How much do you know about John Locke?

John Locke: English Philosopher and Physician

• John Locke was an influential Enlightenment thinker and is known as the "father of liberalism."

• He was one of the first British empiricists and contributed greatly to epistemology and political philosophy.

• Locke's theory of mind defined identity and the self through a continuity of consciousness.

• He believed that at birth, the mind was a blank slate and that knowledge is determined only through experience derived from sense perception.

• Locke was born in Wrington, Somerset, and attended Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford.

• He was a capable student but found modern philosophers more interesting than the classical material taught at the university.

• Locke served as Secretary of the Board of Trade and Plantations and Secretary to the Lords Proprietors of Carolina, which helped shape his ideas on international trade and economics.

• Locke was involved in politics and composed the Two Treatises of Government, which argued against absolute monarchy and for individual consent as the basis of political legitimacy.

• His ideas about natural rights and government are reflected in the United States Declaration of Independence.

• Locke's influence on political philosophy and modern liberalism is profound, and he had a strong influence on Voltaire, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and other Founding Fathers of the United States.

• Locke's theory of association heavily influenced the subject matter of modern psychology.

• Locke formulated a classic reasoning for religious tolerance, influenced by Baptist theologians like John Smyth and Thomas Helwys. However, he participated in drafting the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina, which established a quasi-feudal aristocracy and gave Carolinian planters absolute power over their enslaved chattel property. Locke's positions on slavery have been described as hypocritical.Summary Title: John Locke's Contributions and Ideas

• John Locke believed in social contract theory and that human nature is characterized by reason and tolerance.

• He believed that property is a natural right derived from labor and that unused property is wasteful and an offense against nature.

• Locke's general theory of value and price is a supply-and-demand theory, and he believed that money is regulated by its quantity.

• Locke believed that silver and gold are the appropriate currency for international transactions and that a country should seek a favorable balance of trade.

• He believed that the mind is a tabula rasa shaped by experience and that education is essential in making a person.

• Locke was critical of Descartes's version of the dream argument, with Locke making the counter-argument that people cannot have physical pain in dreams as they do in waking life.

• Locke was initially a Calvinist trinitarian but later advocated Socinian views on tolerance and Christology.

• Locke's political thought was based on Protestant Christian views, and he derived the fundamental concepts of his political theory from biblical texts.

• Locke compared the English monarchy's rule over the British people to Adam's rule over Eve in Genesis, which was appointed by God.

• Locke's doctrine that governments need the consent of the governed is central to the Declaration of Independence.

• Locke was an assiduous book collector and notetaker throughout his life, and he amassed a library of more than 3,000 books, which was distributed after his death.

• Locke's contributions to philosophy, economics, and politics continue to be influential today.Locke's Library and Manuscripts at the Bodleian Library

• Paul Mellon discovered Locke's library in 1951, supplemented it with books from Locke's library which he bought privately, and transferred his collection to the Bodleian in 1978.

• Many of the books still contain Locke's signature and marginalia.

• Only half of the books in Locke's library were printed in England, while close to 40% came from France and the Netherlands, covering a wide range of subjects.

• The Bodleian library currently holds more than 800 of the books from Locke's library, including his copies of works by several of the most influential figures of the seventeenth century.

• The Bodleian also possesses more than 100 manuscripts related to Locke or written in his hand, including letters to and from acquaintances, early drafts of Locke's writings, and unpublished works.

• One of the largest categories of manuscript at the Bodleian comprises Locke's notebooks and commonplace books, which he organized according to topic.

• Locke's notes are often abbreviated and full of codes, which he used to reference material across notebooks.

• Locke personalized his notebooks by devising his own method of creating indexes using a grid system and Latin keywords.

• Some of the books in Locke's library at the Bodleian are a combination of manuscript and print, with some books interleaved to enable annotations.

• Locke interleaved and annotated his copy of Thomas Hyde's Bodleian Library catalogue, which he used to create a catalogue of his own library.

• Locke's library has been a valuable resource for scholars interested in Locke, his philosophy, practices for information management, and the history of the book.

• The Bodleian provides access to Locke's library and manuscripts to researchers and scholars.