John Locke: philosophy and political theory

History of Western Philosophy: John Locke was a little confused at first by the way this section started with Filmer's arguments in favor of the monarchy, but once Russell started speaking about Locke I realized the benefit of first setting up the theories Locke was reacting to when developing his more democratic theory of government. It is amazing to me -- as Russell said it would be to the modern mind -- that someone could have reasoned the way Filmer does. His use of the Bible -- or actually, his very selective interpretation of the Bible -- reminds me of the current ongoing debate about teaching evolution vs. creationism or "intelligent design" in public schools. In both cases, arguments are built using what looks like sound logic, but at the bottom is a premise that is inherently illogical because it derives from faith -- that kings derive their authority via hereditary inheritance from Adam, on the one hand, and that God created everything -- including fossils -- just as they are today on the other. Once I fully understood Filmer's argument, I also understood why Russell needed to start with this explanation of what the thinking was before John Locke wrote his treatises on government. Locke's ideas have become so ingrained in our modern consciousness that they often appear as self-evident facts, and an explanation of his philosophy would have seemed needlessly elementary and even obvious had it not first been explained that thinking had previously developed along radically different lines.

This section also made it very clear to me in an almost tangible way that thought and philosophy des not happen in a vacuum -- it is always a product of the history that creates it. Often when studying philosophy, it feels as if the ideas helped to shape the world. To a very large degree, this is true, and Locke's ideas were used a century later in the founding of America and even to an extent in the French Revolution. This makes it abundantly clear that philosophical thought can have very real and practical applications and consequences. Russell makes it just as clear that historical realities can drastically affect the thoughts and philosophies of a given time. He points out that Filmer's essay had been written before Cromwell's victory over Charles I, and that the attitude towards government in general and the monarchy specifically had greatly changed. The way he describes the unique circumstance in England, too, especially in regards to the situation of religion, makes it clear that Locke's thoughts could really only have been possible in a given environment. This notion seems initially repugnant to me; if philosophy is logical, as it is purported or even required to be, then what is true in one situation ought to be just as true in another. What Russell seems to be suggesting in his description of how Locke's thoughts arose, however, is hat there is no such thing as eternal truth or even eternal or consistent logic -- that extrinsic realities will and do and even must affect internal reasoning.