Locke, John

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English philosopher. His Essay concerning Human Understanding (1690) maintained that experience is the only source of knowledge (empiricism), and that ‘we can have knowledge no farther than we have ideas’ prompted by such experience. Two Treatises on Government (1690) helped to form contemporary ideas of liberal democracy.

For Locke, the physical universe was a mechanical system of material bodies, composed of corpuscules, or ‘invisible particles’. He believed that at birth the mind was a blank, and that all ideas came from sense impressions.

His Two Treatises on Government supplied the classical statement of Whig theory and enjoyed great influence in America and France. It supposed that governments derive their authority from popular consent (regarded as a ‘contract’), so that a government may be rightly overthrown if it infringes such fundamental rights of the people as religious freedom.

The stars represent the five regions of Turkmenistan. The crescent symbolizes Islam. Effective date: 19 February 1997. >>