Commentary

• John Locke and Education

  - John Yolton, John Locke and Education (New York: Random House, 1971).

• The Authoritarian Family and Political Attitudes in 17th Century England

  - Gordon Schochet, The Authoritarian Family and Political Attitudes in 17th Century England (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1988).
  This classic study of the relationship between paternal and political authority identifies patriachalism as a leitmotif of western social and political thought since the time of Plato and Aristotle. Gordon Schochet shows that patriarchal doctrines can be… More

• The Anxiety of Freedom: Imagination and Individuality in Locke’s Political Thought

  - Uday Mehta, The Anxiety of Freedom (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992).
  Summary: Against what he describes as the “all but canonical” reading of Locke as a narrowly political theorist, concerned with erecting institutional fences to prevent naturally free, rational, interested individuals from violating one… More

• Locke’s Education for Liberty by Nathan Tarcov

  - Nathan Tarcov, Locke’s Education for Liberty (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984).
  Locke’s Education for Liberty presents an analysis of the crucial but often underestimated place of education and the family within Lockean liberalism. Nathan Tarcov shows that Locke’s neglected work Some Thoughts Concerning Education compares… More

• “Natural Law, Theology, and Morality in Locke”

  - Steven Forde, "Natural Law, Theology, and Morality in Locke," American Journal of Political Science, 45 (2001), 396-409.
  Liberal theorists have always been confronted with the criticism that liberalism lacks a moral foundation adequate to the needs of society. I undertake a reading of Locke that agrees with those scholars who have found greater moral resources in his philosophy… More

• “The Family in John Locke’s Political Thought”

  - Jacqueline Pfeffer, “The Family in John Locke’s Political Thought,” Polity 33 (2001), 593-618.
  What might attention to Locke’s political thought contribute to contemporary debates about the family? I consider the original Lockean understanding of the role of family in civil society as presented in Locke’s Two Treatises of Government and… More

• “What Does Locke Expect Us to Know?” by Steven Forde

  - Steven Forde, "What Does Locke Expect Us to Know?" Review of Politics, 68  (2006), 232-258.
  Locke claims that his moral and political teaching is capable of a fully rational demonstration. It would seem then that Lockean citizens are expected to grasp the rational bases of their regime. But Locke was notoriously vague or incomplete on what the… More