Primary Sources

Locke’s Works

Oxford University Press is in the process of producing a new edition of all of Locke’s works. This will supersede The Works of John Locke of which the 1823 edition is probably the most standard. The new Clarendon editions began with Peter Nidditch’s edition of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding in 1975. The Oxford Clarendon editions contain much of the material of the Lovelace collection, purchased and donated to Oxford by Paul Mellon. This treasure trove of Locke’s works and letters, which includes early drafts of the Essay and much other material, comes down from Peter King, Locke’s nephew, who inherited Locke’s papers. Access to these papers has given scholars in the twentieth century a much better view of Locke’s philosophical development and provided a window into the details of his activities which is truly remarkable. Hence the new edition of Locke’s works will very likely be definitive.

• [N] An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Peter H. Nidditch (ed.), 1975. doi:10.1093/actrade/9780198243861.book.1/actrade-9780198243861-book-1
• Some Thoughts Concerning Education, John W. Yolton and Jean S. Yolton (eds.), 1989. doi:10.1093/actrade/9780198245827.book.1/actrade-9780198245827-book-1
• Drafts for the Essay Concerning Human Understanding, and Other Philosophical Writings: In Three Volumes, Vol. 1: Drafts A and B, Peter H. Nidditch and G. A. J. Rogers (eds.), 1990. doi:10.1093/actrade/9780198245452.book.1/actrade-9780198245452-book-1
• The Reasonableness of Christianity: As Delivered in the Scriptures, John C. Higgins-Biddle (ed.), 2000. doi:10.1093/actrade/9780198245254.book.1/actrade-9780198245254-book-1
• An Essay Concerning Toleration: And Other Writings on Law and Politics, 1667–1683, J. R. Milton and Philip Milton (eds.), 2006. doi:10.1093/actrade/9780199575732.book.1/actrade-9780199575732-book-1
• Vindications of the Reasonableness of Christianity, Victor Nuovo (ed.), 2012. doi:10.1093/actrade/9780199286553.book.1/actrade-9780199286553-book-1
• A Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistles of St Paul to the Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Romans, Ephesians, 2 volumes, Arthur W. Wainwright (ed.)
  • volume 1, 1987. doi:10.1093/actrade/9780198248019.book.1/actrade-9780198248019-book-1
  • volume 2, 1987. doi:10.1093/actrade/9780198248064.book.1/actrade-9780198248064-book-1
• Locke on Money, 2 volumes, Patrick Hyde Kelly (ed.)
  • Volume 1, 1991. doi:10.1093/actrade/9780198245469.book.1/actrade-9780198245469-book-1
  • Volume 2, 1991,. doi:10.1093/actrade/9780198248378.book.1/actrade-9780198248378-book-1
• The Correspondence of John Locke, eight volumes, E.S. de Beer (ed.)
  • Vol. 1: Introduction; Letters Nos. 1–461, 2010. doi:10.1093/actrade/9780199573615.book.1/actrade-9780199573615-book-1
  • Vol. 2: Letters Nos. 462–848, 1976. doi:10.1093/actrade/9780198245599.book.1/actrade-9780198245599-book-1
  • Vol. 3: Letters Nos. 849–1241, 1978. doi:10.1093/actrade/9780198245605.book.1/actrade-9780198245605-book-1
  • Vol. 4: Letters Nos. 1242–1701, 1978. doi:10.1093/actrade/9780198245612.book.1/actrade-9780198245612-book-1.
  • Vol. 5: Letters Nos. 1702–2198, 1979. doi:10.1093/actrade/9780198245629.book.1/actrade-9780198245629-book-1
  • Vol. 6: Letters Nos. 2199–2664, 1980. doi:10.1093/actrade/9780198245636.book.1/actrade-9780198245636-book-1
  • Vol. 7: Letters Nos. 2665–3286, 1981. doi:10.1093/actrade/9780198245643.book.1/actrade-9780198245643-book-1
  • Vol. 8: Letters Nos. 3287–3648, 1989. doi:10.1093/actrade/9780198245650.book.1/actrade-9780198245650-book-1

In addition to the Oxford Press edition, there are a few editions of some of Locke’s works which are worth noting.

• An Early Draft of Locke’s Essay, Together with Excerpts from his Journal, Richard I. Aaron and Jocelyn Gibb (eds.), Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936. (Scholar)
• John Locke, Two Tracts of Government, Phillip Abrams (ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967.
• Locke’s The Two Treatises of Civil Government, Richard Ashcraft (ed.), London: Routledge, 1987. (Scholar)
• [Axtell 1968], The Educational Writings of John Locke: A Critical Edition, James L. Axtell (ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Scholar)
• [Gay 1964], John Locke on Education, Peter Gay (ed.), New York: Bureau of Publications, Columbia Teachers College, 1964. (Scholar)
• Epistola de Tolerantia: A Letter on Toleration, Latin text edited with a preface by Raymond Klibansky; English translation with an introduction and notes by J. W. Gough, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968.
• [G&T 1996] “Some Thoughts Concerning Education” and “The Conduct of the Understanding”, Ruth W. Grant and Nathan Tarcov (eds), Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 1996. (Scholar)
• [Laslett 1960] Locke’s Two Treatises of Government, Peter Laslett (ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960. (Scholar)
• [Woozley 1964], An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, abridged, A.D. Woozley (ed.), London: Fontana Library, 1964. (Scholar)

Other Primary Sources

• Boyle, Robert, 1675 [1979], “Some Physico-Theological Considerations About the Possibility of the Resurrection”, in Selected Philosophical Papers of Robert Boyle, M.A. Stewart (ed.), New York: Manchester University Press. (Scholar)
• Mill, John Stuart, 1843, A System of Logic Ratiocinative and Inductive, London: John W. Parker. (Scholar)

Secondary Sources

Biographies

• King, Lord Peter, 1991, The Life of John Locke: with extracts from his correspondence, journals, and common-place books, Bristol: Thoemmes. (Scholar)
• Fox Bourne, H.R., 1876, Life of John Locke, 2 volumes, New York: Harper & Brothers. Reprinted Scientia Aalen, 1969. (Scholar)
• Cranston, Maurice, 1957, John Locke, A Biography, reprinted Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985. (Scholar)
• Woolhouse, Roger, 2007, Locke: A Biography, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Scholar)

Books and Articles

• Aaron, Richard, 1937, John Locke, Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Scholar)
• Aarsleff, Hans, 1982, From Locke to Saussure: Essays on the Study of Language and Intellectual History, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. (Scholar)
• –––, 1994 “Locke’s Influence”, in Vere Chappell (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Locke, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 252–289. doi:10.1017/ccol0521383714.011 (Scholar)
• Alexander, Peter, 1985, Ideas Qualities and Corpuscles: Locke and Boyle on the External World, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Scholar)
• Alston, William and Jonathan Bennett, 1988, “Locke on People and Substances”, The Philosophical Review, 97(1): 25–46. doi:10.2307/2185098 (Scholar)
• Anstey, Peter R., 2011, John Locke and Natural Philosophy, Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199589777.001.0001 (Scholar)
• Armitage, David, 2004, “John Locke, Carolina and the Two Treatises of Government”, Political Theory, 32(5): 602–27. doi:10.1177/0090591704267122 (Scholar)
• Arneil, Barbara, 1996, John Locke and America, Oxford: Clarendon Press. (Scholar)
• Ashcraft, Richard, 1986, Revolutionary Politics and Locke’s Two Treatises of Civil Government, Princeton: Princeton University Press. (Scholar)
• –––, 1992, “Latitudinarianism and Toleration: Historical Myth versus Political History”, in Kroll, Ashcraft, and Zagorin 1992: 151–177. doi:10.1017/cbo9780511896231.008">10.1017/cbo9780511896231.008 (Scholar)
• Ayers, Michael, 1991, Locke: Epistemology and Ontology, 2 volumes, London: Routledge. (Scholar)
• Barresi, John, and Raymond Martin, 2000, Naturalization of the Soul: Self and Personal Identity in the 18th Century, London: Routledge. (Scholar)
• Bennett, Jonathan, 1971, Locke, Berkeley, Hume: Central Themes, Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Scholar)
• Bolton, Martha Brandt, 2004, “Locke on the Semantic and Epistemic Role of Simple Ideas of Sensation”, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 85(3): 301–321. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0114.2004.00200.x (Scholar)
• Brandt, Reinhard (ed.), 1981, John Locke: Symposium Wolfenbuttel 1979, Berlin: de Gruyter. (Scholar)
• Brewer, Holly, 2017, “Slavery, Sovereignty, and ‘Inheritable Blood’: Reconsidering John Locke and the Origins of American Slavery”, The American Historical Review, 122(4): 1038–1078. doi:10.1093/ahr/122.4.1038 (Scholar)
• Chappell, Vere, 1992, Essays on Early Modern Philosophy, John Locke—Theory of Knowledge, London: Garland Publishing, Inc. (Scholar)
• –––, 1994, The Cambridge Companion to Locke, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Scholar)
• –––, 2004a, “Symposium: Locke and the Veil of Perception: Preface”, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 85(3): 243–244. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0114.2004.00196.x (Scholar)
• –––, 2004b, “Comments”, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 85(3): 338–355. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0114.2004.00202.x (Scholar)
• Chomsky, Noam, 1966, Cartesian Linguistics: A Chapter in the History of Rationalist Thought, New York: Harper & Row. (Scholar)
• Dunn, John, 1969, The Political Thought of John Locke, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Scholar)
• Farr, James, 2008, “Locke, Natural Law and New World Slavery”, Political Theory, 36(4): 495–522. doi:10.1177/0090591708317899 (Scholar)
• Fox, Christopher, 1988, Locke and the Scriblerians, Berkeley: University of California Press. (Scholar)
• Garrett, Don, 2003, “Locke on Personal Identity, Consciousness and ‘Fatal Errors’”, Philosophical Topics, 31: 95–125. doi:10.5840/philtopics2003311/214 (Scholar)
• Geach, Peter, 1967, “Identity”, The Review of Metaphysics, 21(1): 3–12. (Scholar)
• Gibson, James, 1968, Locke’s Theory of Knowledge and its Historical Relations, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Scholar)
• Gordon-Roth, Jessica, 2015, “Locke’s Place-Time-Kind Principle”, Philosophy Compass, 10(4): 264–274. doi:10.1111/phc3.12217 (Scholar)
• Grant, Ruth, 1987, John Locke’s Liberalism, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (Scholar)
• Gaukroger, Stephen, 2010, The Collapse of Mechanism and the Rise of Sensibility: Science and the Shaping of Modernity 1680–1760, Oxford, Clarendon Press. (Scholar)
• Kretzmann, Norman, 1968, “The Main Thesis of Locke’s Semantic Theory”, The Philosophical Review, 77(2): 175–196. Reprinted in Tipton 1977: 123–140. doi:10.2307/2183319 (Scholar)
• Kroll, Peter, Richard Ashcraft, and Peter Zagorin (eds), 1992, Philosophy, Science and Religion in England 1640–1700, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511896231 (Scholar)
• Jolley, Nicholas, 1984, Leibniz and Locke, Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Scholar)
• –––, 1999, Locke, His Philosophical Thought, Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Scholar)
• –––, 2015, Locke’s Touchy Subjects: Materialism and Immortality, Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198737094.001.0001 (Scholar)
• Laslett, Peter, 1954 [1990], “John Locke as Founder of the Board of Trade”, The Listener, 52(1342): 856–857. Reprinted in J.S. Yolton 1990: 127–136. (Scholar)
• Lennon, Thomas M., 2004, “Through a Glass Darkly: More on Locke’s Logic of Ideas”, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 85(3): 322–337. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0114.2004.00203.x (Scholar)
• LoLordo, Antonia, 2010, “Person, Substance, Mode and ‘the moral Man’ in Locke’s Philosophy”, Canadian Journal Of Philosophy, 40(4); 643–668. doi:10.1080/00455091.2010.10716738 (Scholar)
• Lott, Tommy, 1998, Subjugation and Bondage: Critical Essays on Slavery and Social Philosophy, New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers Inc. (Scholar)
• Lovejoy, Arthur O., 1936, The Great Chain of Being; a Study of the History of an Idea, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. (Scholar)
• Lowe, E.J., 1995, Locke on Human Understanding, London: Routledge Publishing Co. (Scholar)
• Mackie, J. L. 1976, Problems from Locke, Oxford: Clarendon Press. (Scholar)
• Macpherson, C.B., 1962, The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism, Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Scholar)
• Mandelbaum, Maurice, 1966, Philosophy, Science and Sense Perception: Historical and Critical Studies, Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press. (Scholar)
• Marshall, John, 2006, John Locke, Toleration and Early Enlightenment Culture, Cambridge UK, Cambridge University Press. (Scholar)
• Martin, C. B. and D. M. Armstrong (eds.), 1968, Locke and Berkeley: A Collection of Critical Essays, New York: Anchor Books. (Scholar)
• Mattern, Ruth, 1980, “Moral Science and the Concept of Persons in Locke”, The Philosophical Review, 89(1): 24–45. doi:10.2307/2184862 (Scholar)
• McCann, Edwin, 1987, “Locke on Identity, Life, Matter and Consciousness” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, 69(1): 54–77. doi:10.1515/agph.1987.69.1.54 (Scholar)
• McLachlan, Hugh, 1941, Religious Opinions of Milton, Locke and Newton, Manchester: Manchester University Press. (Scholar)
• Mendus, Susan, 1991, Locke on Toleration in Focus, London: Routledge. (Scholar)
• Newman, Lex, 2004, “Locke on Sensitive Knowledge and the Veil of Perception—Four Misconceptions”, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 85(3): 273–300. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0114.2004.00199.x (Scholar)
• Olsthoorn, Johan and Laurens van Apeldoorn, 2020, “‘This man is my property’: Slavery and political absolutism in Locke and the classical social contract tradition”, European Journal of Political Theory, 21(2): 253–275. doi:10.1177/1474885120911309 (Scholar)
• Rogers, G.A. John, 2004, “Locke and the Objects of Perception”, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 85(3): 245–254. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0114.2004.00197.x (Scholar)
• Roper, John, April 2004, Conceiving Carolina: Proprietors, Planters and Plots 1662–1729, New York, Palgrave/Macmillan. (Scholar)
• Russell, Daniel, 2004, “Locke on Land and Labor”, Philosophical Studies, 117(1–2): 303–325. doi:10.1023/b:phil.0000014529.01097.20 (Scholar)
• Schouls, Peter, 1992, Reasoned Freedom: John Locke and the Enlightenment, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. (Scholar)
• Simmons, A. John, 1992, The Lockean Theory of Rights, Princeton: Princeton University Press. (Scholar)
• Soles, David, 1999, “Is Locke an Imagist?” The Locke Newsletter, 30: 17–66. (Scholar)
• Strawson, Galen, 2011, Locke on Personal Identity, Princeton: Princeton University Press. (Scholar)
• Stuart, Matthew, 2013, Locke’s Metaphysics, Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199645114.001.0001 (Scholar)
• Thiel, Udo, 2011, The Early Modern Subject: Self-Consciousness and Personal Identity from Descartes to Hume, Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199542499.001.0001 (Scholar)
• Tarcov, Nathan, 1984, Locke’s Education for Liberty, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. (Scholar)
• Tipton, I.C. (ed.), 1977, Locke on Human Understanding: Selected Essays, Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Scholar)
• Tully, James, 1980, A Discourse on Property, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Scholar)
• –––, 1993, An Approach to Political Philosophy: Locke in Contexts, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Scholar)
• Uzgalis, William L., 1988, “The Anti-Essential Locke and Natural Kinds”, The Philosophical Quarterly, 38(152): 330–339. doi:10.2307/2220132 (Scholar)
• –––, 1990, “Relative Identity and Locke’s Principle of Individuation”, History of Philosophy Quarterly, 7(3): 283–297. (Scholar)
• –––, 2007, Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding—A Reader’s Guide, London: Continuum. (Scholar)
• –––, 2017, “John Locke, Racism, Slavery and Indian Lands”, in Naomi Zack (ed.), The Oxford Handbook to Philosophy and Race, Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Scholar)
• Walmsley, Jonathan and Waldman Felix, 2019 “John Locke and Toleration of Catholics: A New Manuscript”, Historical Journal, 62: 1093–1115. [Includes transcription of “Reasons for tolerating papists with others” St. Johns College, Annapolis, Maryland, Greenfield Library.] (Scholar)
• Wilson, Margaret Dauler, 1999, Ideas and Mechanism: Essays on Early Modern Philosophy, Princeton: Princeton University Press. (Scholar)
• Wilson, Thomas D., 2016, The Ashley Cooper Plan: The Founding of Carolina and the Origins of Southern Political Culture, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. (Scholar)
• Wood, Neal, 1983, The Politics of Locke’s Philosophy, Berkeley: University of California Press. (Scholar)
• Woolhouse, R.S., 1971, Locke’s Philosophy of Science and Knowledge, New York: Barnes and Noble. (Scholar)
• –––, 1983, Locke, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. (Scholar)
• –––, 1988, The Empiricists, Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Scholar)
• Yaffe, Gideon, 2000, Liberty Worth the Name: Locke on Free Agency, Princeton: Princeton University Press. (Scholar)
• –––, 2004, “Locke on Ideas of Substance and the Veil of Perception”, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 85(3): 252–272. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0114.2004.00198.x (Scholar)
• Yolton, Jean S., 1990, A Locke Miscellany, Bristol: Thoemmes Antiquarian Books. (Scholar)
• Yolton, John, 1956, John Locke and the Way of Ideas Oxford, Oxford University Press; reprinted, Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 1996. (Scholar)
• –––, 1969, John Locke: Problems and Perspectives: New Essays, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Scholar)
• –––, 1970, John Locke and the Compass of Human Understanding, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Scholar)
• –––, 1983, Thinking Matter: Materialism in Eighteenth Century Britain, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. (Scholar)
• –––, 1984, Perceptual Acquaintance: From Descartes to Reid, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. (Scholar)

Bibliographies

• Hall, Roland, and Roger Woolhouse, 1983, 80 Years of Locke Scholarship: A Bibliographical Guide, Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press. (Scholar)

Newsletter

• Locke Studies (formerly The Locke Newsletter), edited by Timothy Stanton, Heslington: University of York.