Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy: Volume 3 (of 3)Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
PhilosophyPhilosophy
Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy: Volume 3 (of 3)
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
Philosophy -- History
in this opposition, and from the opposition itself to make the unity
emerge. But those who were the instruments of this tendency comprehended
themselves but little, they had still no clear consciousness of their
task, nor of the manner in which their claims could be satisfied. With
Locke, this principle makes its first entrance into Philosophy in a
manner so completely at variance with the inflexible undifferentiated
identity of the substance of Spinoza, that the sensuous and limited, the
immediate present and existent, is the main and fundamental matter. Locke
does not get beyond the ordinary point of view of consciousness, viz.
that objects outside of us are the real and the true. The finite is thus
not grasped by Locke as absolute negativity, _i.e._ in its infinitude;
this we shall not find until we come to deal in the third place with
Leibnitz. It is in a higher sense that Leibnitz asserts individuality,
the differentiated, to be self-existent and indeed objectless, to be
true Being. That is to say, it is not according to him finite, but is
yet distinguished; thus, each monad is itself the totality. Leibnitz
and Locke hence likewise stand in a position of mutual independence and
antagonism.
John Locke was born in 1632, at Wrington, in England. He studied for
himself the Cartesian philosophy at Oxford, setting aside the scholastic
philosophy which was still in vogue. He devoted himself to the study of
medicine, which, however, on account of his delicate health, he never
really practised. In 1664 he went with an English ambassador for a year
to Berlin. After his return to England, he became acquainted with the
intellectual Earl of Shaftesbury of that time, who availed himself of his
medical advice, and in whose house he lived without requiring to give
himself up to practice. When Lord Shaftesbury became Lord Chancellor
of England, Locke received an office from him, which, however, he soon
lost by a change of ministry. Owing to his dread of falling a prey to
consumption, he betook himself in 1675 to Montpellier for the benefit of
his health. When his patron came into power again he once more recovered
the place he had lost, only to be again deposed on a fresh overthrow of
this minister, and he was now compelled to flee from England. “The act by
means of which Locke was driven from Oxford” (what post he held there we
are not told) “was not an enactment of the University, but of James II.,
by whose express command, and by the peremptory authority of a written
warrant, the expulsion was carried out. From the correspondence that took
place, it is evident that the college submitted itself against its will
to a measure which it could not resist without compromising the peace
and quiet of its members.” Locke went to Holland, which was at that time
the land wherein all who were obliged to effect their escape from any
oppression, whether political or religious, found protection, and in
which the most famous and liberal-minded men were to be met with.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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