John Locke
1632-1704 · British Empiricism · Household name
Locke was an English empiricist who denied that anyone is born knowing anything. There are no innate ideas. The mind starts as blank paper, written on by the senses and by the mind watching its own workings. He also held that a government has authority only by the consent of the governed, and that you carry natural rights before any state exists. That case shaped liberal constitutionalism.
Signature
The position Locke is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Polity
- leans Liberalism
- Knowledge
- Sense Experience
Positions on the 10 axes the sources answer
- Society
- leans Individualism (79 on a 0–100 scale from Collectivism to Individualism)
- The Divine
- leans Describable (25 on a 0–100 scale from Describable to Indescribable)
- Universals
- leans Nominalism (75 on a 0–100 scale from Realism to Nominalism)
- Identity
- mildly leans Changing (65 on a 0–100 scale from Unchanging to Changing)
- Meaning
- mildly leans Inherent (63 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Order
- leans Horizontal (75 on a 0–100 scale from Vertical to Horizontal)
- Truth
- leans Objective (75 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Nature
- leans Mastery (25 on a 0–100 scale from Mastery to Harmony)
- Polity
- leans Liberalism (80 on a 0–100 scale from Illiberalism to Liberalism)
- Conviction
- leans Uncertain (25 on a 0–100 scale from Uncertain to Certain)
10 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Locke refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Non-Trinitarian Monotheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Representative Democracy
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Freedom
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Moral Realism
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - Perception
- Indirect Realism
What do we directly perceive? - Knowledge
- Sense Experience
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Natural Law
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Compatibilism
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Beginning of Things
- Creation ex Nihilo
What is the origin of reality? - Time
- Linear Progressive
What is the fundamental shape of time? - Economy
- Market Capitalism
What is the ideal organization of economic life? - Authority
- Consent of the Governed
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Language
- Representation
What is the fundamental nature of language? - Law
- Social Contract
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Death
- Unconditional Salvation / Conditional Immortality
What happens at death? - Role of Emotion
- Evaluative Judgment
What is the proper role of emotion? - Human Nature
- Tabula Rasa
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- Nation
What is your primary bond and loyalty?