Abstract
In this paper, an analysis is performed on the concepts of knowledge and property employed by John Locke to demonstrate the possibility of attaining certainties in moral knowledge and to legitimise private property. His thought was characterised by his desire to trace a connection between the moral, intellectual and material worlds, for the purpose of establishing methodological grounds for a true knowledge of practical principles. Inquiring into the processes of knowledge and into the motivational workings of human behaviour, the English philosopher arrived at the conclusion that thanks to the exercise of his knowledge and will, man acquires, with effort, the ownership of his person and the external world surrounding him, and is capable of attaining knowledge of the content of natural law with a certainty as absolute as that deriving from mathematical knowledge.
References
Arendt, H. 1994. “Dream and Nightmare.” In Essays in Understanding 1930–1954: Formation, Exile, and Totalitarianism, edited by J. Kohn, 579–90. New York: Schocken Books.Search in Google Scholar
Aristotle. 2019. del Alma, III, 4. 429a 15, 429b 30. Madrid: Consejo Superior de investigaciones científicas.Search in Google Scholar
Aznar, H. 1992. Naturaleza y discurso práctico: las vías del conocimiento moral en el pensamiento de John Locke. Valencia: Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Valencia.Search in Google Scholar
Boorstin, D. J. 1986. Los descubridores. Barcelona: Crítica, Grupo Grijalbo Mondadori.Search in Google Scholar
Brandt, R. 1974. Eigentumstheorien von Grotius bis Kant. Stuttgart: Frommann-Holzboog.Search in Google Scholar
Buckle, S. 1991. Natural Law and the Theory of Property. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Search in Google Scholar
Colman, J. 1983. John Locke´s Moral Philosophy. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Coleman, J. 1985. “Dominium in Thirteenth and Fourteenth-Century Political Thought and its Seventeenth-Century Heirs: John of Paris and Locke.” Political Studies 33(1): 73–100. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9248.1985.tb01562.x.Search in Google Scholar
Dalberg-Acton, J. E. E. 1907. The History of Freedom and Other Essays. London: Macmillan and Co.Search in Google Scholar
Dewhurst, K. 1963. John Locke (1632–1704), Physician and Philosopher. A Medical Biography. London: Wellcome Historical Medical Library.Search in Google Scholar
Goldie, M., ed. (1993). Locke: Political Essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Gordon, S. 1991. The History and Philosophy of Social Sciences. London and New York: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar
Grotius, H. 1625. “De Iure belli ac pacis, Libri Tres.”In Quibus Ius Naturae et Gentium, Item Juris Publici Praecipua Explicantur. Paris: Nicolaum Buon.Search in Google Scholar
Grotius, H. 1925 [1680]. Del derecho de la guerra y de la paz. Madrid: Instituto Editorial Reus.Search in Google Scholar
Grossi, P. 1992. La propiedad y las propiedades. Madrid: Editorial Cívitas.Search in Google Scholar
Grossi, P. 1996. El orden jurídico medieval. Madrid: Marcial Pons Ediciones Jurídicas.Search in Google Scholar
Grossi, P. 2006. La proprietà e le proprietà nell’officina dello storico. Napoli: Editoriale Scientifica.Search in Google Scholar
Grossi, P. 2011. El novecientos jurídico: un siglo posmoderno. Madrid, Barcelona and Buenos Aires: Marcial Pons.Search in Google Scholar
Harris, I. P. 1994. The Mind of John Locke. A Study of Political Theory in its Intellectual Setting. Cambridge (UK): Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Leibniz, G. W. 1896. New Essays Concerning Human Understanding. New York: Macmillan & Co.Search in Google Scholar
Locke, J. 1690. Two Treatises of Government. London: Awnsham Churchill at the Black Swan in Ave-Mary-Lane.Search in Google Scholar
Locke. 1823. The Works of John Locke. London: Printed for Thomas Tegg.Search in Google Scholar
Locke, J. 1714 The Work of John Locke Esq, Vol. III. London: John Churchill at the Black Swan in Pater-noster-Row and Sam Manship at the Ship in Cornhil.Search in Google Scholar
Locke, J. 1958 [1676]. Essays on the Law of Nature. Oxford: Oxford Clarendon Press.Search in Google Scholar
Locke, J. 1997 [1689]. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. London: Penguin Classics.Search in Google Scholar
Locke, J. 2009. Of the Abuse of Words. London: Penguin Great Ideas.Search in Google Scholar
Mayer, M. E. 1937. Filosofía del Derecho. Barcelona: Editorial Labor.Search in Google Scholar
Olivecrona, K. H. K. 1969. “The Concept of Right According to Grotius and Pufendorf.” In Beiträge zur juristischen Methodenlehre Festschrift für Oscar Adolf Germann zum 80 Geburtstag, edited by P. Noll, and G. Stratenwerth, 175–97. Bern: Verlag Stämpfli & Cie.Search in Google Scholar
Olivecrona, K. H. K. 1974. “Appropriation in the State of Nature: Locke on the Origin of Property.” Journal of the History of Ideas 35 (2): 211. https://doi.org/10.2307/2708759.Search in Google Scholar
Olivecrona, K. H. K. 1975. The Term “Property” in Locke’s Two Treatises of Government. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag.Search in Google Scholar
Polin, R. 1969. “John Locke’s Conception of Freedom.” In John Locke: Problems and Perspectives, edited by J. W. Yolton. Cambridge (UK): Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Rodríguez Paniagua, J. M. 2013. Historia del pensamiento jurídico Vol. I: De Heráclito a la Revolución Francesa. Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva.Search in Google Scholar
Solar, C. J. I. 1996. La teoría de la tolerancia en John Locke. Madrid: Editorial Dykinson.Search in Google Scholar
Viano, C. A. 1960. John Locke. Dal razionalismo all’Illuminismo. Torino: Editorial Einaudi.Search in Google Scholar
Viano, C. A. 1990. Materiali per una storia della cultura giuridica, Vol. XX. 1. Bologna: Bologna Società Editrice il Molino.Search in Google Scholar
Yolton, J. W. 1968. John Locke and the Way of Ideas. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Search in Google Scholar
Yolton, J. W. 1970. Locke and the Compass of the Human Understanding. Cambridge (UK): Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Yolton, J. W. 1993. A Locke Dictionary. Oxford: Blackwell.Search in Google Scholar
© 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
