John Locke's Historical Sense

Bibliographic Data

ID10436747
AuthorsMark Glat (corresponding author)
Year1981
Volume43
Issue1
Pages3-21
Publication date1981-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Review of Politics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0034-6705 • E-ISSN: 1748-6858
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0034670500032356
OpenAlexW2030942871
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited21

The most common assumption made about John Locke's historical sense is that he had none. In his lifetime, Locke was many things: a doctor, a philosopher, a political theorist, a policymaker and a biblical scholar. But few, if any, would say that Locke was a historian as well. Unlike Hobbes before him and Hume after him, Locke would write no history of England or of English politics. My intention in this paper then is not to make the claim that he was a “historian” in the strict sense of the word. I would therefore agree with John Pocock when he writes that Locke was the only major political writer of his age who did not try “to understand English politics through the history of English law (and English political institutions).”

Common sense · Epistemology · History of political thought · Political philosophy · Political science · Politics · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Law · Philosophy