SOSC 3375 Lecture Notes - Tabula Rasa, Omnipotence, Toleration

• School: York University
• Department: Social Science
• Course: SOSC 3375
• Professor: Tanja Juric

Document Summary

Social context and arguments that led to the development of john locke"s letter concerning. Religious and political landscape in which locke was writing, and the reason why he has developed his position on tolerance. Key terms and concepts: enlightenment, secularism, empiricism, the reformation. His influence upon philosophy and political theory endures today. The enlightenment: a tradition in philosophy that marked a turning point where people used to be very plugged into their cultural belief system, whereby if they challenged it or practiced critical thinking, they would be punished somehow. The enlightenment was a movement in philosophy to challenge this. For locke and emmanuel kant, it wasn"t appropriate to follow the dictates of one"s society or tradition; we must understand our actions and follow our actions at a reasonable philosophy. These philosophers are not anti-religious (locke himself was arguably quite devout), but religious beliefs had to be contained and justified within reason.