John Locke, The Philosophers of LOST, Part 2

This is the second article in my series on the philosophers of the ABC hit series, LOST. As promised, it is on John Locke. As most of you already know, John Locke is the name of a character on LOST, who has a very complex past and personality. He has a different times been the ally of and, polar opposite of, both Jack Shepard and Benjamin Linus. In the last episode of the season, Locke became the leader of the Others. The Others, of course where the original enemies of the survivors of oceanic flight 315. At the end of the last episode, we find out that John Locke has made it to Los Angeles, under the name of Jeremy Bentham. (Jeremy Bentham was a philosopher, whom I profiled previously.) And finally we find out that John Locke a.k.a. Jeremy Bentham is dead.

So who was the real John Locke and how does he relate to the character? The real John Locke was an English philosopher who lived from 1632 to 1704. He was from a middle-class Puritan family and was educated at Oxford. He obtained a bachelor of medicine, which allowed him to practice as a medical doctor. While at Oxford, he made the acquaintance of Lord Anthony Cooper. If that name rings any bells it’s because Anthony Cooper is also the name of Locke’s father on LOST. Lord Cooper was a well-connected politician and rival to the king. He was at Oxford to seek treatment for liver problems. Locke and Cooper hit it off and became good friends, and Cooper eventually persuaded Locke to come live with him and be his private physician.

In his capacity as Lord Coopers physician Locke, persuaded him to undergo an operation to remove a cyst from his liver. Any sort of surgical operation was extremely dangerous in the 1600s. However, Lord Cooper survived the operation and credited Locke with saving his life. This is very similar to the way Locke saved Anthony Cooper’s life on LOST, by donating a kidney to him.

Lock did a lot of work in the field of epistemology that is, the study of what can be known and how it can be known. Locke is one of the fathers of the field of thought known as in empiricism. Empiricism is the idea that all knowledge comes from experience. This is in contrast to some who, especially in Locke’s day felt that all people were born with certain innate knowledge. Locke coined the term tabula rasa, or blank slate, for his theory that the mind of a baby was a blank slate with no innate knowledge.

Locke also worked in political philosophy. He opposed the divine right of kings to rule. This was very radical it in his day as essentially all nations were ruled by King’s. Locke said that governments exist in what he called, a social contract with the people. He said that the people had certain rights given to them by God. Government, to lock, was the people giving up a certain amount of their rights in order to be able to prosper in society. Locke believed that when the government failed to protect the rights of the people, then the people had the right and the responsibility to remove the government. If you think some of this sounds familiar. It’s probably because Locke had a great influence on the founding fathers of the United States and especially Thomas Jefferson.

These views did not make Locke very popular with the King. Eventually Locke, along with Lord Cooper, was implicated in a plot to assassinate the king. Locke was never put on trial for this, and little or no evidence was ever brought forth to show that he was part of the plot. But nonetheless, he was forced to flee England. He made his way to the Netherlands, and did not return to England until after the death of the king.

As mentioned earlier, Locke had a profound impact on the founding of the United States. His belief in the social contract, limited government, and private property have greatly influenced libertarian political philosophy, and the Libertarian party. He also had a lot of influence on a later philosopher by the name of David Hume. The producers of LOST named the character Desmond Hume after David Hume. The profile of David Hume is coming up, but next is Jean-Jacques Rousseau.