Lockes Philosophical Views - Essay Example

Whether John as a young man appreciated the concept of the severe regime his father followed, it is a well-known fact that Locke appreciated the mentioned concept as an adult: ‘For, liberty and indulgence can do no good to children: their want of judgment makes them need restraint and discipline’ [1, 62]. ‘He that is not used to submitting his will to the reason of others when he is young, will scarcely hearken or submit to his reason, when he is of an age to make use of it’ (Aldrich 1994, p. 62).

There is not much information about Locke’s early education nevertheless it is known that reading was his passion which he carried through his entire life. At Westminster Scholl in London, he studied under the aegis of Dr. Richard Busby, the man famous for his knowledge and his pitiless use of the birch rod on the refractory students.

The ultimately arduous academic regime at Westminster school and later at Oxford, the severe birching due to the license that predominated over the students contributed to John Locke’s essential repugnance to schools and correspondingly very strong predilection for domestic and private education.

It was even more confusing to Locke who had been brought up in rigorous Puritan and Parliamentarian surroundings, to discover that Richard Busby was a recognized Royalist, who did not make a secret of his political commitment.

Religion and especially Christianity perhaps were of the most important impacts that influenced Locke's philosophy. John’s parents were Puritans and at Oxford, Locke had a chance to become an Anglican priest, and he asserted being an Anglican to until his death. Others have claimed he was a follower of the Latitudinarians — an Anglican movement that stood up for a rational Christianity that ought to be accepted by dissenters. John Locke’s religious thought had moved from a traditional recognition of his Puritan heritage to the Latitudinarianism movement. Still, we can argue that Locke was neither a Latitudinarian nor an orthodox Anglican; there were some suggestions that Locke was an Arian or Unitarian (McLachlan, Hugh, 1941).