A Research Note and Query On the Dating of Locke's Two Treatises

OME BACKGROUND COMMENTS are necessary to place this Note in context. As a result of Peter Laslett's scholarship, particularly his critical edition of Locke's Treatises,' it is now widely accepted that Locke wrote this work some years prior to Glorious Revolution rather than after it. However, at least as early as 1888, it was claimed that First Treatise belonged to period 1680-1685.2 For reasons spelled out in his Introduction,3 Laslett suggests winter of 1679-1680 as period of authorship. Thus he concludes that Two Treatises is an Exclusion Tract, not a Revolution Pamphlet.4 In fact, Laslett's dating of Treatises has been frequently termed the new orthodoxy. The period of authorship is extremely important, since it might help to uncover Locke's purpose in writing Treatises, and thus better reveal meaning this text had for Locke. Some scholars have been unsatisfied with Laslett's dating of authorship, particularly of Second Treatise. R.W.K. Hinton suggests that first draft of Second Treatise can be dated to 1673-1675 and was largely inspired by royal abuses of power of that period.5 More recently, in a paper delivered at a Symposium on John Locke (March 21-23, 1980) at Folger Shakespeare Library, and also in a later version, Richard Ashcraft questioned Laslett's dating of authorship of Second Treatise.6 Ashcraft associates theSecond Treatise with Shaftesbury's plan of insurrection against Charles II, following latter's dissolution of Oxford Parliament in March 1681. I come now to finding and query. It appears that Laslett might have been mistaken in key aspects of his chronological reckoning. He notes that Filmer's Patriarcha was purchased by Locke on January 22, 1680.7 Laslett reminds us that Locke used this edition, as latter states

Epistemology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Philosophy

• Revolutionary Politics and Locke's Two Treatises of Government

  Open Access•Richard Ashcraft•Political Theory•1980

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• A Note on the Dating of Locke's Second Treatise

  Open Access•R W K Hinton•Political Studies•1974

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