Four Centuries Later, John Locke Still Has Us Thinking

It’s the 375th birthday of British philosopher John Locke, known to academics largely for his writings on empiricism, i.e., the doctrine that all knowledge is derived from our senses, that the external world makes an imprint on our minds via our five different sense perceptions.

But like so many other early philosophic concepts, this one has been discredited.  It was first attacked by Immanuel Kant about 100 years after Locke’s time, and then far more recently by modern science–both of which tell us that the human mind does not intuit reality as it actually exists, but imposes certain overall constructs by which we view and interpret the external world, at a minimum a one-dimensional and one-directional perception of time and a three-dimensional perception of space.

Perhaps more important to our world today, Locke wrote voluminously on the moral character of humankind and the proper role of government in our lives.  My personal favorite quote: “Wherever law ends, tyranny begins.”

Doesn’t that just grab you by the throat when taken in the context of present-day U.S. politics?

What happens when the U.S. president openly attacks the judiciary, impugning the integrity of a federal judge based on his Hispanic heritage, slandering an entire set of judges for standing against his ban on Muslims, firing the FBI Director for investigating him, not condemning the Nazis (nor the police standing around watching the Nazi’s bash in the heads of counter-protesters)….and now pardoning a common criminal, convicted of openly violating the Constitution and many of the laws based on it?

OK, what does happens?  Heck if I know; I guess we’ll see.  We’d all better hope that either the law can somehow be restored or that Locke was wrong.