Peter Bolland

Preeminent among the British Empiricists, John Locke (1632-1704) offered a bracing alternative to the earlier rationalist philosophy of Descartes, Leibniz, and Spinoza. Unlike rationalism which argued that knowledge was best built on a foundation of innate or priori ideas, Locke argued that empirical or sense experience was our sole means of apprehending the world—all of the ideas in our head were a posteriori, or built on perception of the external world. Furthermore, and probably more germane to our everyday lives, Locke famously championed the idea of natural rights, including the right to private property—a notion that would transform the world. Join us for this inquiry into the influential philosophy of John Locke.