John Locke Facts
John Locke Facts
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| Interesting John Locke Facts: |
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| John Locke was born to a Puritan family in Wrington, England. |
| In 1647 he was sponsored to the Westminster School in London by MP Alexander Popham. |
| After graduation he attended Christ church, Oxford and he received his bachelor's degree in 1656 and a master's in 1658. |
| In 1667 he became the personal physician of Anthony Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury and when he persuaded the earl to undergo a dangerous operation that saved his life his reputation as a physician was greatly enhanced. |
| Shaftesbury was the founder of the Whig movement and had a great influence on Locke's political ideas and future. |
| Locke wrote Two Treatises of Government which were an argument against absolute monarchy and argued for consent of the governed as the basis of political legitimacy. |
| In 1683 he escaped to the Netherlands after being connected to the Rye House Plot. |
| He came into contact with Spinoza's arguments in favor of political and religious tolerance and the necessity for the separation of church and state. |
| Locke's Treatises were printed in America in 1773 in Boston and his ideas on liberty and the social contract were influential in the American Revolution and influenced the writings of Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. |
| The Declaration of Independence quotes one passage from the Second Treatise. |
| Locke's An Essay concerning Human Understanding was written in 1690 and has had a profound impact on psychology, education and our understanding of self. |
| He rejected the philosophies that viewed man at birth as inherently sinful or innately knowing in favor of the the tabula rasa, or empty mind theory stating that who we become is shaped by our experiences, sensations and reflections. |
| He continued this reasoning in Some Thoughts Concerning Education which expresses the idea that education makes us what we are. |
| Locke argued for an international monetary system based on gold and silver since their value is accepted by all countries but the value of paper money is only valid to the government which issues it. |
| His Letters Concerning Toleration (1689 to 1692) were written after the European wars of religion and argued that religious coercion leads to unrest and belief cannot be enforced by law. |
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