John Locke | |||||||
John Locke was a 17th century philosopher who wrote one of the first systematic defenses of individual rights and limited government. Locke's influence on the philosophy, as the founder of Empericism, and on political thought of the eighteenth century was without rival. His Two Treatises of Government Related Links An Essay Concerning Human Understanding The Second Treatise of Civil Government A Letter Concerning Toleration Of the Conduct of the Understanding Resources by John Locke A Letter Concerning Toleration |
advocated the removal of a ruler who fails to live up to his end of the social contract, an implicit agreement between everyone in a society to respect a legal authority. This concept made him an important figure among the intellectuals of the American war of independence.