John Locke (August 29, 1632-October 28, 1704) was an English philosopher. In epistemology, Locke has often been classified as a British Empiricist, along with David Hume and George Berkeley. He is equally important as a social contract theorist, as he developed an alternative to the Hobbesian state of nature and argued a government could only be legitimate if it received the consent of the governed through a social contract and protected the natural rights of life, liberty, and property. If such consent was not given, argued Locke, citizens had a right of rebellion.
Locke's ideas had an enormous influence on the development of political philosophy, and he is widely regarded as one of the most influential Enlightenment thinkers and contributors to liberal theory. His writings influenced both Voltaire and, along with those of many Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, the American revolutionaries as reflected in the American Declaration of Independence
2007-02-15
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