured with the help of reasonable laws in order to prevent the occurrence of conflicts. To achieve this, according to Locke, a political society is created through a social contract, forming a government responsible to the people.Locke was a strong opponent of theories of divine origin royal power. Elements of his political philosophy formed the basis of the ideology and practice of the American and French revolutions.

Origins and content of knowledge

Locke rejects the theory of innate ideas, in particular the facts of history and geography, and the doctrine of the innateness of the fundamental principles of morality and religion (including the idea of God). Locke shows that there is never universal agreement among people regarding “first principles” (even the basic laws of logic), while the self-evidence of some truths (for example, the truths of arithmetic) does not yet indicate their innateness.

The basis of all knowledge, according to Locke, are two types of sensory experience: external and internal. External objects, acting on the senses, give rise to “simple ideas”; the soul is passive, it is a “blank slate” on which experience writes its notes in the form of sensations or sensory images of things and their qualities. Inner experience is based on reflection on the soul’s own activity. The assumption of reflection as a special source of knowledge was considered by some of Locke's successors in the 18th century. (for example, E. Condillac) as the main inconsistency of his sensualist theory.

Following R. Boyle, Locke develops the theory of primary and secondary qualities. By "quality" he means the power (or ability) of an object to evoke its idea in the mind. Primary qualities - density, extension, shape, movement, rest, volume, number - are “real essences”, properties objectively inherent in things; they are studied by exact sciences. Secondary qualities - colors, tastes, smells, sounds, temperature qualities - are "nominal essences"; the ideas they evoke have no direct resemblance to bodies. These qualities depend on the primary ones and are realized in the presence of a number of conditions (for example, to perceive the color of a certain object, this object itself with certain primary qualities, sufficient illumination of the room and the normal functioning of the human visual apparatus are necessary).

Complicating the experience. The role of language and the problem of substance

Through associations, “simple ideas” of internal and external experience are combined into complex ones. This is how three types of complex ideas arise: ideas of substances, modes and relations (temporal, causal, identity and difference). In the formation of complex ideas, the soul, according to Locke, is active. Any "definite" idea must be associated with a sign. Words are sensory signs of ideas, necessary for communication and transmission of thoughts; in Locke's philosophy of language, ideas function as the meanings of words. Being a moderate nominalist, he believed that general terms (concepts) are signs of general ideas, “which have separate circumstances of place and time.” Locke's theory of the formation of abstractions was called “traditional” and was subsequently repeatedly criticized.

Locke was one of the first scientists in Western European philosophy to pose the problem of personal identity, distinguishing between the “identity of man” (the identity of continuously changing particles connecting with the same organism) and the “identity of personality” as a rational being endowed with self-consciousness (the latter comes closer in Locke with memory); in this sense, personality can be preserved even with a change in bodily substance.

Types of knowledge and degrees of certainty

Locke distinguished three types of knowledge according to the degree of their reliability: sensory knowledge of individual things; demonstrative (evidential), i.e. knowledge of the correspondence or inconsistency of ideas with each other, achieved indirectly (i.e. through reasoning, including syllogistic conclusions); intuitive, most reliable knowledge - the direct perception by the mind of the correspondence or inconsistency of several ideas. Locke's interpretation of intuition, however, is simplified; its result is trivial judgments such as “white is not black”, “three is greater than two”, “the whole is greater than the part”, etc.

Locke's philosophy had a strong influence on the subsequent development of the Anglo-Saxon philosophical tradition (including the development of analytical philosophy in the 20th century), on the formation of the ideas of the Western European Enlightenment, in particular, deism.

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Introduction
1. Biography of John Locke
Conclusion

Introduction

John Locke is a British educator and philosopher, a representative of empiricism and liberalism. Contributed to the spread of sensationalism.

His ideas had a huge influence on the development of epistemology and political philosophy. He is widely recognized as one of the most influential Enlightenment thinkers and theorists of liberalism.

Locke's letters influenced Voltaire and Rousseau, many Scottish Enlightenment thinkers and American revolutionaries. His influence is also reflected in the American Declaration of Independence.

Locke's theoretical constructions were also noted by later philosophers, such as D. Hume and. Kant. Locke was the first philosopher to express personality through the continuity of consciousness.

He also postulated that the mind is a “blank slate”, i.e. Contrary to Cartesian philosophy, Locke argued that human beings are born without innate ideas, and that knowledge is instead determined only by sensory experience.

If we try to characterize Locke as a thinker in the most general terms, then, first of all, we should say that he is a successor of the “line of Francis Bacon” in European philosophy of the late 17th - early 18th centuries. Moreover, he can rightfully be called the founder of “British empiricism”, the creator of the theories of natural law and social contract, the doctrine of the separation of powers, which are the cornerstones of modern liberalism. Locke stood at the origins of the labor theory of value, which he used to apologize for bourgeois society and prove the inviolability of private property rights. He was the first to proclaim that “property created by labor can outweigh the common ownership of land, since it is labor that creates differences in the value of all things.” Locke did a lot to defend and develop the principles of freedom of conscience and religious tolerance.

The purpose of the work is to study the life and work of the English philosopher John Locke.

Job objectives:

first, study the biography of John Locke;

secondly, consider the philosophical views of John Locke.

The structure of the work is determined by the purpose and tasks set and solved during the study. The work consists of an introduction, two chapters, a conclusion and a list of references.

1. Biography of John Locke

John Locke was born on August 29, 1632 at Wrington in Somerset in southwest England. He grew up in a left-wing Puritan family of a minor judicial official who sided with Parliament against King Charles I.

His childhood fell during the English bourgeois revolution; there was a struggle in the country, periodically turning into direct military clashes.

The bourgeoisie opposed the royal-feudal part of society; ideologically this was expressed by clashes between the religious views of the Puritans and the Anglican Church. The religious background was a consequence of general ideological illiteracy, but contributed to the involvement of a large number of people, mainly the peasantry, in the movement, which significantly influenced the victory of the army of Parliament and the establishment of the Republic in 1649.

Since 1951, Locke has been studying at Westminster Monastery School. Political events excited students, but teachers tried to protect students from new trends, including philosophical ones, as if they were filth.

In 1652, Locke graduated from Christ Church College, Oxford University. Later, Locke, as the best student, is transferred to the government account.

The university passed into the hands of the Puritans, but education in a scholastic manner continued to reign there. Locke was disillusioned with dogmatic philosophy, and the subsequent condemnation of academic culture was influenced by the musty atmosphere of the University, the religious intolerance of the Anglicans and the intolerance of the Independents that replaced it.

During the years of the restoration, Locke was self-determined in science; he refused to take holy orders, thereby closing his path to a university career, due to the university charter. At the same time, he taught Greek, rhetoric and ethics, but at the same time he was interested in natural sciences, in particular medicine, was engaged in various scientific experiments. Helped his friend, Robert Boyle, with experiments.

Upon returning to Oxford after a short diplomatic service at the Brandenburg court, he was again denied the degree of Doctor of Medicine and he became Lord Cooper's house physician and moved with him to London. In parallel with this, he continues his experiments and meets a supporter of the experimental method of research, Thomas Sydnam. Together they even created an unfinished work “On the Art of Medicine” (1668).

When Boyle moved to London, they continued joint experiments; Locke was elected to the British Academy of Sciences for his success in the natural sciences.

The Earl of Shaftesbury, whose mentor Locke was in the house of Cooper, approached the court of Charles II, but soon became opposed to the reformation due to the king's pro-French foreign policy and domestic policy aimed at recatholization. Entering the world of big politics, Locke became a close adviser to the leader of the opposition, Shaftesbury.

Gradually, Locke became interested in philosophical problems, leading debates about the origin of moral norms, the acceptability of religious dogmas for reason, and other similar topics. In parallel with this, he begins to compile notes on this topic, which two decades later formed into the main work of his life, “An Essay on Human Understanding,” which he was able to complete only in emigration.

In 1972, Locke traveled to France, and he also spent almost the entire second half of the 1970s there, carrying out political assignments from the Whigs, as well as discussing with French philosophers, discussing issues of religious tolerance, methods of deriving ontological assumptions, and much more. After meeting the Cartesians, Locke was finally convinced of the loss of signs of life in scholastic philosophy.

The incentive to continue the experiment was the acquaintance with the students of Gassendi, a materialist-sensualist; his ideas were familiar to Locke while studying at Oxford.

In 1979, Locke returns to London and finds himself in the thick of the political struggle, Shaftesbury is persecuted and this is reflected in Locke, he loses some posts, and surveillance is established on him. After being released from prison, Shaftesbury leaves for Amsterdam, where he soon dies.

After this, Locke takes part in the conspiracy, and after the failure of the conspirators, he continues his illegal underground activities. But later the opposition was crushed, repressions began and in 1983 Locke, having destroyed part of his personal archive that was dangerous to himself, fled to Holland

Holland was at that time the most capitalistically developed country and a center of political emigration. But in 84, by decree of Charles II, Locke was permanently dismissed from Oxford University, and the new king James II in 85 suppressed the remnants of the uprising and demanded that Holland hand over the conspirators. Locke had to rush around different cities, even hiding under a false name.

In Rotterdam, he became close to the Stadtholder of Holland, William III of Orange, as well as his entourage, opponents of the restoration regime.

At the same time, in 1986, Locke finally completed his Essay on Human Understanding.

The reactionary actions of Jacob II caused strong indignation and almost all those on whom he could count turned away from him. Most of the ruling classes relied on William of Orange, and on November 5, 1988, he landed in England with a 15,000-strong army. On December 18, he entered London, and on February 11, 1989, Locke returned to England.

Now the political situation in the country corresponded to Locke's beliefs, he became an active propagandist of this regime. Locke is also closely associated with John Somers, the Whig leader and Lord Chancellor of England (1696-1699).

Locke himself occupies considerable political posts, holds the post of Commissioner of Appeals as part of the new administration, and since 1996 has also held the post of Commissioner for Commerce for the Colonies.

He actively takes part in the political life of the country, influences the course of its affairs, and takes part in the establishment of the Bank of England.

A lung disease that developed during the years of emigration led to a loss of strength at the end of the century, and, accordingly, to even more actions for the benefit of England. In 1700 he resigned all posts and died on October 28, 1704.

2. Philosophical views of John Locke

John Locke is an English philosopher of modern times, whose works date back to the era of restoration in England, who went down in history primarily as the founder of the empiric-materialist theory of knowledge.

His works reflected big number features of that time: the clash of modern trends and medieval thinking, the transition to a capitalist society from a feudal one, the unification and rise to power of two political parties, the Whigs and the Tories, which led to the completion of the process of turning England into a powerful power.

Locke was a supporter of the bourgeoisie and social-class compromise, formed the basic principles of the doctrine of liberalism, contributed and did much to develop the principles and defense of freedom of conscience and religious tolerance (the most striking of the works on this topic is the “Epistle on Toleration” (1689)), which is especially relevant in the modern world.

In his thinking, Locke is based on the theory of knowledge (epistemology); he thinks systematically, in such a way that one follows from the other.

Locke can be classified as a representative of the Natural Science direction of materialism (along with such figures as Bacon and Spinoza), that is, based on specific sciences and knowledge.

Materialism is a philosophical movement that recognizes the primacy of matter and the secondary nature of consciousness.

The main works are:

"An Essay on Human Understanding" (1690), containing an explanation of an entire system of empirical philosophy, which denies the theory of innate ideas and expresses the idea that human knowledge is taken from felt experience.

“Two Treatises on Government” (1690), in which Locke expresses his philosophical, socio-political views, promotes the theory of the origin of property from labor, and state power from the social contract.

Locke laid the foundations for the ideology of the Enlightenment and had a strong influence on many thinkers, including Berkeley, Rousseau, Diderot and many others.

In An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Locke expresses compromise solutions to political and religious issues in the form of philosophical materialism. And the work “Elements of Natural Philosophy,” created in the last years of Locke’s life, shows the philosopher’s views on the structure of the world based on the ideas of Newton’s physics. This is natural philosophy (natural philosophy) and the word “God”, who provided for the laws of nature, is mentioned only once, and in the opposite way: “nature has provided for...”.

Locke considered the resolution of epistemological problems his most important task, but at the same time he did not reduce his entire philosophy to the theory of knowledge. His entire theory of knowledge ideologically borders on fundamental philosophical premises: sensations are not an invention of the imagination, but natural processes operating independently of us, but at the same time influencing us.

In the elements of natural philosophy, the influence exerted on Locke by Newton is noticeable, for this entire work is a reflection of Newton’s vision of the picture of the world, although the influence of Boyle and Gassendi and their atomism is also noticeable: Atoms move in the void according to the laws of unified mechanics, the question of the ether remains unfinished.

Locke was convinced that the Newtonian forces of gravity and inertia constituted a dynamic structure in the world, but he did not exclude the possibility of the presence of other, as yet unknown forces; rather, he was confident that they would be discovered in the future.

The main motive of all Locke's theoretical constructions is the existence of a physical, material world, divided into countless parts, elements and fragments, but united in its laws.

His second motive is that human well-being is impossible without putting the forces of nature at the service of people. “...If only the use of iron had stopped among us, in a few centuries we would have reached the level of poverty and ignorance of the natives of ancient America, whose natural abilities and wealth were in no way worse than those of the most prosperous and educated peoples.”

To master nature, it is necessary to know it, and for the possibility of knowledge it is necessary to know the nature and properties of the external world, as well as the properties and system of cognitive abilities of the person himself.

The problem of knowing the existence of the world that exists outside of us was divided by Locke into 4 questions:

1) Is there a diverse world of material objects?

2) What are the properties of these material objects?

3) Does material substance exist?

4) How does the concept of material substance arise in our thinking and can this concept be distinct and accurate?

The answer to the first question, according to Locke, can be considered positive; the answer to the second question can be obtained with the help of a specially conducted study. The answer to the 3rd question says that if there is a universal basis for things, then it must be material; matter in Locke’s thoughts carries within itself “the idea of a dense substance, which is the same everywhere.” If matter had no other properties, then the diversity of the empirical world turned out to be ephemeral, then it would be impossible to explain why those around us have different properties, hardness, strength, etc.

But we cannot finally admit that material substance is the only one, because Locke does not fully resolve the question of spiritual substance in his reasoning.

In the fourth question, the concept of material substance seems somewhat incomprehensible to Locke; in his opinion, there is certainly a transition from homogeneous matter to a diverse world, but the reverse option is unlikely. A skeptical attitude towards the “reverse process” can be associated with the fact that Locke associates it with the scholastic separation of the concept of substance from experience.

Locke considers philosophical substance to be a product of the thinking imagination.

The concept and judgments that carry knowledge and innate principles, or in other words, the doctrine of innate ideas in the 17th century. was the main idealistic concept of extra-empirical consciousness, as well as a “platform” for ideas about spiritual substance for storing innate ideas. This theory was shared by many philosophers of the time, although it had its roots in ancient times. The ideas of the 17th century coincided with the ancient statement about the immateriality of souls in connection with their divine origin.

Locke directed his criticism against the Cambridge followers of Plato (essentially the founder of the theory of innate ideas), the supporters of this idea from Oxford, and other adherents who relied on the medieval Neoplatonic tradition.

Thinkers insisted primarily on the innateness of moral principles, and Locke primarily criticized ethical nativism, but he did not ignore Descartes’ supporters with their epistemological nativism.

In all cases, Locke criticized idealism specifically.

Judgments about the innateness of knowledge of sensory qualities, the innateness of concepts, judgments and principles, Locke considers unfounded, as well as contrary to reason and experience, refutes the argumentation of the opposite side, based on the imaginary fact of the “general agreement” of people, the unstable evidence of the laws of logic and the axioms of mathematics, on the fragile hopes of discovering innate ideas in children isolated from society, whose minds are not clouded by external experience. In his criticism, Locke successfully and skillfully uses the reports of travelers, memoirs, as well as his knowledge of medicine, psychology and ethnography.

Locke decisively rejects the idea of nativists about the innateness of the ideas of God and his commandments; he classifies it as a complex idea and relatively late formed. He also emphasizes that this idea of \u200b\u200bspecial is beneficial to those who want to control people "in the name of the supreme ruler."

“To have the authority of a dictator of principles and a teacher of undeniable truths, and to compel others to accept as an innate principle everything that can serve the teacher’s purposes, is no small power of man over man.”

Locke philosopher empiricism liberalism

This statement by Locke most likely refers to the feudal lords and high priests who used nativism to promote ferocious intolerance.

While denying innate ideas, Locke did not reject innate needs, aspirations, affects, and behavioral characteristics. Modern science does not deny, these thoughts are called general concept- inherited structure of the nervous system.

The critique of the theory of innate ideas is the starting point for Locke's entire theory of knowledge and pedagogy, and it helped in further analysis of the emergence and development, boundaries and composition, structure and ways of testing knowledge.

In ethics for Locke, the denial of innate principles of morality played an important role: it helped to connect the concept of “good” with pleasure and benefit, and the concept of “evil” with harm and suffering, thus giving birth to the doctrine of “the natural law of morality” and natural law in its ethical interpretation.

Some discrepancy can be noticed in the relationship between the principles of morality and the requirements of reason. In Chapter 3 of “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding,” Locke gives many examples of peoples living in different places and conditions in which actions of a moral and anti-moral nature are considered different, or even completely opposite. European peoples mainly try to act in such a way as to look good in the eyes of others, while not always paying attention to “divine” laws or state laws. Then it turns out that the universal human mind uttering a solid moral framework is an illogical concept. This is most likely due to development philosophical views Locke and with political changes in the country.

Locke believed that all human knowledge comes from individual experience. This thesis was put forward by the Epicureans, and they already interpreted it sensually. Also earlier, Bacon, Gassendi and Hobbes directed their views in this direction, but they all looked “one-sidedly,” and Locke managed to comprehensively substantiate empiricism in terms of materialistic sensationalism. Locke sought to identify the essence of experience - origin, structure and development. He used the principle of generalizing combination put forward by Bacon. He also applied this principle to sensations and thereby revealed their interaction.

To understand sensory experience, Locke considered it both as a source of information about the world and as a means intended for the construction of science. Accordingly, it was necessary to stage targeted experiments and experiments, to reject false assumptions and conclusions. He distinguished between the erroneous interpretation of reason as the absolute original source of knowledge and its fruitful understanding as the initiator and organizer of cognitive and, accordingly, sensory activity. The first was rejected by him, and the second was accepted, supported and developed.

The anti-rationalistic principle of the immediate givenness of the elements of sensory experience, as well as the immediacy of establishing their truth, originates from Locke. He believes that each of the individual sensations is given to a person in the field of his sensory experiences as a kind of reality that is homogeneous in itself, inseparable into various components and stable in its quality.

According to Locke, experience is everything that affects a person’s consciousness and is acquired by him throughout his life. “All our knowledge is based on experience, and from it, in the end, it comes.” The initial part of all knowledge is sensations caused by the influences of the external world.

According to Locke, experience is smoothed out of ideas; the human mind “sees” ideas and directly perceives them. By idea, Locke means a separate sensation, the perception of an object, its sensory representation, including a figurative memory or fantasy, the concept of an object or its individual property. Among the ideas are acts - intellectual, emotional and volitional.

“If I sometimes speak of ideas as being in things themselves, this is to be understood in such a way that by them we mean those qualities in objects which give rise to ideas in us,” writes Locke.

By including various processes and functions of the human psyche in the category of ideas, he creates the prerequisites for separating this group of ideas into a special category. Ideas presupposing the presence of other ideas are formed and function on the basis of the fact that the mind within itself is aware of these latter, and, accordingly, cognizes them - for Locke, in many cases, the awareness of simple ideas is already their knowledge.

The philosopher divides experience into two groups: external experience and internal experience, or in other words, reflection, which can only exist on the basis of external (sensory) experience. Sensory perception of objects and phenomena around us and acting on us “is the first and simplest idea that we receive from reflection.”

To further study reflection, Locke considers it necessary to seriously analyze precisely simple, and therefore primary, ideas.

At the same time, he leaves open the question: which ideas are primary? One of the paragraphs of the “experience of human understanding” is even called: “which ideas are first is not clear.” There are also controversial issues regarding simple ideas, because the very idea of “simplicity” is not simple.

Thus, from the above material it is clear that J. Locke made a significant contribution to the development of philosophy and rightfully occupies an important place in it.

Conclusion

John Locke was born in Wrington in the family of a lawyer who at one time commanded a detachment in Cromwell's army. After graduating from Westminster School, he entered Oxford University, where he studied medicine. Already during his studies, Locke was interested in contemporary natural science and philosophy. After graduating from university, Locke becomes a teacher of Greek and rhetoric.

Locke's philosophical and political views were welcomed by his contemporaries. As is known, Locke was the “father” of the doctrine of liberalism. And the creators of the American Constitution were Lockeans. Locke's political and ethical ideas are set out in his works “Two Treatises on Government” (1690), “Letters Concerning Toleration” (1685-1692), and “Some Thoughts on Education” (1693). "Liberalis" means "free" in Latin. And at the heart of the ideology of liberalism is the idea of freedom of a private individual. For Locke, the subject of political will is an individual who is born with an initial “double right” - the right to personal freedom and to inherit and own property. Locke called the protection of the lives, freedoms and property of citizens the “preservation of property” and saw this as the main task of the state.

It was in the correspondence dispute between Locke and Hobbes that the theory of the social contract was clarified. It was at the instigation of D. Locke that the coexistence and interaction of private individuals as owners began to be called “civil society”, the interests of which are called upon to be protected by the “rule of law”. At the same time, the will of the people, which consists of the united owners, is expressed by the people’s representatives, and on modern language- deputies.

Liberal democracy is often called representative democracy. Essentially we are talking about the same thing. After all, the institution of popular representation is most adequate to the political slogans of liberalism. Civil society, which Locke described in “Two Treatises on Government,” is an urban community where the majority are small and medium-sized owners who, as a rule, live by their own labor, and in the case of exploitation of hired labor, having several workers.

Locke, who lived back in the 17th century, honestly stated that political power is aimed at resolving conflicts over property. But the question is whether the authorities are coping with these conflicts. For socio-political thought of the 19th-20th centuries, this is perhaps the main problem. At the same time, different thinkers will explain the same reality, namely order and stability in society, in different ways. For liberal-minded politicians and political scientists, following Locke, the state achieves order through the coordination and harmonization of the interests of citizens, called “consensus.” For politicians following J. - J. Rousseau and K. Marx, order hides contradictions driven inward by the power of the state.

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