“It is possible, of course. But he did not let it rest on faith. He believed that the
idea of God was born of human reason. That was a rationalistic feature. I should add
that he spoke out for intellectual liberty and tolerance. He was also preoccupied with
equality of the sexes, maintaining that the subjugation of women to men was ‘man-
made.’ Therefore it could be altered.”
“I can’t disagree there.”
“Locke was one of the first philosophers in more recent times to be interested in
sexual roles. He had a great influence on John Stuart Mill, who in turn had a key role
in the struggle for equality of the sexes. All in all, Locke was a forerunner of many
liberal ideas which later, during the period of the French Enlightenment in the
eighteenth century, came into full flower. It was he who first advocated the principle
of division of powers...”
“Isn’t that when the power of the state is divided between different
institutions?”
“Do you remember which institutions?”
“There’s the legislative power, or elected representatives. There’s the judicial
power, or law courts, and then there’s the executive power, that’s the government.”
“This division of power originated from the French Enlightenment philosopher
Montesquieu. Locke had first and foremost emphasized that the legislative and the ex-
ecutive power must be separated if tyranny was to be avoided. He lived at the time of
Louis XIV, who had assembled all power in his own hands. ‘I am the State,’ he said.
We say he was an ‘absolute’ ruler. Nowadays we would call Louis XIV’s rule lawless
and arbitrary. Locke’s view was that to ensure a legal State, the people’s
representatives must make the laws and the king or the government must apply them.”
Hume
…commit it then to the flames…
Alberto sat staring down at the table. He finally turned and looked out of the
window.
“It’s clouding over,” said Sophie.
“Yes, it’s muggy.”
“Are you going to talk about Berkeley now?”
“He was the next of the three British empiricists. But as he is in a category of
his own in many ways, we will first concentrate on David Hume, who lived from
1711 to 1776. He stands out as the most important of the empiricists. He is also
significant as the person who set the great philosopher Immanuel Kant on the road to
his philosophy.”
“Doesn’t it matter to you that I’m more interested in Berkeley’s philosophy?”
“That’s of no importance. Hume grew up near Edinburgh in Scotland. His
family wanted him to take up law but he felt ‘an insurmountable resistance to every-
thing but philosophy and learning.’ He lived in the Age of Enlightenment at the same
time as great French thinkers like Voltaire and Rousseau, and he traveled widely in
Europe before returning to settle down in Edinburgh toward the end of his life. His
main work, A Treatise of Human Nature, was published when Hume was twenty-
eight years old, but he claimed that he got the idea for the book when he was only
fifteen.”
“I see I don’t have any time to waste.”
“You have already begun.”
“But if I were going to formulate my own philosophy, it would be quite