John Locke (1632-1704): Father of Liberal Philosophy
Time and Place:
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Born in Wrington, United Kingdom on August 29th, 1632.
Active Career spans 1652-1704
Attended Oxford for three and a half years getting a B.A. studying logic and metaphysics and the
classical languages and received his degree in February of 1656.
Continued his career at Oxford pursuing an M.A. and qualified for his Masters in June of 1658.
Was elected a Lecturer of Rhetoric at the Christ Church in December of 1660.
Returned to Oxford in 1674 to receive a degree in Medicine and a license to practice Medicine.
Retired in Oates until his death on Sunday 28th, October 1704.
Cultural Influences:
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Grew up in a century in which conflicts between Crown and Parliament and the overlapping
conflicts between Protestants, Anglicans and Catholics swirled into civil war in the 1640s.
Born to Puritan parents with a lawyer as a father who served in a cavalry company on the Puritan
side in the early stages of the English civil war.
His father's commander, Alexander Popham, became the local MP, and it was his patronage
which allowed the young John Locke to gain an excellent education.
One of Locke's friends from Westminster school, Richard Lower, introduced Locke to medicine
and the experimental philosophy.
Studied under Robert Boyle and read up on René Descartes.
England, France, Holland
Found René Descartes a good alternative to Aristotle.
Major Contributions to Rhetoric
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Locke was an empiricist. He believed all knowledge and ideas came from sensory experience.
Locke believed that man should govern himself and that it was the government’s job to protect
the people who are under its laws. He also believed that if the government failed to serve the
people, those individuals are obligated to overthrow the government. His ideals heavily
influenced the groundwork for American government.
Locke wrote the Natural Rights Theory and the Two Treatises of Government.
Locke’s Essay described techniques that teachers should use to instruct their students and
criticized traditional scholastic techniques of instruction.
Objections to Traditional Rhetoric:
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Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding attacked the scholastic rhetoric that allegedly
helped the absolutist regime stay in power.
Locke criticized scholastic learning in Bilbiotheque Universelle et Historique
The traditional form of rhetoric created a culture of deceitful linguistic practices.
Proposal for a new Rhetoric
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Rhetoric should be based on a society of what may be termed “linguistic communism” where
everyone, regardless of sex, race, or nationality would be politically equal (Ennet 14).
Rhetoric, as an argument, must be clear and concise—not a tool with which to deceive people’s
comprehension with dark and clever syntax.
Locke v Descartes: Empiricism v Rationalism
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Locke studied under Descartes; however, they differed in their ideals on the origin of ideas and
knowledge.
Locke looked at knowledge from an Empiricist view:
o Locke aimed to put sensory experience at the foundation of all knowledge.
o Knowledge and ideas come from sensory experience.
o This ideal allowed Locke to have ideas of things that do not exist (i.e., the idea of a
Unicorn, which does not exist, comes from the having the sensory experience of a horse,
and the sensory experience of a red car is simply the sensory experience of the color red
and the idea of a car).
Descartes believed knowledge came from self-evident truths.
o His basic idea was that knowledge can only be attained if we start from notions that are
“clear and distinct”.
o He challenged Locke’s Empiricist idea by claiming we cannot trust our senses because:
 We can be deceived via our senses.
 We can have hallucinations.
 What we see and feel we can clearly recall feeling almost the exact same thing in
a dream (we could be dreaming and not really feeling or experiencing anything).
Descartes’s rationalist idea heavily influenced Locke’s idea of what rhetoric should be.
o Rhetoric should be based on what can be verified through senses or through general
knowledge accepted widely as truth.
Rhetoric vs The Dark Art of Language
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Locke calls rhetoric “the art of fallacy” and considers traditional rhetoric the most “powerful
instrument of error and deceit” (Prometheus 2008)
Locke criticized language as being a dark practice with which to fool the less conscious and over
thinkers via suspicious syntax and vague wordplay.
Rhetoric must accomplish the following:
o Make known one man’s thoughts or ideas to another.
o Do it with as much ease and quickness as possible.
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o Convey the knowledge of things.
Lock believed that any language that fails to meet the latter three standards is an abused or
deficient language.
Works Cited
“Locke - Nightfly.” Locke - Nightfly. N.p., 24 Nov. 2008. Web. 12 Feb. 2014.
Uzgalis, William. “John Locke.” Stanford University. Stanford University, 02 Sept. 2001. Web.
11 Feb. 2014.
Ennen & nyt”, Vol. 1: The Papers of the Nordic Conference on the History of Ideas, “Jean
Leclerc's and John Locke's Assault upon ‘False Rhetoric’, c. 1688-c. 1701”, Helsinki
2001
“That Powerful Instrument of Error and Deceit”: John Locke on the Dark, Spell-Casting Art of
Rhetoric—and What It Means for Us Today | Prometheus Unbound.”Prometheus
Unbound. N.p., 13 July 2008. Web. 12 Feb. 2014.
Further Reading
Locke, John. Two Treatises on Government. London: Printed for R. Butler, etc., 1821; Bartleby.com,
2010. www.bartleby.com/169/.
Locke, John. Natural Rights Theory. London: Printed for R. Butler
Locke, John (1997), Woolhouse, Roger, ed. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, New York:
Penguin Books.
Locke, John (1996), Grant, Ruth W; Tarcov, Nathan, eds., Some Thoughts Concerning Education and of
the Conduct of the Understanding, Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co.
Locke, John (2009), Two Treatises on Government: A Translation Into Modern English. ISBN 978-0906321-47-8
Locke, John. Second Treatise. Retrieved 1 September 2011.