Know the limits of our knowledge and power.
Works, testimonies and further readings are distinguished. Dates refer to composition or first publication, as specified in each entry.
This selection includes the Essay, the two treatises together and separately, two letters on toleration, education, Christianity and a posthumous text. It does not yet index every economic writing, further letters in controversy, individual correspondence or edition variant; coverage is therefore incomplete.
Published late in 1689 with a 1690 date, the Essay was revised in successive editions. It addresses debates about innate ideas and certainty without reducing all knowledge to isolated sensation.
Explore this workVisit the source(new tab)Published anonymously late in 1689 with a 1690 date, much of the work was written before England’s 1688 Revolution. Its history includes debates about property, colonization and slavery.
Explore this workVisit the source(new tab)The first treatise appeared with the second in the anonymous volume dated 1690. Its polemic answers Filmer’s Patriarcha and must be distinguished from the positive argument of the second treatise.
Explore this workVisit the source(new tab)Published with the first treatise in 1689 and dated 1690, the text belongs to English conflicts over authority. Its claims about land require examination alongside histories of colonization and slavery.
Explore this workVisit the source(new tab)First published in Latin in 1689 after Locke’s Dutch exile, the letter does not defend universal religious freedom: it notably excludes atheists and restricts the place of Catholics.
Explore this workVisit the source(new tab)Published in 1690, this response belongs to a prolonged controversy after the first Letter. The polemical dialogue clarifies the limits Locke assigns to the magistrate.
Explore this workVisit the source(new tab)Published in 1693 from letters to Edward Clarke, it mainly addresses the education of an English gentleman. Its prescriptions reflect the social and gender inequalities of its time.
Explore this workVisit the source(new tab)Published anonymously in 1695, it provoked criticism to which Locke replied in two vindications. His account of faith belongs within the Christian debates of its time.
Explore this workVisit the source(new tab)The unfinished text appeared posthumously in 1706 in works edited by Peter King. Its publication must be distinguished from editions of the Essay concerning Human Understanding.
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