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14 - Locke no Leveller

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Ian Gentles
Affiliation:
York University, Toronto
John Morrill
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Blair Worden
Affiliation:
University of Sussex
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Summary

The political philosophy of John Locke continues to arouse controversy. This in itself is testimony to the interest both of the man and of his writings. The most ambitious attempt of recent years to set Locke's political ideas in a detailed biographical and historical context is to be found in the work of the late Richard Ashcraft. To quote his words:

What I have attempted, therefore, is a marriage of Locke's ideas with the actions and objectives of a political movement in which Locke was a participant and for which his ideas served as an articulate expression of the meaning of those actions and goals.

His location of Locke in the radical (and not merely Whiggish) politics of the 1670s and 1680s led Ashcraft in a very specific direction: ‘I have throughout this work placed Locke in much closer proximity to the Levellers and to the radical political theory they developed than has previously been supposed.’ While this interpretation has been severely criticised by some historians and social scientists, Ashcraft's work has been sufficiently influential to merit further scrutiny. Needless to say, it is a matter of much regret that he can no longer himself join in this discussion.

There is more than one way of approaching the possible connectionsbetween Locke and the Levellers. It is possible to argue that those who were called Levellers (of whom John Lilburne, Richard Overton, William Walwyn and John Wildman were the most important, together with Thomas Rainsborough and Edward Sexby for their part in the Army debates) were more interested in preserving individual property rights than they were in complete democracy, even if the right to vote in parliamentary elections was limited to adult males.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1998

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