His political thought inspired and helped to justify the American Revolution and deeply influenced the American constitution, and his arguments in favor of human rights, political equality, and government by consent are now accepted worldwide.This comprehensive collection is the only student edition of Locke’s writings that includes, in addition to his pioneering political texts, selections from his ethical, epistemological, and religious writings. "Sources" includes writings by the major political theorists who influenced Locke, including Richard Hooker, Hugo Grotius, and Thomas Hobbes. Twenty-one "Interpretations" cover the major critical comments and controversies surrounding Locke’s political thought, including work by Leo Strauss, C. B. Macpherson, Alan Ryan, Ruth Grant, and Jeremy Waldron. A Selected Bibliography is also included.
Author
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. John Locke was an English philosopher. He is considered the first of the British Empiricists, but is equally important to social contract theory. His ideas had enormous influence on the development of epistemology and political philosophy, and he is widely regarded as one of the most influential Enlightenment thinkers and contributors to liberal theory. His writings influenced Voltaire and Rousseau, many Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, as well as the American revolutionaries. This influence is reflected in the American Declaration of Independence. Locke's theory of mind is often cited as the origin for modern conceptions of identity and "the self", figuring prominently in the later works of philosophers such as David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant. Locke was the first Western philosopher to define the self through a continuity of "consciousness." He also postulated that the mind was a "blank slate" or "tabula rasa"; that is, contrary to Cartesian or Christian philosophy, Locke maintained that people are born without innate ideas.
