John Locke and Modern Life

Description

Recovers a sense of John Locke's central role in the making of the modern world. It demonstrates that his vision of modern life was constructed on a philosophy of human freedom that is the intellectual nerve connecting the various strands of his thought. By revealing the depth and originality of Locke's critique of the metaphysical assumptions and authoritative institutions of pre-modern life, this book rejects the notion of Locke as an intellectual anachronism. Indeed, the radical core of Locke's modern project was the 'democratization of mind', according to which he challenged practically every previous mode of philosophical analysis by making the autonomous individual the sole determinant of truth. It was on the basis of this new philosophical dispensation that Locke crafted a modern vision not only of government but also of the churches, the family, education, and the conduct of international relations.

Lee Ward is Alpha Sigma Nu Distinguished Associate Professor of Political Science in Campion College at the University of Regina. He previously taught in the Department of Political Science at Kenyon College and was the Bradley Postdoctoral Fellow in the Program in Constitutional Government at Harvard University. His research and teaching interests are the history of political philosophy and early modern and American political thought. He is the author of The Politics of Liberty in England and Revolutionary America and has written articles on John Locke, Aristotle, Plato, Montesquieu, and Algernon Sidney. His work has appeared in the American Political Science Review, the Canadian Journal of Political Science, Publius, the Journal of Moral Philosophy, the American Journal of Political Science, Ratio Juris, International Philosophical Quarterly, and Interpretation. He also co-edited with Dr Ann Ward The Ashgate Research Companion to Federalism.

"Lee Ward is an intellectual provocateur of the finest sort. In this gracefully written volume, he insists that we take John Locke seriously as a systematic thinker; he challenges the notion that the argument presented in the Two Treatises of Government is at odds with that presented in An Essay concerning Human Understanding; and he shows us that the program that the English philosopher articulated in his mature works with respect to the first principles of government, constitutional prudence, marriage, the family, education, religion, and the conduct of foreign policy forms a comprehensive and consistent whole." -Paul A. Rahe, Hillsdale College "Ward's John Locke and Modern Life is one of the most impressive of this generation's studies of Locke. Almost all previous studies have focused on one or another of Locke's works or on one or another of the themes in his works. Ward gives a comprehensive account of Locke's moral and political philosophy as a whole and in relation to 'modern life': i.e., in terms of the implications of Locke for how modern life has evolved and for guidance on how it ought to be. Given the explosion of Locke scholarship, Ward is particularly impressive in his ability to encompass so much of this literature and to settle in a clear, moderate, persuasive way many of the most controversial issues in the literature, an achievement much helped along by the much more synoptic view of Locke's corpus that he takes." -Michael Zuckert, University of Notre Dame