John Locke Dbq

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The 16th -18th centuries for Europe was a time of political evolution, pondering, and theory development that began to revolutionize the way Europeans, at the time, thought about the roles of interaction between people and government. Europe was primarily ran by royalty, and the sort, with systems very similar to feudalism that had a clear and evident class based structure system. Due to the way Europe was mostly constructed, there was a incredibly large population difference between upper-class citizens and what were essentially peasants. Some scholars began to study the relationship between these powerful governments and their people, and had a major effect in the political world. The persons who had the largest impact on political thinking in Europe during the 1500-1700s are Thomas Hobbs, John Locke, and Adam Smith. Thomas Hobbs, like the other two men, is considered as one of the founders of political philosophy. Potentially Hobbs' largest contribution towards political thinking was his book Leviathan that addressed …show more content…
Locke is normally considered the founder of Liberalism because he unwaveringly thought that the government should entirely be controlled by the people. In the Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Locke wrote about how he believed that all of human knowledge is learned through personal experience. His work was the influence for many other political thinkers. Locke's biggest impact came through Second Treatise Of Government because this work stated that people control the government, the government is a creation of the people, and that natural rights should not be suppressed. Most of Locke's work in Second Treatise Of Government is commonly associated with the social contract theory, and all of it is incredible given the era. Locke essentially shuts down divine right, slavery, and any form of large overbearing government in a single