Locke writes in very long and convoluted sentences, with all the powdered-wig pomp appropriate to intellectual discourses of the time, 1690. Each of these sentences would required considerable rehearsal to deliver them in a way that pointed up their sense rather than obscuring it. But, Lois Betterton reads as though she's perpetually surprised at the course of Locke's sentences, as well as their sequence. I don't know where one would find someone competent to give a reading of this book, and maybe it isn't Betterton's fault. But, Blackstone should know better. They ought to commission a truly professional reading (by Betterton or another) and send that, with a note of apology, to anyone who purchased this audio book.

First, this is an unabridged version -- although it is wrongly listed as abridged. Second, this reading is clear, articulate and easy to follow. I have read the 2nd treatise many times before listening to this audio edition. The reader does a great job, staying faithful to the tone and cadence of this work. Ignore the review that gives this product a one-star. I hestitated when I saw it, but decided to buy this product anyway. I'm glad I did, as that review was terribly unjust.

This audiocassette book is NOT abridged! To prove this, go to the publisher's website (Blackstone audiobooks).

Some people, like myself, cannot, for whatever reason, read (paper) books, and there is, so far as I know, no other audio version of a Locke text available in the world. (There is a Knowledge Products two-tape set, and it is excellent, but it's ABOUT Locke; it is not the text on tape.) So I'm grateful to Blackstone for producing this. And, actually, I found it to be of very good quality.

Like others books in the Collection of Cambridge Companion, this volume on Locke's philosophy is too difficult to for new readers and too simple and general for scholars that already knows the basics of Locke's thought. Moreover, of the diffeents essays pubblied in this Companion, some are very usefull for a wide and general look. I think it's a good tool to graduate students looking for exapnding their knows on the political theory of XVIII century.

I just wanted to counter the review of the first writer on this book - this companion to Locke's thought is pitched extremely well between the needs of the new reader and a Locke scholar. Each of the articles are accessible, providing an interesting take on each of the subjects tackled. They are certainly not a simple read, however, and the reader is required to make an effort to understand the different strands of argument being discussed. The difficulties of understanding are far from insurmountable and the reader is provided with a sense of achievement in reaching a useful understanding of each subject under discussion. The articles cover all the major areas of Locke's philosophical work (with perhaps an emphasis on his epistemology and metaphysics) and there is an excellent biographical sketch. There is also a fine bibliography of Locke's works and related scholarly material. This book is a useful and informative introduction to Locke's thought. It does require an effort of understanding, but this effort is well-rewarded.

This book form the otherwise excellent Great Philosophers Series suffers from being inaccessible or uninteresting to anyone who was not already well acquainted with his writing. I was looking forward to reading about Locke's contractarian philosophy and its influence on the founding of the United States, but alas this was nowhere to be found. Even I, who has read evey book in this series, had a tough time ploughing through this entry.

This are great works important in the history of political philosophy. But this particular edition does not give as many footnotes as it should, to explain refrences to Classical literature, and certain Latin phrases that students of today may not be familiar with. Still, it combiners three influentional political essays in one covenient volume.

I found this book to be essentially useless. It presented a brief, boring biography of Locke with little attention to his world altering theories. Waste of time.

I think Paul Strathern is brilliant. He must have looked at the way the "...for Dummies" series has a standard format and done something similar. I was more impressed with his treatment of Confucius. In both this book on Locke and the one on Confucius he gives us 50 pp. of content in two sections: "Subject's Life and Works" and "Afterword". But in the book on Locke, Strathern spent too many words poking fun at Locke and calling him boring. He also spent much more effort in describing the life and times of Locke than his philosophy. I think Strathern must find Locke too boring to spend much time discussing his contributions. "From Socrates to Sarte: the Philosophic Quest" by T.Z.Lavine gives four chapters to Hume and a handful of pages to Locke. "The Story of Philosophy" by Will Durant doesn't give a full chapter to either Hume or Locke, merely including them within the context of philosophers whom Durant considers greater. So at least Strathern has given more individual focus to Locke than other writers popularizing philosophy. Strathern also, as part of his format in this 90 Minutes series, gives representative quotes from Locke's work. This is a very nice touch and I recommend the book for this reason. You can see that reading Locke is like reading the King James version of the Bible: "Huh? What did he say?" This is a decent book, but I did feel a bit let down while reading it, which is why I give it 3 instead of 4 stars. Also, the other reviewer made comments saying that Locke's philosophy of government depends on the inate goodness of people. That is only that reviewer's opinion. That did not come across at all in this presentation of Locke's work.

This book sets as its goal to communicate the life and work of John Locke in 90 minutes. For me, the book succeeded in this; I read it in about an hour and then went back over some parts to review in more depth.

John Locke (1632-1704) was an important philosopher; he laid the groundwork for liberal democracy and he was also the founder of empiricism. Strathern spends most of the book describing different events in Locke's life and for non-specialist, this is probably a good approach. Strathern does a fairly good job of putting Locke in his historical context; grew up during the English Civil War, and then lived through Oliver Cromwell's rule and then the Restoration of the Monarchy; one of the more turbulent periods in English history, no doubt. I think Paul Strathern is a British writer and this comes through in his writing.

Strathern is fond is saying that Locke's philosophy was "common sense." However, empiricism (The view that experience, especially of the senses, is the only source of knowledge) is not really self-evident and wholly obvious. Locke also presumed that when one is born, one is a tabula rasa (The mind before it receives the impressions gained from experience. The unformed, featureless mind in the philosophy of John Locke.) or a blank slate. I think that everybody has some innate ideas (things that you just know apart from experience). On occasion, it appears that Locke is a materialist (materialism: The theory that physical matter is the only reality and that everything, including thought, feeling, mind, and will, can be explained in terms of matter and physical phenomena) but this is incompatible with his philosophy. Surely, empiricism is a non-physical thing; how much does empiricism weigh? What is its volume? It is non-physical. As a philosophy of epistemology (The branch of philosophy that studies the nature of knowledge, its presuppositions and foundations, and its extent and validity), I think empiricism is seriously flawed.

Locke's political thought probably had more impact on the world than his epistemology. Locke believed there is a natural law that gives people certain rights; for example the right to life or the right to liberty. However, because people keep stepping on other people's rights, it is necessary to form some sort of social contract (i.e like the American Constitution). Locke also held that certain rights are inherent and that if a government should act to violate those rights, then the people are justified in starting a revolution against those in power. Locke believed that Government had no legitimacy except the consent of the people (near the end of the 1700's, this would result in a paradigm shift from the Divine Right of Kings, to a Government by the People).

One the most interesting passages (I don't agree with his evaluation of Kant thought) describes several centuries of European philosophy: "Without Descartes there might have been no modern philosophy. But it was Locke who fathered the main line of development - the British Empiricists, who then provoked Kant to produce the greatest philosophical system of all, which in turn gave rise to the elephantine folly of Hegel, and the consequent disbelief in all systems by anyone except Marxists and optimistic punters." (page 49)

One of the interesting legacies of Locke may be his contribution to scientism (The belief that only science provides true knowledge or only that which can be proved by science is true). He makes a distinction between primary qualities of an object, which are quantifiable (e.g. mass or volume) and he said these are in the objects. Then there are secondary qualities, and these are qualitative (e.g. colour or smell) do not have the same connection to the object. In some sense, secondary qualities are mental constructs, in Locke's view. It is easy to see how a belief that quantitative properties are the only real things that can be known (i.e. if science can't measure it, it doesn't exist.) has major repercussions. The other problem I have with Locke relates to his understanding of language and how that language can describe objects. Strathern says, "Locke had rejected the Aristotelian notion whereby the words with which we classify things correspond to the 'real essence' of things." (page 47) The impact of this is that if two people see an object they cannot discover a common essence but both can come up with ideas that are mental constructs. I think this may have contributed to the moral relativism that is now so so pervasive in North America.

On the format of the book, about 60% covers Locke's life and works; that is 48 pages. Then there is a short Afterword, followed by a 10 page section which quotes from Locke's two major works, "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding," (on epistemology) and, "Two Treatises of Government," (on political philosophy; attacks the Divine Right of Kings and argues for liberal democracy). Then there are two chronologies; one of the history of Western philosophy (it is interesting to note who comes before and after Locke) and then there is a chronology of Locke's life.

There are several problems with Locke's thought, however I will look at two here. In describing the point at which everyone has his or her rights and all is well, I think this shows a view that humanity is basically good. However, if you examine the history of the world, yourself or the Bible, you find that this is simply not the case. It is dangerous to build a government with the assumption that people are basically good. On his political philosophy, I don't know if it is wise to wholly place the legitimacy of government in the consent of the people. There must be a higher authority beyond man, immutable and good, on which government can be measured against (e.g. in South Africa, apartheid was legal and authorized by the government however only by appeal to a transcendent law that demands equality could this be overthrown)

Put simply, _Locke in Contexts_ is far to erudite for the average reader (including myself). I've read a good deal of history and a fair amount of economics, but his book was, for the most part, over my head. Professor Tully seems to know his subject extremely well, but he is not, in this work, communicating to the layman. The book is full of turgid, academic prose such as:

"The first feature of any new way of governing is the rejection of any theory that assent or belief is governed by a natural disposition (or telic faculty) to the true or the good. This theory of a naturally dispositional conscience is replaced by an account of the conscience as completely non-dispositional power of judgement, and of the mind as a blank tablet, indifferent to true or false, good or evil."

Yikes! It takes a machette to hack through text like that. John Locke was an important figure in the pre-Enlightenment era of political discourse and many of his theories greatly influenced the thinking of the founding fathers of the United States, but this isn't the way to learn about him (unless you're a professional in the field).

Once in a while Professor Tully puts over a clear and concise idea in an approachable way, such as, "Locke's innovation here is to argue that the fundamental natural law is not self-preservation, but `the preservation of mankind'." These lucid episodes are to far apart for real satisfaction, however, and I do not reccomend this book to any layperson in history or economics.

Lastly, Professor Tully is very much a political liberal. Those with centrist or conservative leanings may well find him irritating in spots.

This book is exactly what it says on the tin - a point by point response to Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Consequentially it's pretty pointless to try reading this if you haven't already read the Essay. It's interesting from the point of view that it's virtually the only example of one great philosopher making a detailed reply to another's work, and that besides the Theodicy it's Leibniz's only full length book. The problem is that detail however - this is only marginally shorter than Locke's Essay, and the problem of the Essay's repetiveness is exacerbated here, as Leibniz seems to say the same things over and over again. The dialogue form is also disappointing as Leibniz puts in very little effort to make the speakers even remotely realistic (although some claim that the work is, stylistically, unfinished, which accounts for that).

In terms of the edition, it's much like all the others in the Cambridge History of Philosophy Range, which is to say, very nice, with a helpful introduction.

Overall, I'd say this is a book for study, rather than reading for enlightenment. For scholars of Locke and Leibniz only.

I'd like first to see the preview to remember what i have rea