John Locke

John Locke influenced a change in the direction of rhetoric during the eighteenth century through his common experience and perception of common sense. He was a popular public figure because he was involved in government and well informed with the rationality of religion. Locke’s governmental involvement, with the documents that he wrote, greatly influenced the democratic government system that we have today in the United States because our constitution was modeled after one of his written documents.

Locke was a conspirer against the monarchy in England, and later wrote his works somewhat as a counter against the monarchy.

Locke believed that all we know are our own thoughts, but we can expand on what we know through words. For example, he believed that we can expand on our thoughts through reflection, which is our conveying of thoughts from one person to the next person. Locke is not saying that all we will ever know are our current thoughts and ideas, but that what we currently know are from our ever-changing thoughts and ideas, which are able to expand through either written or spoken words from others. This makes sense because we are always developing and building upon what we know by what others have written down before us. This is basically the whole idea behind education.