John Locke was a British philosopher who is considered one of the founding fathers of the modern liberal tradition. He is best known for his work on human understanding, as well as his political philosophy. His ideas had a profound influence on many of the leading thinkers of the Enlightenment, including Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Immanuel Kant.
John Locke is generally credited as the founder of modern cognitive science, and his political philosophy was highly influential on the development of classical liberalism. Locke believed that all men are endowed with “natural rights,” such as life, liberty, and property. He also argued that governments should be based on the consent of the people they govern. These ideas were later used by American Founding Fathers such as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison to justify American independence from Britain. In fact, according to Jefferson himself: “God who gave us life gave us liberty.”
Through his own writings as well as those of other philosophers who followed him down similar paths (such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau), Locke’s ideas have had a profound impact on modern politics as well as economics.
