A New Age of Belief

Hello again everyone,

Another interesting lecture, I thought. It has to be said, it's easy to see why Mr Locke was such an influential philosopher. And not just in his time, but even today, some of his ideas have formed the foundations of our modern outlook on society.

For example, I share his belief that ideas are primarily born out of experience. We each view the world differently to one another and this is because we have all experienced life in, sometimes similar, but ultimately different ways. As an empiricist, his rejection of innate ideas I believe to be one of great significance, as it symbolised that religion, (and its omnipresent teachings), was beginning to face a battle against the fresh, new discoveries of science; a battle that to this very day has continued - Dan Brown's Angels and Demons sums this up rather well.

The Social Contract, a view that Hobbes is most asscoiated with, I see as being a rather extremist one. Dictatorships are surely to be avoided at all costs, on the basis that effectively selling your rights as a human being can be no good decision - Locke's proposal that you still have a right to rebel against government is really obsolete, considering that a man with absolute power is likely to be the winner of the outcome.

But then again, the state of nature is really the other extreme, and if it were adopted, surely mankind would be moving backwards towards the stone age and a state of chaos. To this degree, I can understand Locke's point of view, but surely a meeting point somewhere between the two extremes would be the ideal - exactly where between the two is up for debate, but in all honesty, I would probably lean towards the Social Contract, favouring a structured, organised society, that still embraces people's freedom.

Again, the fact that people at the time feared the Catholic Kings and their disregard for the Contract altogether, seems to me to suggest that religion's grasp was slowly weakening, as the idea of Divine Rights began to be widely rejected.

Finally, a quick word on perhaps the greatest of all influential scientists. As was emphasised in the lecture, Newton's hypotheses were truly ground-breaking. I think he epitimises the sudden surge forward that mankind made, with regards to understanding the world and indeed the universe around us. Many believe that we will never see another like him - such a genius as he was - but I myself would not be altogether surprised if sometime, maybe years and years into the future, another will take up the mantle, and make the next leap forward.