Locke értekezése a polgári kormányzatról: egy megfontolt felforgató

Locke is often characterised as an emblematic figure of the moderate or “magisterial” Enlightenment. Not contesting the general thrust of this interpretation, this essay still reminds that all of Locke’s mature political thought, chiefly recorded in the Two Treatises of Government, was formulated from the vantage point of a political dissident, which involved taking a considerable amount of personal risk. After outlining the polemical context in which the work was written, an analytical overview of its argument is presented. Special emphasis is laid on Locke’s distinctive contribution to the understanding of natural and political liberty; his analysis of property as not merely crucial to his theory of political legitimacy but to a discourse of civilization and progress; the multilayered significance of “trust”; and his peculiar account of the “dissolution of government”. Revolution for the sake of maintaining order is not a contradiction of terms in his thought.