Two Treatises of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration
John Locke (1632-1704) was a product of his troubled times: he lived through the English Civil War, the Interregnum, the Restoration, Monmouth's Rebellion, the Bloody Assizes and the Glorious Revolution. His empirical thinking was very much directed at finding rational solutions to the root causes of those troubles. Considered the founder of English empiricism and a precursor of the Enlightenment, his ideas on religious toleration, human rights and limitations on governmental power may seem so normal to us now as to be common sense, so well have they been assimilated by the social psyche; but this was far from being the case when Locke proposed them.

The son of a Puritan family - his father fought as a captain of cavalry in the parliamentary army in the English Civil War - Locke was educated at Westminster school and then Oxford University, where he studied medicine and natural philosophy. He became the personal physician to the Earl of Shaftesbury, later the Lord Chancellor and founder of the Whig party.

It was probably at Shaftesbury's behest that he produced the Two Treatises Concerning Government. He began work on these in 1679, after travelling extensively in France. But in 1683 he fled to Holland following the failed Rye House Plot, in which he was suspected of having been involved by the authorities.

The Two Treatises would not be published until 1689, after the Glorious Revolution. The first treatise is essentially an in-depth critique of Robert Filmer's Patriarcha, a work which argued in favour of the divine right of kings and which was much referred to in the reign of Charles II, mainly by clerics preaching from the pulpit asserting the divine right in support of the monarch.

Locke systematically dismantles and invalidates every one of Filmer's assertions, dissecting his arguments one by one, invoking scriptural references in support of his counterarguments and disentangling and clarifying a host of ideas pertaining to the nature and origins of authority.

In the second treatise, which is the better known, much more influential and important work, Locke suggests a different account for the origins and nature of government, referring back to the Hobbesian notion of the state of nature postulating three basic natural rights: the right to life, to liberty and to property.

Section by section the philosopher examines his subject, lays out his thinking process and explains his conclusions, very different from Hobbes' ideas, articulating a series of beliefs and concepts now germane to government by liberal democracy: the separation of church and state, and of the legislative and executive powers, the doctrine of checks and balances and the labour theory of value being among them.

Locke's contention that populations had the justifiable right to overthrow tyrannical governments clearly influenced Thomas Jefferson and played an important part in the American Revolution and the setting up of the Republic. A Letter Concerning Toleration, here translated by William Popple, was originally written in Latin and focuses on the problems of religion and government advocating a philosophy of tolerance among Christians as the solution, albeit with certain qualifications. These seminal Locke works are read with brio by Leighton Pugh.
1116923912
Two Treatises of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration
John Locke (1632-1704) was a product of his troubled times: he lived through the English Civil War, the Interregnum, the Restoration, Monmouth's Rebellion, the Bloody Assizes and the Glorious Revolution. His empirical thinking was very much directed at finding rational solutions to the root causes of those troubles. Considered the founder of English empiricism and a precursor of the Enlightenment, his ideas on religious toleration, human rights and limitations on governmental power may seem so normal to us now as to be common sense, so well have they been assimilated by the social psyche; but this was far from being the case when Locke proposed them.

The son of a Puritan family - his father fought as a captain of cavalry in the parliamentary army in the English Civil War - Locke was educated at Westminster school and then Oxford University, where he studied medicine and natural philosophy. He became the personal physician to the Earl of Shaftesbury, later the Lord Chancellor and founder of the Whig party.

It was probably at Shaftesbury's behest that he produced the Two Treatises Concerning Government. He began work on these in 1679, after travelling extensively in France. But in 1683 he fled to Holland following the failed Rye House Plot, in which he was suspected of having been involved by the authorities.

The Two Treatises would not be published until 1689, after the Glorious Revolution. The first treatise is essentially an in-depth critique of Robert Filmer's Patriarcha, a work which argued in favour of the divine right of kings and which was much referred to in the reign of Charles II, mainly by clerics preaching from the pulpit asserting the divine right in support of the monarch.

Locke systematically dismantles and invalidates every one of Filmer's assertions, dissecting his arguments one by one, invoking scriptural references in support of his counterarguments and disentangling and clarifying a host of ideas pertaining to the nature and origins of authority.

In the second treatise, which is the better known, much more influential and important work, Locke suggests a different account for the origins and nature of government, referring back to the Hobbesian notion of the state of nature postulating three basic natural rights: the right to life, to liberty and to property.

Section by section the philosopher examines his subject, lays out his thinking process and explains his conclusions, very different from Hobbes' ideas, articulating a series of beliefs and concepts now germane to government by liberal democracy: the separation of church and state, and of the legislative and executive powers, the doctrine of checks and balances and the labour theory of value being among them.

Locke's contention that populations had the justifiable right to overthrow tyrannical governments clearly influenced Thomas Jefferson and played an important part in the American Revolution and the setting up of the Republic. A Letter Concerning Toleration, here translated by William Popple, was originally written in Latin and focuses on the problems of religion and government advocating a philosophy of tolerance among Christians as the solution, albeit with certain qualifications. These seminal Locke works are read with brio by Leighton Pugh.
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Two Treatises of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration

Two Treatises of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration

by John Locke

Narrated by Leighton Pugh

Unabridged — 12 hours, 50 minutes

Two Treatises of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration

Two Treatises of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration

by John Locke

Narrated by Leighton Pugh

Unabridged — 12 hours, 50 minutes

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Overview

John Locke (1632-1704) was a product of his troubled times: he lived through the English Civil War, the Interregnum, the Restoration, Monmouth's Rebellion, the Bloody Assizes and the Glorious Revolution. His empirical thinking was very much directed at finding rational solutions to the root causes of those troubles. Considered the founder of English empiricism and a precursor of the Enlightenment, his ideas on religious toleration, human rights and limitations on governmental power may seem so normal to us now as to be common sense, so well have they been assimilated by the social psyche; but this was far from being the case when Locke proposed them.

The son of a Puritan family - his father fought as a captain of cavalry in the parliamentary army in the English Civil War - Locke was educated at Westminster school and then Oxford University, where he studied medicine and natural philosophy. He became the personal physician to the Earl of Shaftesbury, later the Lord Chancellor and founder of the Whig party.

It was probably at Shaftesbury's behest that he produced the Two Treatises Concerning Government. He began work on these in 1679, after travelling extensively in France. But in 1683 he fled to Holland following the failed Rye House Plot, in which he was suspected of having been involved by the authorities.

The Two Treatises would not be published until 1689, after the Glorious Revolution. The first treatise is essentially an in-depth critique of Robert Filmer's Patriarcha, a work which argued in favour of the divine right of kings and which was much referred to in the reign of Charles II, mainly by clerics preaching from the pulpit asserting the divine right in support of the monarch.

Locke systematically dismantles and invalidates every one of Filmer's assertions, dissecting his arguments one by one, invoking scriptural references in support of his counterarguments and disentangling and clarifying a host of ideas pertaining to the nature and origins of authority.

In the second treatise, which is the better known, much more influential and important work, Locke suggests a different account for the origins and nature of government, referring back to the Hobbesian notion of the state of nature postulating three basic natural rights: the right to life, to liberty and to property.

Section by section the philosopher examines his subject, lays out his thinking process and explains his conclusions, very different from Hobbes' ideas, articulating a series of beliefs and concepts now germane to government by liberal democracy: the separation of church and state, and of the legislative and executive powers, the doctrine of checks and balances and the labour theory of value being among them.

Locke's contention that populations had the justifiable right to overthrow tyrannical governments clearly influenced Thomas Jefferson and played an important part in the American Revolution and the setting up of the Republic. A Letter Concerning Toleration, here translated by William Popple, was originally written in Latin and focuses on the problems of religion and government advocating a philosophy of tolerance among Christians as the solution, albeit with certain qualifications. These seminal Locke works are read with brio by Leighton Pugh.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"The new standard edition of Locke for students of political theory. Dunn, Grant, and Shapiro combine authoritative historical scholarship and contemporary political theory to give us Locke for our time."—Elisabeth H. Ellis, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Texas A&M University


"In criticisms of ‘liberalism’ over the past two decades, the political philosophy of John Locke has been denigrated as hopelessly old-fashioned, and even downright conservative. John Dunn, Ruth Grant, and especially, Ian Shapiro present Locke to us afresh. They recover precisely the progressively innovative, and even radically democratic quality of Lockean political thought."—John P. McCormick, University of Chicago


"An elegant edition of three of Locke’s works that have been too infrequently published together. The accompanying essays, with their additional secondary source references, and delightful index, make it all the more useful for both teaching and research."—Judith A. Swenson, Boston University


Product Details

BN ID: 2940159299857
Publisher: Ukemi Audiobooks from W. F. Howes Ltd
Publication date: 12/18/2019
Edition description: Unabridged
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