Portal:Politics/Selected article/2007, week 17
right of rebellion.
Locke's ideas had enormous influence on the development of
Declaration of Independence
.
Locke's theory of mind is often cited as the origin for modern conceptions of identity and "the self"; it figured prominently in the works of later philosophers such as David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant. Locke was the first philosopher to define the self through a continuity of "consciousness." He also postulated that the mind was a "blank slate" or "tabula rasa"; that is, contrary to Cartesian or Christian philosophy, Locke maintained that people are born without innate ideas.