We know more about the development of John Locke's ideas than we do about almost any other philosopher's before modern times. This book brings together a comprehensive collection of the writings on politics and society that stand outside the canonical works which Locke published during his lifetime. In the aftermath of the Revolution of 1688 the three works by which he is chiefly known appeared: the Two Treatises of Government, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, and A Letter Concerning Toleration, and the themes raised in these works had been reflected upon over many years. Mark Goldie's edition makes possible the fullest exploration of the evolution of Locke's ideas concerning the philosophical foundations of morality and sociability, the boundary of church and state, the shaping of constitutions, and the conduct of government and public policy.

The essays reflect Locke's position as a polymath and recontextualise his ideas through the juxtaposition of various academic approaches.

John Locke's Second Treatise of Government (c. 1681) is perhaps the key founding liberal text. A Letter Concerning Toleration, written in 1685 (a year when a Catholic monarch came to the throne of England and Louis XVI unleashed a reign of terror against Protestants in France), is a classic defense of religious freedom. Yet many of Locke's other writings--not least the Constitutions of Carolina, which he helped draft--are almost defiantly anti-liberal in outlook. This comprehensive collection brings together the main published works (excluding polemical attacks on other people's views) with the most important surviving evidence from among Locke’s papers relating to his political philosophy. David Wootton's wide-ranging and scholarly Introduction sets the writings in the context of their time, examines Locke's developing ideas and unorthodox Christianity, and analyzes his main arguments. The result is the first fully rounded picture of Locke’s political thought in his own words.

This study provides a comprehensive reinterpretation of the meaning of Locke's political thought. John Dunn restores Locke's ideas to their exact context, and so stresses the historical question of what Locke in the Two Treatises of Government was intending to claim. By adopting this approach, he reveals the predominantly theological character of all Locke's thinking about politics and provides a convincing analysis of the development of Locke's thought. In a polemical concluding section, John Dunn argues that liberal and Marxist interpretations of Locke's politics have failed to grasp his meaning. Locke emerges as not merely a contributor to the development of English constitutional thought, or as a reflector of socio-economic change in seventeenth-century England, but as essentially a Calvinist natural theologian.

The past thirty years have witnessed a renaissance in Lockean scholarship. New work and new thinking has now recast our most basic comprehension of John Locke (1623-1704) as a political theorist, and of Locke's Two Treatises of Government as a historical document. This collection of essays investigates the implications of the new scholarship for our understanding of Locke's political thought and its impact upon the liberal tradition. John Locke's Two Treatises of Government has long been recognized as one of the great works of political philosophy. Three centuries after it was written, students and scholars continue to study it for insights into the intellectual origins of the modern world and for a better understanding of such fundamental concepts as natural rights, social contract, limited government, and the rule of law. The seven essays in this volume explore various dimensions of Locke's Two Treatises. The introductory essay places the new scholarship in a historical context. The next four essays show how this recent literature has affected our view of particular aspects of the Two Treatises: its theory of politics, its religious underpinnings, its theory of rationality, and its conception of the relationship between politics and economics. The final two essays discuss how the new scholarship has changed our understanding of the impact of the Two Treatises upon political thought in the eighteenth and late-twentieth centuries. Included at the end of the text is an extended secondary bibliography on John Locke's Two Treaties. These essays do not seek closure. Nor do they set forth a single "correct" interpretation. Instead they offer readers a deeper appreciation of how our view of Locke's Two Treatises has changed over the last three decades and the importance of those changes in understanding of the liberal tradition. "A solid contribution to the literature, bringing together some of the best new scholarship on Locke and reflecting the diversity, breadth, and depth of the current debate on both Locke and early liberalism. The editor's selection clearly demonstrates there is no single orthodox reading of Locke and conveys the intellectually lively debate that pervades the field today."—Ronald J. Terchek, author of Locke, Smith, Mill and the Liberal Concept of Agency.

This reader introduces students of philosophy and politics to the contemporary critical literature on the classical social contract theorists: Thomas Hobbes (1599-1697), John Locke (1632-1704), and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). Twelve thoughtfully selected essays guide students through the texts, familiarizing them with key elements of the theory, while at the same time introducing them to current scholarly controversies. A bibliography of additional work is provided. The classical social contract theorists represent one of the two or three most important modern traditions in political thought. Their ideas dominated political debates in Europe and North America in the 17th and 18th centuries, influencing political thinkers, statesmen, constitution makers, revolutionaries, and other political actors alike. Debates during the French Revolution and the early history of the American Republic were often conducted in the language of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau. Later political philosophy can only be understood against this backdrop. And the contemporary revival of contractarian moral and political thought, represented by John Rawls' A Theory of Justice (1971) or David GauthierOs Morals by Agreement (1986), needs to be appreciated in the history of this tradition.