Who did john locke influence

John Locke was born in in Wrington, Somerset, and raised in a Puritan household. He studied at Christ Church, Oxford, where he was drawn to the ideas of modern philosophy and science. He later became a physician, though he never formally practised. Locke fled to the Netherlands in due to political tensions, returning to England only after the Glorious Revolution of , which aligned with his ideas on constitutional government.

Upon his return to England, Locke became a major intellectual force, contributing to debates on politics, epistemology, and education. He engaged with some of the most prominent thinkers of the time, including Isaac Newton.

What did john locke do

His political philosophy, expressed in Two Treatises of Government , strongly influenced liberal thought, advocating for natural rights and government by consent. Locke rejected the idea of innate knowledge, arguing instead that the human mind is born as a tabula rasa blank slate , upon which experience writes. In An Essay Concerning Human Understanding , he argued that all knowledge originates in experience and can be divided into two sources:.

Locke maintained that even complex ideas—such as justice, God, or morality—are ultimately built from these simple experiences, combined by the mind. Locke argued that if ideas were truly innate, they would be universally present in all humans, including children and those unfamiliar with philosophy.