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social contract

(Encyclopedia)social contract, agreement or covenant by which men are said to have abandoned the “state of nature” to form the society in which they now live. The theory of such a contract, first formulated by ...

Collins, Anthony

(Encyclopedia)Collins, Anthony, 1676–1729, English theologian; a friend of John Locke. He set forth the position of the deists and defended the cause of rational theology. His Discourse of Free Thinking (1713) wa...

atomism

(Encyclopedia)atomism, philosophic concept of the nature of the universe, holding that the universe is composed of invisible, indestructible material particles. The theory was first advanced in the 5th cent. b.c. b...

empiricism

(Encyclopedia)empiricism ĕmpĭrˈĭsĭzəm [key] [Gr.,=experience], philosophical doctrine that all knowledge is derived from experience. For most empiricists, experience includes inner experience—reflection upo...

Filmer, Sir Robert

(Encyclopedia)Filmer, Sir Robert, d. 1653, English royalist political writer, author of Patriarcha; or, The Natural Power of Kings (pub. posthumously in 1680), a defense of the divine right of monarchs by an exposi...

sensationalism

(Encyclopedia)sensationalism, in philosophy, the theory that there are no innate ideas and that knowledge is derived solely from the sense data of experience. The idea was discussed by Greek philosophers and is sho...

Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3d earl of

(Encyclopedia)Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3d earl of, 1671–1713, English philosopher. The philosopher John Locke, adviser to the 1st earl, his grandfather, was in charge of Shaftesbury's education, which ...

Nasby, Petroleum V.

(Encyclopedia)Nasby, Petroleum V., pseud. of David Ross Locke, 1833–88, American journalist and satirist, b. Vestal, N.Y. Locke was editor of the Findlay, Ohio, Jeffersonian when he first became prominent by publ...

natural rights

(Encyclopedia)natural rights, political theory that maintains that an individual enters into society with certain basic rights and that no government can deny these rights. The modern idea of natural rights grew ou...

constitution, principles of government

(Encyclopedia)constitution, fundamental principles of government in a nation, either implied in its laws, institutions, and customs, or embodied in one fundamental document or in several. In the first category—cu...