Among the most influential writings in the history of Western political thought, John Locke'sTwo Treatises of GovernmentandA Letter Concerning Tolerationremain vital to political debates today, more ...than three centuries after they were written. The complete texts appear in this volume, accompanied by interpretive essays by three prominent Locke scholars.Ian Shapiro's introduction places Locke's political writings in historical and biographical context. John Dunn explores both the intellectual context in which Locke wrote theTwo Treatises of GovernmentandA Letter Concerning Tolerationand the major interpretive controversies surrounding their meaning. Ruth Grant offers a comprehensive discussion of Locke's views on women and the family, and Shapiro contributes an essay on the democratic elements of Locke's political theory. Taken together, the texts and essays in this volume offer invaluable insights into the history of ideas and the enduring influence of Locke's political thought.
Richard Ashcraft offers a new interpretation of the political thought of John Locke by viewing his ideas, especially those in the Two Treatises of Government, in the context of his political ...activity. Linking the implications of Locke's political theory with his practical politics, Professor Ashcraft focuses on Locke's involvement with the radical Whigs, who challenged the established order in England from the 1670s to the 1690s. An equally important aim of the author is to provide a case study of a revolutionary movement that includes a discussion of its organization, ideology, socio-economic composition, and political activities. Based upon a detailed examination of manuscripts, diaries, correspondence, and newspapers, Professor Ashcraft presents a wealth of new historical evidence on the political life of Restoration England. This study represents an example of an approach to political theory that stresses the importance of authorial intentions and of the political, social, and economic influences that structure a particular political debate.
John Locke's political theory has been the subject of many detailed treatments by philosophers and political scientists. But The Lockean Theory of Rights is the first systematic, full-length study of ...Locke's theory of rights and of its potential for making genuine contributions to contemporary debates about rights and their place in political philosophy. Given that the rights of persons are the central moral concept at work in Locke's and Lockean political philosophy, such a study is long overdue.
In Natural Rights and the New Republicanism, Michael Zuckert proposes a new view of the political philosophy that lay behind the founding of the United States. In a book that will interest political ...scientists, historians, and philosophers, Zuckert looks at the Whig or opposition tradition as it developed in England. He argues that there were, in fact, three opposition traditions: Protestant, Grotian, and Lockean. Before the English Civil War the opposition was inspired by the effort to find the "one true Protestant politics--an effort that was seen to be a failure by the end of the Interregnum period. The Restoration saw the emergence of the Whigs, who sought a way to ground politics free from the sectarian theological-scriptural conflicts of the previous period.
InAuthority Figures, Torrey Shanks uncovers the essential but largely unappreciated place of rhetoric in John Locke's political and philosophical thought. Locke's well-known hostility to rhetoric has ...obscured an important debt to figural and inventive language. Here, Shanks traces the close ties between rhetoric and experience as they form the basis for a theory and practice of judgment at the center of Locke's work. Rhetoric and experience come together, for Locke, to reorient readers' relation to the past in order to open up alternative political futures. Recognizing this debt sets the stage for a new understanding of theTwo Treatises of Government, in which the material and creative force of language is necessary for political critique.
Authority Figuresdraws together political theory and philosophy, the history of science and of rhetoric, and philosophy of language and literary theory to offer an interpretation of Locke's political thought that shows the ongoing importance of rhetoric for new modes of critique in the seventeenth century. Locke's thought offers up insights for rethinking the relationship of rhetoric and experience to political critique, as well as the intersections of language and materialism.
The aim of this book is twofold: to explain the reconciliation of religion and politics in the work of John Locke, and to explore the relevance of that reconciliation for politics in our own time. ...Confronted with deep social divisions over ultimate beliefs, Locke sought to unite society in a single liberal community. Reason could identify divine moral laws that would be acceptable to members of all cultural groups, thereby justifying the authority of government. Greg Forster demonstrates that Locke's theory is liberal and rational but also moral and religious, providing an alternative to the two extremes of religious fanaticism and moral relativism. This account of Locke's thought will appeal to specialists and advanced students across philosophy, political science and religious studies.
This book discusses Locke’s theory of property from both a critical and an interpretative standpoint. The author first develops a comprehensive interpretation of Locke’s argument for the legitimacy ...of private property, and then examines the extent to which the argument is really serviceable in defense of that institution. He contends that a purified version of Locke’s argument--one that adheres consistently to the logic of Locke’s text while excluding considerations extraneous to his logic--actually does establish the legitimacy of a form of private property. This version, which is both defensible in contemporary, secular terms and is, essentially, egalitarian, should provoke a reassessment of the nature of Locke’s relevance to contemporary discussions of distributive justice.
Locke on personal identity Strawson, Galen; Strawson, Galen
2011., 20140721, 2014, 2011-09-19, 2014-07-21
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John Locke's theory of personal identity underlies all modern discussion of the nature of persons and selves--yet it is widely thought to be wrong. In his new book, Galen Strawson argues that in fact ...it is Locke's critics who are wrong, and that the famous objections to his theory are invalid. Indeed, far from refuting Locke, they illustrate his fundamental point.
Albert Schweitzer wrote that, at Chalcedon, the “doctrine of the two natures dissolved the unity of the Person, and thereby cut off the last possibility of a return to the historical Jesus.” In this ...article, I argue that a likely cause of this pervasive perception of Chalcedon is the reflexive deployment by modern thinkers of a Lockean concept of personhood grounded in consciousness. I argue, by way of contrast, that Thomas Aquinas’s substantial account of personhood provides greater space for historical approaches to Jesus by protecting the finite integrity of Christ’s human nature and the unity of his personhood. I conclude by highlighting an implication of this discussion for the role of metaphysics in theological reflection.
