John Locke
(1632-1704)
Philosophy
Locke stated that the senses are the ultimate source of ideas. Thus, all mental
operations result from combining perceptions into ideas. Locke's major philosophical works where published the year after returning from Holland.
Biography
Locke was an English philosopher who was born in Wrington, Somerset and educated Oxford, where he seemed destined for a career in medicine. In 1666 he met Anthony Ashley-Cooper, later the 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, who became his friend and patron. From 1675 to 1679 Locke lived France, where he studied the works of Descartes and Gassendi. Shaftesbury, who had been much engaged with parliamentary opposition to the house of Stuart, fled to Holland in 1681, and Locke followed in 1683, returning England after the accession of William of Orange in 1688. He was given minor administrative functions by the government, and lived out his life quietly at the house of Damaris, Lady Masham in Essex.
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