John Locke was born in Wrington in 1632. After graduating from Oxford in 1656, he stayed at the university and subsequently chose the profession of a physician. A fortunate confluence of circumstances allowed him to move to London in 1667 and become the personal physician and secretary of the Earl of Shaftesbury, a member of the government, the leader of the Whig party in parliament, which, in turn, opened up a wide field for Locke to work in the field of public service, to participate in politics and scientific activities – Locke became an active member of the Royal Society, the English Academy of Sciences. Shaftesbury’s transition to open opposition to the king and his subsequent death forced Locke to emigrate to Holland in 1683. In Holland, Locke completed work on his main philosophical work, “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding” and published it in England in 1690, after his return. At the same time, he anonymously published Two Treatises on Government, containing his political philosophy, and An Epistle on Toleration, which he had been working on in the preceding years. Later, he wrote Thoughts on Education (1693) and The Reasonableness of Christianity (1695). Locke died in 1704.
Theory of knowledge. Locke’s philosophical views represent the development of the empirical methodology of knowledge, based on nominalism and sensualism. The principle of empiricism separates human reason and being as an object of knowledge from each other, which makes the process of knowledge equally dependent on the activity of the mind and on the impact of reality on human senses. Reflecting on this principle of empiricism, Locke focuses on the content and activity of our mind, turning primarily to the immediate data of our consciousness. For him, these are what he calls ideas. An idea is “everything that is the object of human thought,” everything “with which the soul can be occupied during thinking” (1: 1, 95).
In turn, the ability to understand, which the English philosopher examines in his main work, turns out to be not just a generic feature of man, implanted in him by God, but is considered by Locke as the property of each person individually. This approach not only reinforces the initial limitation of human knowledge to the sphere of experience, but also makes the development of the ability to understand dependent on experience. “I see no reason, therefore, to believe that the soul thinks before the senses supply it with ideas for thinking” (1: 1, 166). Before this, our mind is an “empty cabinet” or “blank slate”, tabula rasa. Our soul does not think constantly, since thinking does not express the essence of the soul, but only the way it operates. Reason always acts within the framework of those conditions that are determined by experience. It is therefore no coincidence that Locke insists on recognizing the limitations of our knowledge in all respects and considers his task to be precisely to clarify how far the possibilities of human knowledge extend and where they end, so that a person does not waste his energy in vain on knowing what is impossible to know, but would turn to the study and improvement of human abilities.
The advantage of this approach is that each person gets the opportunity to independently manage the course of their cognitive activity and dispose of its results. Understanding as an attribute of an individual person assumes that our mind is independent of any circumstances external to it, with the exception of our experience. Locke makes an exception only for two things: intuitive knowledge of our own existence and rational comprehension of the existence of God; everything else must have its source in things external to reason. First of all, this concerns the content of our mind. This content consists of individual ideas, and these ideas are an attribute of a person’s individual experience. Locke categorically rejects ideas that would be an integral attribute of reason itself and would be, in this sense, innate ideas for each person. There are no innate ideas or innate moral principles that would endow all people equally with the same, pre-given knowledge and moral principles. None of the propositions which appear to our reason as self-evident or absolutely true, such as “the whole is greater than the part,” “what is, that is,” or “it is impossible for a thing to be and not to be at the same time,” are shared by all men without exception. These propositions are unknown to children, idiots, and the uneducated. It cannot be asserted that all men have the same and clear idea of identity or the idea of impossibility, which enter into the above propositions; and what is admitted to be innate cannot itself consist of non-innate ideas. There is no innate idea of God, and even universal assent to this idea would not prove its innateness. The fact that the mind arrives at these ideas subsequently does not prove their innateness, but just the opposite, according to Locke. What is considered innate only repeats the way in which all ideas generally come to our reason, i.e., through experience. There is no reason to speak of their innateness, especially since we have no criterion that would allow us to separate innate ideas from non-innate ones, and this forces us either to recognize the innateness of the entire content of our knowledge, or to reject the innateness of ideas. It is not necessary to turn to the aborigines of distant islands for an example to be convinced of the striking difference that exists between people in their knowledge and their concepts and ideas about the same God, or morality, or any other things. God has put in us only the desire for happiness, but our desire for good is our inclination, and not the result of moral principles innate in our minds. Otherwise, no theoretical or practical position would need proof, but would be shared in advance by all people. The idea of innateness is rather the result of human habituation to existing knowledge. The unity of human essence does not lie in the content of knowledge, but exclusively in free individual reason,which belongs to an adult, independent and enlightened person. “People must think and learn for themselves” (1: 1, 150).
Every adult rational person is endowed by Locke with the ability to independently acquire ideas as the content of his own mind. If not the mind itself, then the content of human consciousness becomes the private property of man to the extent that it is acquired individually and strictly by experience. Before something penetrates the human mind, it must pass through individual human experience. There is nothing in the mind that was not previously in the senses – such is the general postulate of empiricism and Lockean philosophy in particular. The next natural question that arises before the mind is how these ideas penetrate the human mind and how the role of sensations and other human faculties is expressed.
Locke accepts the realistic premise of the existence of some things outside of us. Since “there is an obvious difference between the ideas deposited in my memory… and those ideas which force themselves upon me, and which I cannot avoid. There must therefore be some external cause, and strong influence of things without us (which I cannot resist), which produces these ideas in my mind, whether I will it or no” (1: 2, 111). Only the latter ideas are accompanied by feelings of pain or pleasure, their reality is also confirmed by the combined evidence of various senses. Our sensations are the only basis for conclusions about the existence of things and other beings outside of us, but this is enough for our life. “Our faculties are not adapted to the whole sphere of being, nor to a perfect, clear, extensive knowledge of things, free from all doubt and hesitation, but to the preservation of ourselves, that is, of those who have them; “And they are adapted to the needs of life and serve our purposes well, if only they give us certain knowledge of those things which are suitable or unsuitable for us. He who sees a burning candle and has experienced the power of its flame by putting his finger into it will not doubt much that there is something outside him which causes him harm and severe pain. And such certainty is enough when no greater certainty is required for the direction of one’s own actions than the certainty of these actions themselves. And beyond this we have no business either with knowledge or with being. Such certainty in the existence of things outside us is enough to direct us to the attainment of the good and the avoidance of the evil which we have from things, and in this consists the great importance of our acquaintance with things” (1: 2, 113-114).
The separation of reason from the existence of other, material things presupposes the possibility of their unification in the course of their connection through the senses, which establishes in Locke’s philosophy the distinction between external and internal experience, familiar to us from our everyday ideas. External experience is acquired through the impact of external things on our sense organs and the various sensations that arise in us (“evidently by means of a shock – the only possible way for us to conceive of the effects of bodies” (1: 1, 185)). Internal experience arises in us through reflection on the activity of our soul. In both cases, we thus acquire simple ideas, as Locke calls them, which are caused in us by a direct impact on our soul. These simple ideas form, as it were, the raw material for the activity of our soul, which is then subjected to subsequent processing. Simple ideas are transformed into complex ones through their various combinations with each other under the influence of the activity of our mind. Thus, various types of complex ideas arise, for the emergence of which our mind itself is responsible, and, accordingly, their cognition is possible only with a low degree of reliability. This activity develops in three directions. According to Locke, we can connect different simple ideas with each other, forming complex ideas of substances, modes. We can also establish certain relations between ideas without connecting them into something unified – this is how ideas of relations arise. Finally, we can abstract from certain circumstances of place and time, abstract some ideas from others and create general and abstract ideas.
The division into external and internal experience also entails in Locke the traditional division into primary and secondary qualities of things. Among the qualities of things that we learn about through experience and their active influence on us, we must distinguish qualities that are directly responsible for the sensations that they cause in us, qualities of similarity, as Locke calls them, and those qualities that take on their specific form due to refraction in our soul or in our sensations. Locke includes form, extension, movement and rest, number, density among the primary qualities. He pays special attention to density, which creates the force that ensures that bodies act on our sense organs and through “animal spirits” and nerves brings sensation to the brain. Unlike primary qualities, secondary qualities such as color, sound, taste are felt only by one sense organ, whereas we can perceive form both with the eyes and by touch. They are evoked in us by the active movement of the smallest material particles, inaccessible to our senses, and therefore acquire a special form. The ideas of primary qualities are similar to the things themselves, but secondary ones are not.
Substances (e.g. man, sheep, lead) are such complex ideas as unite various simple ideas (shapes, colours, hardnesses) round one idea of substance, and the knowledge of which requires their correspondence to real, independent prototypes given in our experience, as opposed to complex ideas of modes (e.g. dozen, a compound of the simple ideas of one; beauty, a compound of the idea of admiration with some shape and colour), where only the connection and correspondence of ideas is required, and where the most varied combinations of ideas are possible, going beyond the data of experience. In the knowledge of ideas of modes we can attain a fair degree of clearness and precision, so far as they concern the relations and connection of the ideas themselves, as our mathematical knowledge shows (we have clear and distinct ideas of definite numbers, intervals of time and space, we can construct the idea of an infinitely lasting time and an infinitely expanding space, but we have no clear idea of an actual infinity or eternity), and, as Locke thinks, we may attempt to attain a similar clearness in regard to our moral ideas. The knowledge of the often obscure ideas of substances presents a special difficulty. Whereas in the field of knowledge of the existence of substances science is hardly possible, since this knowledge is based exclusively on experience. This “makes me suspect that the philosophy of nature cannot be made a science” (1:2, 124), and here scientists have a long and painstaking path of empirical, unreliable knowledge. Although Locke expresses doubts about the possibility of our having clear ideas of material or spiritual substance, he nevertheless does not intend to abandon the idea of substance itself. Substance is the idea of the joint existence of qualities “in an unknown substratum, which we have received the name of substance” (1:2, 60). Moreover, he does not question the distinction between material things, on the one hand, and spiritual activity, on the other, although he does not consider it possible to draw final conclusions about the existence of thinking matter or the ability of non-thinking matter to create something thinking. The intuitive certainty of our own spiritual existence is sufficient for Locke to ensure the unity of the process of cognition within each individual and at the same time to achieve general knowledge through ideas. Beyond this framework, Locke firmly proclaims the principles of nominalism. “General certainty is to be found only in our ideas. When we look for it elsewhere, in experience or observations outside ourselves, our knowledge goes no further than the individual. The consideration of our own abstract ideas alone is capable of giving us general knowledge” (1: 2, 69).
Common names are signs of common ideas, simple names of simple ideas. Words are made signs of ideas arbitrarily: “the use of words consists in their being sensible signs of ideas, and the ideas signified by them are their real and immediate signification. Words are sensible signs of the ideas of the man who uses them” (1: 1, 462). “In this respect, the learned and the ignorant, the learned and the unlearned, all use their words (with some meaning) in the same way. In the mouth of each man, words signify the ideas which he has and which he would like to express by them. Men suppose that their words are signs of ideas also in the minds of other men with whom they converse, for they would speak in vain and could not be understood, if the sounds which they use for one idea were used by the hearer for another, which is to speak two languages” (1: 1, 463). “Secondly, (words) are referred to real things. Wishing to be thought of as speaking not merely of something that is their imagination, but of things as they really exist, men often suppose that their words also denote real things” (1: 1, 464).
All general ideas are formed by excluding individual properties in things, therefore “the general and universal do not refer to the real existence of things, but are invented and created by the mind for its own use, and concern only signs – words or ideas” (1: 1, 471). “Knowledge is only the perception of the connexion and correspondence, or discrepancy and incompatibility of any of our ideas” (1: 2, 3). Locke distinguishes four types of correspondence and discrepancy: 1) identity or difference, 2) relation, i.e. the perception of the relationship between ideas, 3) joint existence or non-existence in the same object, 4) real existence corresponding to some idea. In general, our knowledge can exist in three types, according to Locke, or have three degrees of reliability: this is intuitive knowledge (direct, without other ideas) of our own existence, knowledge mediated by other ideas, using rational proofs, and sensory knowledge of the existence of individual things.
Thus, Locke’s theory of knowledge is a combination of a number of intuitively comprehensible principles, inherited by Locke in fact from earlier metaphysics, with the desire common to empirical philosophers to cleanse our minds of external impurities and to establish a purely analytical approach to the sphere of our given experience, and, as a result, it offers a number of distinctions on which it is built: external experience and internal experience, primary and secondary qualities, substances and relations, substances and forces. The compromise character of these views very soon made it possible to subject them to criticism both from the standpoint of rationalism, which was done by Leibniz, and from the standpoint of a more consistent empiricism, which was done by Berkeley and Hume. However, on the other side – the side of moral and political views, Locke’s philosophy turned out to be much more stable and gave impetus to a whole series of political concepts that had, without exaggeration, a huge influence on the course of European history: the creators of the American Declaration of Independence and the American Constitution actually quote Locke, speaking about the equality of all people and the recognition of their equal rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” To no lesser extent, Locke’s ideas determined the principles of democracy, later embodied during the Great French Revolution of the 18th century.
Political philosophy. State of nature. In his interpretation of the concept of the “state of nature” Locke significantly diverges from Hobbes. Complete freedom and equality of people in the state of nature due to natural equality is supplemented by the presence of a natural law, which operates and asserts natural rights to life, liberty, health and property. Being God’s creatures, we are all created equal, and no one has political rights or power over another, or the right to deprive himself or another of life. Reason reveals to us this natural law of equality and respect for the rights of others. “The state of nature has a law of nature, by which it is governed, and which is binding on every one; and reason, which is that law, teaches all men who will consider it, that since all men are equal and independent, so no one ought to injure the life, health, liberty, or property of another; for all men are created by one almighty and infinitely wise creator” (1:3, 264-265). Since the natural law is not established by the reason of each man, but only dictated to him, this law is not innate, but is known, like everything else, in the impressions of the senses. The power to establish and enforce the natural law rests with every man in the state of nature. He who seeks to subject another man entirely to his power enters into a state of war with him and can be killed, as does he who encroaches on the property of another, for he thereby limits his liberty. And everything that injures the natural liberty of another is tantamount to a declaration of war. Property in the state of nature is determined by what man’s labor has been applied to. “Nature has rightly established the measure of property in proportion to the extent of man’s labor and his conveniences of life” (1: 3, 281), but the invention of money has led to the fact that the volume of property has been able to increase without limit.
Unlike Hobbes, the state of nature is not necessarily and inevitably a state of war, war is an isolated case of the use of force without law, but individual clashes occur constantly and also lead to war. This situation, as well as the limitations that people experience in the state of nature (the absence of an established law, a common judge, and a force sufficient to successfully administer justice), requires human rationality to enter into an agreement and move to a social state. The consciousness of struggle, on the one hand, and the awareness of the unity of mankind by reason, on the other hand, ultimately leads people to agreement and the formation of state power. Political society arises as a result of the transfer of law into the hands of society in all cases where this does not interfere with the enjoyment of natural rights. Political power is the force that protects the property of each citizen and the state as a whole from external threats, for the sake of the public good. At the same time, the supreme power is retained by the people, and the government acts as a trustee receiving from the people the right to exercise political power. The power of the state exists within the framework that is necessary for the common good. According to Locke, this imposes a number of significant restrictions on state power. The government cannot deprive a person of property, cannot impose taxes without the consent of the majority of citizens. The government cannot contradict the laws of nature, cannot be absolute. It must be based on law and order.
Locke argues against Hobbes’s assertion of the absolute power of the sovereign. His argument is that the absolute power of the monarch preserves the relations of war or the absence of contractual relations, i.e. the state of nature, and therefore absolute monarchy cannot be considered a civil society. The inequality of the monarch is even worse than the equality in the state of nature, since there at least mutual punishment is possible. Therefore, Locke argues against absolute monarchy. This position applies in general to all officials in the state, who cannot place themselves above the people or the ordinary citizen by virtue of their official position. It is possible to resist officials if they act illegally and thereby declare war on others. Because of this, man “could neither enjoy safety nor peace, nor think himself to live in civil society, until the legislative power was placed in the hands of a collective body, which may be called a senate, or parliament” (1: 3, 316).
Freedom in a state of nature is based on the law of nature, in a social state on the law of the state. All civil laws have their most solid foundation in the law of nature. Agreement with others is a law of nature, for the world is one, as reason tells us. We are driven to this conclusion not by personal gain, which may conflict with the interests of others, but by morality, which is based on law, and from morality flows the benefit of peaceful life, and morality does not have as its basis the benefit of an individual.
To enter civil society, the individual’s own consent is necessary, then voluntary consent to obey the majority. Only in this way does the legitimate power of the state arise. Locke expresses the conviction that the state of nature preceded the existence of all state formations in early antiquity and that “every peaceful formation of a state has had the consent of the people as its basis” (1: 3, 328).
Birth does not make a person a subject. This requires his explicit or tacit consent to enter into civil society upon reaching the age of majority. “This consent is given severally by turns… and not all together; men do not perceive it, and think it does not happen at all, or that it is not necessary, and conclude that they are subjects by nature, just as they are men” (1:3, 330-331). Locke considers the acquisition and use of certain property by a person in a given state as tacit consent. It is important to note that once given consent obliges a citizen “to be and remain forever and unchangeably a subject of this commonwealth” and thus the subject “can never again enjoy the liberty of the state of nature” (1:3, 333) except in cases where the government itself violates the rights of the citizen or is destroyed by some cause.
Since already in the state of nature there is a power to establish and monitor the observance of the law, the right of punishment, which is assigned to every reasonable person, power in civil society must also be divided into executive and legislative, as well as federal, in charge of external relations with other states, questions of war and peace. In this matter, Locke also diverged from Hobbes, for whom the division of power meant its weakening and, therefore, was contrary to the goals of the state.
Supreme power, sovereignty always remains with the people, because the goal of any power is the people’s good. In the event of a violation of the state’s obligations or violation of rights, citizens have the right to rise up in rebellion against illegal and unjust power, despotic (absolute, unlimited power of one person over another), usurper (power taken away from the one to whom it belongs by right) or tyrannical (power existing without the law). Those citizens who rise up in rebellion against power without such a basis must be recognized as rebels and criminals.
The problem of tolerance in religion and morality. Everything that does not concern questions of public good, namely speculative opinions and faith in God (with the exception of the beliefs of Catholics, whose faith presupposes the participation of church authorities in civil affairs), is left to the discretion of the citizens themselves. There is no point in forcibly changing the opinions of individual citizens, for this only leads to the spread of hypocrisy. It is also reasonable for the state to show tolerance to those vices of its citizens that do not pose a threat to the common good and do not contradict the basic natural laws. The state is not obliged to punish all vices, for this is inappropriate. Thus, in Locke’s philosophy, morality is separated from law and a person receives greater freedom in choosing his behavior in his personal life.
Locke pays special attention to the issues of religious beliefs, which is naturally explained by the intensity of religious disputes in the era of the English Revolution. In his treatise on the rationality of Christianity, he advocates reducing the Anglican Christian faith to a reasonable form that all sects could accept. “Faith is nothing else than a firm assent of the mind; … it can only be given upon a rational basis, and therefore cannot be opposed to reason. He that believes without having grounds for faith, is carried away by his own fancies; but he does not seek the truth, as he is obliged to do, and does not fulfill the duty of obedience to his Creator, who desires that man should use his faculties of discernment” (1: 2, 168). His position on religious issues suggests the unsuitability of state coercion in matters of religion and salvation, which makes it reasonable to separate church from state and proclaim maximum religious tolerance. “The Catholics say that it is best for men… that there should be on earth an infallible judge in controversial matters, and therefore such a judge exists (referring to the Pope. – Yu. S.). I, for my part, on the same grounds, assert that it is best for men that each one himself should be infallible… And I do not doubt the possibility of showing that with the proper use of his natural faculties a man, without any innate principles, can attain to the knowledge of God and other things important to himself” (1: 1, 141). Thus, Locke’s theory of knowledge, which assigns a leading role to the independence of the mind of each individual, is in full accordance with his political philosophy, which grants the broadest rights to an adult, a full-grown person, in the exercise of his natural rights and freedoms, as well as with his religious views, which allow significant differences between people in matters of religion and require tolerance towards the views of others that differ from our own.
Literature
1. Locke J. Works: In 3 volumes. M., 1985-1988.
2. Locke J. Pedagogical works. Moscow, 1939.
3. The Works of John Locke. 10 vol. L., 1801.
4. Zaichenko G. A. John Locke. M., 1988.
5. Narsky I. S. Philosophy of John Locke. M., 1960.
6. Russell B. History of Western Philosophy. Rostov n / D., 1998. Pp. 684 – 731.
7. Sokolov V. V. Western European Philosophy of the 15th – 17th Centuries. Moscow, 1984. P. 402-426.
8. Philosophy of the era of early bourgeois revolutions. Moscow, 1983.
9.Ayers M . Locke: Epistemology and Ontology. 2 vol. L., 1991.
10. Dunn J. The Political Thought of John Locke. Cambridge, 1969.
11.Jolley N. Locke, His Philosophical Thought. Oxford, 1999.
12.Mackie J. Problems from Locke. Oxford, 1976.
13.Yolton J. John Locke and The Way of Ideas. Oxford, 1956.