importance of natural law

John Locke studied medicine and in his day, a scientific approach to illness had a special importance, because these were the days of witch hunts. King James predates Locke and sets the stage for what is to happen in Locke's time. He was the first Stuart king of England and believed in the divine right of kings. Meaning kings get their right to rule from God, and not the consent of the people. This is a conflict of superstition verses reason with political implications.

King James was was Catholic when Protestantism was popular in England, and Catholics were as feared, as we feared communist. Exceptionally important, in regards to Locke and his scientific approach to medicine; James set off witch hunt hysteria in England.

The religious conflict and political intrigue of the age set the background for John Locke's "Two Treatises of Government".

http://www.dannymorrison.com/?page_id=229

Back in the sixteenth century superstition abounded and was exploited by the unscrupulous for political ends. In 1591 Princess Anne of Denmark, future bride of King James of Scotland, encountered a violent storm at sea that prevented her crossing from Norway. James set sail to bring her to Scotland but on their return journey they encountered an even stronger storm that waylaid and threatened his ship, though after great difficulty they reached shore safely.

A maidservant, Geillis Duncan, who helped cure poor, sick people through natural medicines and herbs, was arrested on suspicion of being a witch after her employer told the authorities that she went out late at night. She was tortured and implicated a schoolteacher, Dr John Fian, and several others and they confessed to a conspiracy to kill the king and his bride by throwing a dead cat into the sea. Fian then accused the Earl of Brothwell, to whom he acted as a secretary, of being the leader of their coven. Brothwell was the half-cousin of the king and next in line to the throne if James did not have any children. It was preposterous but this political dimension to the alleged plot suited the king and his advisors.

One of those tortured described how they would meet in the church where the Devil would get up on the pulpit, expose his bare backside and enjoin them to kiss his buttocks and swear against the king. Several of the accused were executed and Brothwell was banished to Italy. The king went on to write a book, ‘Daemonlogie’, which became the official handbook in Scotland and England and which triggered a mass witch-hunt in which the phenomena of people accusing others to ‘protect’ themselves was a common feature. It was not until the end of the seventeenth century that the witch-hunts, for the most part, ended.

The Roman Catholic Church as well as in Scotland the new church of fanatical Calvinism carried out witch-hunts which resulted in the torture and burning at the stake, or mass hangings, of victims. Three-quarters of the victims were women, and men were exclusively the prosecutors, judges, jailers and executioners, indicating a widespread misogyny throughout society (though women also testified against other women in large numbers).

A publication by the Catholic inquisition authorities, ‘Malleus Maleficarum’, said: “All wickedness is but little to the wickedness of a woman… What else is woman but a foe to friendship, an unescapable punishment, a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable calamity, domestic danger, a delectable detriment, an evil nature, painted with fair colours… Women are by nature instruments of Satan – the are by nature carnal, a structural defect rooted in the original creation.”

Witch-hunts have been around for millennia and are not just to be associated as reactions to medieval epidemics, natural disasters or superstition. It is significant that “the Burning Times” coincided with the Reformation when emergent Protestantism clashed with institutionalised Catholicism, leading to the collapse of a stable world-view. In political usage the term denotes the searching out and exposure of opponents alleged to be disloyal to the state, an institution or an organisation - often amounting to persecution......

King James of Scotland, though he believed in the powers of witches, later realised that many false and spurious allegations were being brought to court. He came to regret that his writings had created an atmosphere of hysteria that had led to wanton prosecutions and vicious violence against innocent people whose reputations had been irredeemably destroyed. His change of heart came too late. He had triggered a witch-craze which did not stop until the end of the seventeenth century, long after he and the people originally involved were all dead.

John Locke studied medicine and in his day, a scientific approach to illness had a special importance, because these were the days of witch hunts. King James predates Locke and sets the stage for what is to happen in Locke's time. He was the first Stuart king of England and believed in the divine right of kings. Meaning kings get their right to rule from God, and not the consent of the people. This is a conflict of superstition verses reason with political implications.

Hi Athena,

Most loving new year to you!:)

Both were right:

KJ ---as most people still do---only misinterpreted what he saw as literally real when it was only psychologically real: KJ thought that Hatred, the attitude of evil, was an actual literal embodied evil....or devil--- when all it was was an evil attitude of mind.

Lots of people also totally ignore the effect of attitude of the physical or political body and ignore psychosomatic illnesses in medicine or the attitude of Hate in politics...which George Gashington called 'PARTY SPIRIT' meaning partisan spirit of Hate for the opposite party or person.


"It is more important to know what type of patient has a disease than to know what type of disease a patient has."
Sir William Osler, Canadian physician and scholar, founder of Internal Medicine at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and teacher of the Mayo brothers of Mayo Clinic fame.


"Each person carries his own doctor inside of him.
He goes to a physician because he does not recognize his own strength.
A physician's greatest asset is his ability to bring out the doctor within his patients."
Dr. Albert Schweitzer,
explaining his philosophy of medical practice to Norman Cousins in Cousins' book, Anatomy of An Illness.


"In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more essential than that the passionate attachments [of Love] for particular nations out of the permanent, inveterate antipathies [of Hate] against others should be excluded, and that in place of them the equal, just and
amicable feelings [of Love] toward all should be cultivated.

The nation which indulges toward one habitual fondness [of Love out of habitual Hatred for any other] is in some degree the worse kind of slave [: the funda-mental slave]. It is a slave to its [Hate of] enemies or to its affection [of Love-based-on-Hate], either of which partiality is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest.

Antipathy [of Hate] in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable [in Hate] when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur.

So, likewise, the passionate attachment [of Love] to one nation or another [out of Hate for others] produces a variety of all evils, and is the root of all varieties of evil.

The sympathy [of Love] for one favorite nation [out of Hate for the unfavourables,] facilitating the illusion of an heightened imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into the all too accepting one enmities [of Hate for the other], betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and
wars of the latter without any possible adequate inducement or justification.

This [Love-out-of-Hate] leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others, which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions by 1) unnecessarily parting with what physical thing ought to have been retained,
and by 2) exciting the jealousy and the ill will [in Hate] and the disposition [to Hate] to retaliate in the parties also twice defrauded: from the equal privilege [of Love] and whatever the concessions are; and it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who love and so devote themselves to the favorite nation out of Hate for the rest) facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country without any sense of odium [of Hate], sometimes even with popularity, gilding with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a
commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good the base or foolish compliances of the ambition, corruption, or infatuation [based on that Hate].

Against the insidious wiles of the foreign influence [of Hate] (I conjure you to believe me, fellow citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government.

But that jealousy, to be useful, must be impartial [in the equality of Love and Respect], else it becomes the
instrument of the very influence [of Hate] to be avoided, instead of a defense against it.

The excessive partiality [of Love], which can’t ever too much, for one foreign nation out of excessive, which is any Dislike of another cause those whom they actuate to see too much danger only on the one [hated] side, and serve to blind and so to veil and even second the arts of influence on the [loved] other.


Real patriots [in Love] who may resist the intrigues of the favorite are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes [in Hate] usurp the applause and confidence of the people to surrender their interests.


It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking [in Love] in a free country should inspire caution in those intrusted with its administration to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another.

[Hate,] The spirit of encroachment, tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism."
George Washington's Farewell Address, 1796 “the right man in the right place at the right time.”
brackets and underlines by ape

Athena: James set off witch hunt hysteria in England

I am no lover of King James but not to put to much of a damper on your post you need to realise only about 200 people died through the supposed witchunts [mainly poor peasants in England] compared to communisms millions and stalins in the WWII..lets not go making Catholics demons just yet historically. The spanish inquisition was caused by their monarchy regardless of their faiths the catholic church did not agree with them but had no say. Monarchy ruled the World over including India where the caste system remains today, Henry VIII was living proof of the power of Monarchy to overturn the Catholic church he made the Church of England happen so he could behead and divorce his many wives.at least catholics have progressed somewhat and better than other faiths today ..and that was the way it was. The Catholic church were recently opposed to Blair joining Bush in this fiasco War on terrorism in Iraq aswell. Facts lets just stick to them instead of the hype. btw what does this have to do with Natural Law?

Wow, I am a little blow away by the thoughts triggered, because they are so different, and so far from what I was thinking about.

Ape, King James favoritism to Catholics lead to all kinds of trouble including a civil war. What you said of love certainly applies to the troubles England experienced, because of King James favoritism. John Locke is very concerned about property rights. Years earlier, King James took Property from Protestants and gave it to Catholics. Later when Protestants returned to power, property was taken from Catholics and returned to Protestants. This power of the king to take and give property is what Locke questions. Instead of looking to the bible for the answer, he turns to nature.



*Izzy*, I think the Catholics have much to offer, and I am most thankful to them for making Greek and Roman classics popular and the foundation of education for a few hundred years. When it comes to witch hunts, Catholics, Protestants and secular people were all involved. In fact the secular "science" of determining who was witch is very much part of the problem.

To answer your question. *Izzy*.
I put this thread in the science forum because natural law is the result of studying nature. The witch hunts were about believing in the supernatural and it is the bible and other non-scientific, primitive beliefs that creates the belief in the supernatural, regardless of it a person is Catholic, Protestant, or just a scientifically ignorant person influenced by the common belief in the supernatural. It was Locke's education in medicine that broke him from the common superstition of the masses. Concern for natural law, comes out of studying nature, as opposed to studying the bible and holding superstitious notions, as later Thomas Jefferson argued. Note, Thomas Jefferson gave his fortune to trying to establish mass education, and put an end to those superstitious notions.

What both your answers share in common is mention of the spirit of the people, and this is far more important than is generally realized, however Ape, is exceptionally aware of the importance of spirit. When it comes to spirit, the dividing line between reality and the supernatural is a hard one to draw. We might draw it by determining is the spirit internal or external? I guess the question fits well in the title of this thread, although it was not in my thoughts when I began it.

Paranoia is known as excessive fear, and we can think of it as spirit or attitude. The flip side of it is excessive need to be superior and in control. Only by nurturing tolerance and love can we avoid paranoia. How well we can do this depends on our understanding of nature and especially our understanding of human nature and natural law. Determining natural law means having a scientific point of view, verses a religious point of view.

Athena :
What both your answers share in common is mention of the spirit of the people, and this is far more important than is generally realized,

No I mentioned the history of the time, being run by monarchy and led by monarchs is how it was..now we are led by governments..no difference some governments should be led by law..natural law is what we have government for..and religion in the UK does not rule government Law and Order policing policy or courts.. no more than it did Monarchs years ago..unless you are speaking of Islamic countries? I still think its not a science forum question? its a LAW question ..there are some countries that should be run by Law and Order rather than their fundamentalist religions. I actually disagree that we as a multi cultural society allow sharia law courts and jewish law courts it should be one Law for all run in the UK

Athena says:I put this thread in the science forum because natural law is the result of studying nature.

human nature is a study of science..but to accuse religion of running it is a false premise. Your opening posting harks back to witchunts and historical times..One could easily accuse Science of running it and suppressing human nature and natural laws as in dying naturally..all the people on anti depressants these days and drugs as a whole..issued ever freely by big pharma influencing doctors treatments.

without the Hippocratic Oath how does a patient know that their Doctor has sworn to abide by the ethical practice of medicine? Where are we all if we just banish oaths vows and pledges to God?

Where is the moral order?


Reinstatement of Hippocratic Oath

The Reinstatement of Hippocratic Oath was introduced in June 1995 by The Value of Life Committee, Inc. Dr Joseph R Stanton, a member of the committee said of the oath:

It is the hope of the signers and endorsers of this 1995 Restatement that upcoming generations of young physicians in increasing numbers will embrace the Oath's principles in their personal and professional lives. In taking this pledge, they will stand shoulder to shoulder with the giants who have pledged it in the past and contributed so profoundly to advances in the art and science of medicine while leading exemplary and principled lives.

Athena :
What both your answers share in common is mention of the spirit of the people, and this is far more important than is generally realized,

No I mentioned the history of the time, being run by monarchy and led by monarchs is how it was..now we are led by governments..no difference some governments should be led by law..natural law is what we have government for..and religion in the UK does not rule government Law and Order policing policy or courts.. no more than it did Monarchs years ago..unless you are speaking of Islamic countries? I still think its not a science forum question? its a LAW question ..there are some countries that should be run by Law and Order rather than their fundamentalist religions. I actually disagree that we as a multi cultural society allow sharia law courts and jewish law courts it should be one Law for all run in the UK

Athena says:I put this thread in the science forum because natural law is the result of studying nature.

human nature is a study of science..but to accuse religion of running it is a false premise. Your opening posting harks back to witchunts and historical times..One could easily accuse Science of running it and suppressing human nature and natural laws as in dying naturally..all the people on anti depressants these days and drugs as a whole..issued ever freely by big pharma influencing doctors treatments.

without the Hippocratic Oath how does a patient know that their Doctor has sworn to abide by the ethical practice of medicine? Where are we all if we just banish oaths vows and pledges to God?

Where is the moral order?


Reinstatement of Hippocratic Oath

The Reinstatement of Hippocratic Oath was introduced in June 1995 by The Value of Life Committee, Inc. Dr Joseph R Stanton, a member of the committee said of the oath:

It is the hope of the signers and endorsers of this 1995 Restatement that upcoming generations of young physicians in increasing numbers will embrace the Oath's principles in their personal and professional lives. In taking this pledge, they will stand shoulder to shoulder with the giants who have pledged it in the past and contributed so profoundly to advances in the art and science of medicine while leading exemplary and principled lives.

You totally lost me.

What do you turn to understand reality?

Science is to democracy what religion is to autocracy. Natural law, means we turn to nature to understand reality, not religion.

What are you saying here? One could easily accuse Science of running it and suppressing human nature and natural laws as in dying naturally..all the people on anti depressants these days and drugs as a whole..issued ever freely by big pharma influencing doctors treatments

We begin with unrealistic expectations of God, and move to unrealistic expectations of technology. Because man has unrealistic expectations of technology does not mean science is running anything. Unlike religion, we can change our ideas of what is desirable and what is not desirable, when we experience positive and negative consequences to our action.

I am not in favor of dying naturally, because a natural death can be a terrible way to go. I am in favor of using drugs to releive pain and suffering, and when desired, a ritual death resulting from the intentional end of life.

What does the Hippocratic Oath have to do with science and rational thinking verses religion? We have made taking the Hippocratic Oath a meaningless ritual that doctors do. The button line is, if the doctor isn't paid, the patient doesn't get treatment. In the US we have presented all education as a means to monetary profit and we no longer have doctors who practice for the love of the healing arts, or attorneys who practice for a love of justice. Everyone is doing the doing for money and we brought this about with education that has valued nothing but money and the rapid advancement of technology. Follow Juice's arguments to know this is strongly supported by Christians.

I say we have corrupted the professions with education that values nothing but money and technological advancement, and I argue the consequences of what we have done is very bad. However, your argument is now forcing me to question what natural laws have we violated to bring upon ourselves such ruin? Ideally we govern ourselves with an understanding of natural law. That is the foundation of moral order.

Zeus was afraid that when man had the technology of fire, he would discover all other technologies and then rely their technology and forget the Gods. I think Zeus' fear was correct. We are not technologically smart but not wise.

Athena wrote:
[quote]You totally lost me. What do you turn to understand reality? Science is to democracy what religion is to autocracy. Natural law, means we turn to nature to understand reality, not religion. [quote]


I lost you{??} re read your opening post it was not talking about natural laws or science it was speaking about the down side of religious history? you lost me there..I was unsure of exactly what you were addressing and why?
Athena, in history it was religion that developed the sciences lets not forget the reasoning of those of faith here. You are deliberating and opposing them..saying faith is opposed to reason and science..you are on shaky ground here.

The catholic church which you mentioned is in fact all for and supportive of The theory of evolution and the sciences, you are making a seperatist distinction that is not called for here.

Athena said:
[quote]I am not in favor of dying naturally, because a natural death can be a terrible way to go.[unquote]

You can`t have it both ways here, either you believe in Natural law..or you don`t..it seems when you read what I say you misunderstood me, I mean allowing them to die naturally not in a "terrible way" [you words..] it can be argued that medical science you find so reasonable intervenes most unnaturally to prolong a life and issues many untested drugs with severe side effects to their unwitting patients. I am all for medicine and reason tells me it is neccessary, but the argument you have produced here is nothing but an attack on faith and religion ..a red herring somehow disguised as addressing natural laws?
I am not understanding your premise

Izzy

Athena wrote:

You totally lost me. What do you turn to understand reality? Science is to democracy what religion is to autocracy. Natural law, means we turn to nature to understand reality, not religion.

I lost you{??} re read your opening post it was not talking about natural laws or science it was speaking about the down side of religious history? you lost me there..I was unsure of exactly what you were addressing and why?
Athena, in history it was religion that developed the sciences lets not forget the reasoning of those of faith here. You are deliberating and opposing them..saying faith is opposed to reason and science..you are on shaky ground here.

The catholic church which you mentioned is in fact all for and supportive of The theory of evolution and the sciences, you are making a seperatist distinction that is not called for here.

Athena said:

I am not in favor of dying naturally, because a natural death can be a terrible way to go.[unquote]

You can`t have it both ways here, either you believe in Natural law..or you don`t..it seems when you read what I say you misunderstood me, I mean allowing them to die naturally not in a "terrible way" [you words..] it can be argued that medical science you find so reasonable intervenes most unnaturally to prolong a life and issues many untested drugs with severe side effects to their unwitting patients. I am all for medicine and reason tells me it is neccessary, but the argument you have produced here is nothing but an attack on faith and religion ..a red herring somehow disguised as addressing natural laws?
I am not understanding your premise

Izzy

I thought I was speaking about how studying medicine, and therefore, having a more scientific understanding of illness, promoted John Locke to write of natural law.

You are defending religious beliefs right? That belongs in a the theology forum. When we are speaking of science, we could talk about literacy in the classics which was promoted by the Catholic church to support their argument for God. However, this information is the result of the crusades and rediscovery of the Greek and Roman classics, which opened superstitious, Christian Europe to science. I thought this is why you mentioned the Greek Hippocratic Oath, because you had knowledge of the pagan classics that eventual lead to Christians thinking scientifically.

But you argue Catholics support the theory of evolution? In the 21 century, they forbid the Catholic Priest Chardin from publishing his book explaining, evolution is God's plan. That means they very late in accepting the theory of evolution. You do know the church persecuted Galileo right? The church did not always support science.

Rather besides the crusaders coming home with the classics, which the Arabs had preserved, they also came home with Arab math and medicine. The church did not embrace those who were treated disease with herbs, but persecuted them as witches. After the development of the microscope, and scientist seeing that it is germs that cause disease and bacteria, it still took another 100 before sanitation was accepted, because Christians thought is was demons that made people sick and they could not believe in germs that couldn't see.

At the time of John Locke and though the time of Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln, being educated meant being literate in the classics. Knowledge of the Greek pagan Hippocratic Oath comes from that literacy. No one saw principles of democracy in the bible, until this literacy, and a belief in one God who magically creates heaven and earth, did not result in science.

I think my argument is about how science changed politics. I repeat, science is to democracy what religion is to autocracy. I think it is important to know John Locke's position in his political arguments came of education in medicine and scientific perspective. We study natural law by studying nature, and then we govern ourselves with reason, as opposed to being governed by a king who is chosen by God to be as our father.

athena wrote:
"I thought I was speaking about how studying medicine, and therefore, having a more scientific understanding of illness, promoted John Locke to write of natural law."
;

what Athena actually wrote was one line about John Locke and then an attack on Catholics as a whole as being unscientific like King James may or may not have been. King james witchunts do not prove he was unscientific it proves he was crazy..not through his catholicism or science but his own volition IE its a false premise. Heard of doctors that kill irrationally? we read about them even today.are they unscientific? they know science and medicine.

Athena then bewails
"But you argue Catholics support the theory of evolution? "

Its not an argument its a fact..the Pope supports science and evolution theory..do you Athena deny the history of science and its study was encouraged from theists?

you then ramble on about crusaders? what has this to do with a Science forum?

Had you titled the post "The history of John Lockes rationality and medicine" it would have made more sense to me..still arguable ..but at least about historical debate..but your title belies the thrust of your premise to attack religion itself as irrational.

athena wrote:
"I thought I was speaking about how studying medicine, and therefore, having a more scientific understanding of illness, promoted John Locke to write of natural law."
;

what Athena actually wrote was one line about John Locke and then an attack on Catholics as a whole as being unscientific like King James may or may not have been. King james witchunts do not prove he was unscientific it proves he was crazy..not through his catholicism or science but his own volition IE its a false premise. Heard of doctors that kill irrationally? we read about them even today.are they unscientific? they know science and medicine.

Athena then bewails
"But you argue Catholics support the theory of evolution? "

Its not an argument its a fact..the Pope supports science and evolution theory..do you Athena deny the history of science and its study was encouraged from theists?

you then ramble on about crusaders? what has this to do with a Science forum?

Had you titled the post "The history of John Lockes rationality and medicine" it would have made more sense to me..still arguable ..but at least about historical debate..but your title belies the thrust of your premise to attack religion itself as irrational.

I am not sure we can communicate. Perhaps if you read John Locke's "Two Treatises of Government" you can shift from defending a religion, and move on understanding the importance of the history behind John Locke's "Two Treatises of Government".

According to the law of nature it is only fair that no one should become richer through damages and injuries suffered by another.
Marcus Tullius Cicero

Have no doubt King James believed in the divine right of kings and this has everything to do with Locke's "Two Treatises of Government". He was a Catholic when Protestants feared Catholics, and he took land from Protestants and gave it to Catholics and Locke who was literate and surely read Cicero used Cicero's arguments about Natural Law to oppose the notion of the divine right of kings.

I am not defending anyone I am pointing out the premise you made and that religion does not rule and did not rule man. The sovereign ie KJ that you mention failed in his obligation to defend the rights of his subjects and is no longer justified in his sovereignty and may be dismissed by his subjects. But then kings tend to have armies and governments military and police, so people may not get as much authority to decide who stays and who goes as we are led to believe. This is still a history and ethics question rather than a science forum one..is and was my point Athena. In fact Locke was renowned more for his politics as the founder of classical liberal politics to be precise.

[quote]


What Is Wrong With Locke's Philosophy?
by Jonathan Dolhenty, Ph.D.



John Locke (1632-1704) was a notable exponent of empiricism. He was a native of Wrington in Somersetshire, England, and was educated at Oxford. His most notable piece of writing is An Essay Concerning the Human Understanding.

Locke had the characteristics of most of the articulate university men of his day: a petulant rejection of Scholasticism without understanding it; a self-confident notion of doing philosophy all over again from the ground up; a readiness to speak with an air of finality upon subjects imperfectly mastered.

Now, the desire to see philosophical doctrines so clearly expressed and proved that none may doubt them is human and natural and even admirable. But the assumption that all philosophy can be reduced to the clarity of A-B-C is fantastic. And the further assumption that all philosophers of past times have been woolly-minded blunderers is ignorance and intolerable "cheek." The old impatience, the old want of humility, which brought in Humanism, the Renaissance, the Reformation, and all the other thin veneerings which tried to pass for truth are evident in Locke as they are evident in Francis Bacon, René Descartes, and nearly all the philosophers who abandoned an authentic commonsense realism.

Locke had doubtlessly in mind the recasting of philosophy, for he was not wholly pleased with Bacon's plan for empiricism. Still, he seems to have had no detailed plan of his own. Indeed, he did not feel the need of any plan. He was convinced that, once the human mind had learned to grasp things clearly, once it knew its own powers and recognized its true limitations, once it was sure of the nature and extent of its knowledge, the developing of philosophy would be sheerly natural growth. Thus, Locke's special interest was the epistemological question, and he wrote of it in his famous Essay.

Keen as he was on clarity of knowledge, Locke did not escape the fatal confounding of sense-knowledge with intellectual knowledge. And so he proceeded to make confusion more confounded, so that one may take not only different, but opposite, doctrines from the premises his theories afford. Follow him in one set of principles and develop these to the end; you find yourself in idealism, the dream-philosophy which turns reality into shadow. Follow him in another set of thoughts, and you will be involved in sensism and positivism which takes the reality around us as the only thing there is, and denies value to the intellect and to reasoning (even to the reasoning by which you have reached this dull conclusion). This impossible agglomeration of conflicting theories was proposed, explicitly or implicitly, by a man of undoubted mental gifts who was thwarted at the outset by his muddling of the basic question of all philosophy, the epistemological question.

The Epistemological Question

Locke strenuously opposed Descartes' doctrine of innate ideas. All knowledge has its origin in experience, in sense-perception. The elements of knowledge are the ideas, and Locke, in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, explains the idea in the following manner:

"It being that term which, I think, serves best to stand for whatever is the object of the understanding when a man thinks, I have used it to express whatever is meant by phantasm, notion, species, or whatever it is which the mind can be employed about in thinking."

Descartes placed all sense-perception in the spiritual mind, thus identifying sense-perception with spiritual activity; Locke here does the reverse, by reducing ideas, at least in part, down to the level of sense-perception (phantasm, species). By thus arbitrarily blurring the nature of the idea so as to include sense-perception, he laid the foundation for sensism, where all thinking is nothing but a form of sensation. Another important feature of this definition of "idea" is, that the "idea" is the object of our understanding, instead of the reality of things being the object of our knowledge.

Ideas, according to Locke, are derived from two sources -- sense-perception and reflection; and all knowledge is restricted to ideas.

"Since the mind, in all its thoughts and reasonings, hath no other immediate object but its own ideas, which it alone does or can contemplate, it is evident that our knowledge is only conversant about them. Knowledge, then, seems to me to be nothing but the perception of the connection of and agreement, or disgreement and repugnancy of any of our ideas. In this alone it consists."

This means, of course, that we do not really know objects or things-in-themselves, but ideas or conscious states of the mind; and this is the standpoint of Descartes and idealism. Locke, however, did not deny the existence of material substances, such as bodies, nor of spiritual substances, such as the soul and God; but substance is unknowable to us, whether material or immaterial.

"Our idea of substance is equally obscure, or none at all, in both; it is but a supposed I-know-not-what, to support those ideas we call accidents...By the complex idea of extended, figured, colored, and all other sensible qualities, which is all that we know of it, we are as far from the idea of the substance of the body, as if we knew nothing at all."

While Locke, therefore, admits the existence of material and spiritual "substances," he asserts that they are unknowable; "accidents" or "phenomena" alone are knowable; he is in last instance an empirical phenomenalist.

Primary and Secondary Qualities

Locke is remembered for his distinguishing of primary and secondary sense-qualities in bodily things. In his study upon the nature of knowledge, he had constantly to face such questions as: are sense-objects really what they appear to be; is the grass really green; is the whirling wheel actually in motion; is the stone truly solid? Locke decided that there are certain qualities common to all bodies (impenetrability, extension, shape, rest, motion) and these are primary qualities which exist as objective things. He said that there are also other qualities not found in all bodies alike (color, sound, taste, odor, temperature, resistance) and these are secondary qualities which are largely subjective, that is, not so much objective things as the perceivings or feelings of the person who senses them.

Locke's distinction of sense-qualities as primary and secondary may serve us as a mere convenient list. But his theory of their objective reality cannot stand. For we are wholly unaware of the primary qualities except through the medium of the secondary. And if the secondary be unreliable (being largely subjective) we have no reason to put any trust in the actuality of the primary qualities. Locke's theory of sense-qualities points the way to the self-contradiction of complete skepticism.
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If any moral theory is a theory of natural law, it is Aquinas`s. Not Locke`s
[Every introductory ethics anthology that includes material on natural law theory includes material by or about Aquinas; every encyclopedia article on natural law thought refers to Aquinas.] So Athena maybe you should acknowledge the father of natural law and reason was himself a catholic named Thomas Aqinas, there really was nothing new in what Locke was asserting here. Why credit him for it?

I am not defending anyone I am pointing out the premise you made and that religion does not rule and did not rule man. The sovereign ie KJ that you mention failed in his obligation to defend the rights of his subjects and is no longer justified in his sovereignty and may be dismissed by his subjects. But then kings tend to have armies and governments military and police, so people may not get as much authority to decide who stays and who goes as we are led to believe. This is still a history and ethics question rather than a science forum one..is and was my point Athena. In fact Locke was renowned more for his politics as the founder of classical liberal politics to be precise.

What Is Wrong With Locke's Philosophy?
by Jonathan Dolhenty, Ph.D.



John Locke (1632-1704) was a notable exponent of empiricism. He was a native of Wrington in Somersetshire, England, and was educated at Oxford. His most notable piece of writing is An Essay Concerning the Human Understanding.

Locke had the characteristics of most of the articulate university men of his day: a petulant rejection of Scholasticism without understanding it; a self-confident notion of doing philosophy all over again from the ground up; a readiness to speak with an air of finality upon subjects imperfectly mastered.

Now, the desire to see philosophical doctrines so clearly expressed and proved that none may doubt them is human and natural and even admirable. But the assumption that all philosophy can be reduced to the clarity of A-B-C is fantastic. And the further assumption that all philosophers of past times have been woolly-minded blunderers is ignorance and intolerable "cheek." The old impatience, the old want of humility, which brought in Humanism, the Renaissance, the Reformation, and all the other thin veneerings which tried to pass for truth are evident in Locke as they are evident in Francis Bacon, René Descartes, and nearly all the philosophers who abandoned an authentic commonsense realism.

Locke had doubtlessly in mind the recasting of philosophy, for he was not wholly pleased with Bacon's plan for empiricism. Still, he seems to have had no detailed plan of his own. Indeed, he did not feel the need of any plan. He was convinced that, once the human mind had learned to grasp things clearly, once it knew its own powers and recognized its true limitations, once it was sure of the nature and extent of its knowledge, the developing of philosophy would be sheerly natural growth. Thus, Locke's special interest was the epistemological question, and he wrote of it in his famous Essay.

Keen as he was on clarity of knowledge, Locke did not escape the fatal confounding of sense-knowledge with intellectual knowledge. And so he proceeded to make confusion more confounded, so that one may take not only different, but opposite, doctrines from the premises his theories afford. Follow him in one set of principles and develop these to the end; you find yourself in idealism, the dream-philosophy which turns reality into shadow. Follow him in another set of thoughts, and you will be involved in sensism and positivism which takes the reality around us as the only thing there is, and denies value to the intellect and to reasoning (even to the reasoning by which you have reached this dull conclusion). This impossible agglomeration of conflicting theories was proposed, explicitly or implicitly, by a man of undoubted mental gifts who was thwarted at the outset by his muddling of the basic question of all philosophy, the epistemological question.

The Epistemological Question

Locke strenuously opposed Descartes' doctrine of innate ideas. All knowledge has its origin in experience, in sense-perception. The elements of knowledge are the ideas, and Locke, in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, explains the idea in the following manner:

"It being that term which, I think, serves best to stand for whatever is the object of the understanding when a man thinks, I have used it to express whatever is meant by phantasm, notion, species, or whatever it is which the mind can be employed about in thinking."

Descartes placed all sense-perception in the spiritual mind, thus identifying sense-perception with spiritual activity; Locke here does the reverse, by reducing ideas, at least in part, down to the level of sense-perception (phantasm, species). By thus arbitrarily blurring the nature of the idea so as to include sense-perception, he laid the foundation for sensism, where all thinking is nothing but a form of sensation. Another important feature of this definition of "idea" is, that the "idea" is the object of our understanding, instead of the reality of things being the object of our knowledge.

Ideas, according to Locke, are derived from two sources -- sense-perception and reflection; and all knowledge is restricted to ideas.

"Since the mind, in all its thoughts and reasonings, hath no other immediate object but its own ideas, which it alone does or can contemplate, it is evident that our knowledge is only conversant about them. Knowledge, then, seems to me to be nothing but the perception of the connection of and agreement, or disgreement and repugnancy of any of our ideas. In this alone it consists."

This means, of course, that we do not really know objects or things-in-themselves, but ideas or conscious states of the mind; and this is the standpoint of Descartes and idealism. Locke, however, did not deny the existence of material substances, such as bodies, nor of spiritual substances, such as the soul and God; but substance is unknowable to us, whether material or immaterial.

"Our idea of substance is equally obscure, or none at all, in both; it is but a supposed I-know-not-what, to support those ideas we call accidents...By the complex idea of extended, figured, colored, and all other sensible qualities, which is all that we know of it, we are as far from the idea of the substance of the body, as if we knew nothing at all."

While Locke, therefore, admits the existence of material and spiritual "substances," he asserts that they are unknowable; "accidents" or "phenomena" alone are knowable; he is in last instance an empirical phenomenalist.

Primary and Secondary Qualities

Locke is remembered for his distinguishing of primary and secondary sense-qualities in bodily things. In his study upon the nature of knowledge, he had constantly to face such questions as: are sense-objects really what they appear to be; is the grass really green; is the whirling wheel actually in motion; is the stone truly solid? Locke decided that there are certain qualities common to all bodies (impenetrability, extension, shape, rest, motion) and these are primary qualities which exist as objective things. He said that there are also other qualities not found in all bodies alike (color, sound, taste, odor, temperature, resistance) and these are secondary qualities which are largely subjective, that is, not so much objective things as the perceivings or feelings of the person who senses them.

Locke's distinction of sense-qualities as primary and secondary may serve us as a mere convenient list. But his theory of their objective reality cannot stand. For we are wholly unaware of the primary qualities except through the medium of the secondary. And if the secondary be unreliable (being largely subjective) we have no reason to put any trust in the actuality of the primary qualities. Locke's theory of sense-qualities points the way to the self-contradiction of complete skepticism.
[unquote]


If any moral theory is a theory of natural law, it is Aquinas`s. Not Locke`s
[Every introductory ethics anthology that includes material on natural law theory includes material by or about Aquinas; every encyclopedia article on natural law thought refers to Aquinas.] So Athena maybe you should acknowledge the father of natural law and reason was himself a catholic named Thomas Aqinas, there really was nothing new in what Locke was asserting here. Why credit him for it?

Do you know what scholasticism is? I wish there were enough interest in scholasticism to be worth making a thread. And for heavens sake the author of natural law is the Greeks long before Thomas Aquinas, who studied the classics, as all of us should be doing.

When people believed the king had divine right to rule, the subjects had no right to argue the king in anyway. That is the point. That is why John Locke argued natural law and restrictions of the father and in favor of private property rights. Do you understand divine right to rule?

Perhaps some understanding of how property rights and later human rights, evolved, would help. This site is really interesting and among other things tells franklin means someone who is a free man. Ben Franklin, therefore, is a surname telling us his family were free men at the time when many people were serfs and considered to be part of the lord's property. Notice the word "lord" and its connection with the bible and religious beliefs, because we are talking ideas of human rights that come from the classics, verse understanding reality through the church and studying only the bible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_the_Manor

Do you know what scholasticism is? I wish there were enough interest in scholasticism to be worth making a thread. And for heavens sake the author of natural law is the Greeks long before Thomas Aquinas, who studied the classics, as all of us should be doing.

1.often Scholasticism The dominant western Christian theological and philosophical school of the Middle Ages, based on the authority of the Latin Fathers and of Aristotle and his commentators.
2.Close adherence to the methods, traditions, and teachings of a sect or school.
3.Scholarly conservatism or pedantry.

Do you understand you titled this thread Natural Law and then went into an attack on the catholic religion as being behind the lack of natural law of King James ..and mentioning the history of the 17th century John Locke..the author of natural law was Aristotle who was indeed Greek Aquinas was the 13th century forerunner of most thought in the WEST [my emphasis] on Natural Law..btw Natural Law can mean a multitude of things.. unless one outlines their argument in sensible terms and its history I admitt I live in England and have never had a call to know who John Locke is..but then I don`t study liberal politics

Do you know what scholasticism is? I wish there were enough interest in scholasticism to be worth making a thread. And for heavens sake the author of natural law is the Greeks long before Thomas Aquinas, who studied the classics, as all of us should be doing.

1.often Scholasticism The dominant western Christian theological and philosophical school of the Middle Ages, based on the authority of the Latin Fathers and of Aristotle and his commentators.
2.Close adherence to the methods, traditions, and teachings of a sect or school.
3.Scholarly conservatism or pedantry.

Do you understand you titled this thread Natural Law and then went into an attack on the catholic religion as being behind the lack of natural law of King James ..and mentioning the history of the 17th century John Locke..the author of natural law was Aristotle who was indeed Greek Aquinas was the 13th century forerunner of most thought in the WEST [my emphasis] on Natural Law..btw Natural Law can mean a multitude of things.. unless one outlines their argument in sensible terms and its history I admitt I live in England and have never had a call to know who John Locke is..but then I don`t study liberal politics

You are so funny. Do you know the effect of the Norman invasion on the evolution of property rights in England and what this has to do with the problem of King James being Catholic in Protestant England, and how this relates to believing in the divine right of kings, and eventually John Locke's book "Two Treatises of Government"?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_law

Aristotle's association with natural law is due largely to the interpretation given to his works by Thomas Aquinas.

You wrote:

So Athena maybe you should acknowledge the father of natural law and reason was himself a catholic named Thomas Aqinas,

No, Thomas Aquinas' interpretation of Aristotle does not make him the father of natural law, and you really need a better understanding of Greek philosophy and logos, and then Cicero and Roman law bases on the law of nature, all of which predated Christianity, and most certainly predates Thomas Aquinas.

The early church was Hellenized Judaism, and then Hellenism and Christianity became antagonistic, and the church turned against those pagan teachings. For several centuries the church ignored the intellectual advancements of previous civilizations and focused exclusively on studying the bible, and this why we call the Dark Ages the Dark Ages.

The period of Scholasticism, revived a study of the classics, but it was so dogmatic that intellectual development was stagnated. It became necessary to revolt against scholasticism to generate new thought and advance intellectually. This is when ideas of natural law which began with the Greeks, started to eat away at the power of church and king authority. We entered the renaissance and period of humanistic education, that eventually brings us to Locke and Thomas Jefferson.

The influence of the Reformation period was to stress the use of reason as the guide to the interpretation of secular life and of nature, to the restriction of the authority of scripture to religious matters, and to the use of reason by the individual even in the interpretation of the Scripture. This is a move away from religious dogmatism and towards a scientific interpretation of secular life and nature, and things like the theory of evolution, replacing the Christian interpretation of the Jewish translation of the Sumerian story of Eden (mythology).

If I am funny you are positivly bizarre!

athena wrote:
"Do you know the effect of the Norman invasion "

um yes but that is not what your opening post addressed.

John Locke studied medicine and in his day, a scientific approach to illness had a special importance, because these were the days of witch hunts. King James predates Locke and sets the stage for what is to happen in Locke's time. He was the first Stuart king of England and believed in the divine right of kings. Meaning kings get their right to rule from God, and not the consent of the people. This is a conflict of superstition verses reason with political implications.

King James was was Catholic when Protestantism was popular in England, and Catholics were as feared, as we feared communist. Exceptionally important, in regards to Locke and his scientific approach to medicine; James set off witch hunt hysteria in England.

As for Lockes treaty he made it impossible for landowners to profit and generate work and employment in their own community from their own people and land! his ideals whilst appearing noble and attempting to be fair to all..had their down side..government could seize land owned from those who profitted more than government deemed they should..thus denying revunue to regenerate back into communites..