Foreword

Locke’s influence on the history of Western thought has been immense, as Hans Aarsleff has remarked. His works have inspired a myriad of philosophers, educators, writers, and continue to attract the attention of a large number of scholars from different countries. The wealth of source material that Locke left for posterity, the greatest part of which became accessible to the public less than a century ago, has stimulated interest in his ideas and has contributed to a better understanding of his works. Extensive research into Locke’s manuscripts, carried out by Benjamin Rand, Richard Ayer, Jocelyn Gibb, Wilhelm von Leyden, Peter Laslett, William Yolton and Kenneth Dewhurst, to mention but a few, has clarified key aspects of Locke’s thought and has provided us with a more accurate account of his sources, interests, and beliefs. Other scholars have opened up new perspectives on some aspects of his oeuvre and have thus contributed to improving our appreciation of crucial issues in his philosophy. As a consequence, Locke’s views on politics, ethics, religion, physics, education, and even economics appear today in a new light. Our understanding of his ideas regarding Aristotelianism, Scholasticism, Cartesianism and corpuscularianism is clearer than in the past