Two treatises on government

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Title page of the 1690 edition, published 1689.

Die Two Treatises of Government (German Zwei Abhandlungen über die Government ; English also Two Treatises of Government: In the Former, The False Principles and Foundation of Sir Robert Filmer, And His Followers, are Detected and Overthrown. The Latter is an Essay concerning The True Original, Extent, and End of Civil-Government ) form a work of political philosophy that John Locke published anonymously in 1689. In particular, the second treatise, in which the Anglican theologian Richard Hooker is quoted several times , is often referred to as a manifesto for liberal democracy and capitalism and has drawn both positive and negative criticism.

The theory that Locke expounded in the two essays had a fundamental influence on the Glorious Revolution of 1688/1689 and the state order established afterwards in England, as well as on the American Constitution of 1787 and the French Revolution of 1789 in the 18th century .

German language edition

  • Hans Jörn Hoffmann (Ed.): Two treatises on the government. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1977 (13th reprint 2008). (Suhrkamp-Taschenbuch Wissenschaft, Vol. 213)

literature

  • Peter Laslett: The English Revolution and Locke's "Two Treatises of Government". In: Cambridge Historical Journal 12 (1956), No. 1, pp. 40-55.
  • John Dunn: The Political Thought of John Locke. An Historical Account of the Argument of the "Two Treatises of Government". Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1969 (reprinted 1995).
  • Richard Ashcraft : Revolutionary Politics and Locke's Two treatises of government. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ 1986.
  • Michael Zöller: Freedom, Work and Property. John Locke's "Two Treatises on Government". In: Merkur 64 (2010), No. 9/10, pp. 759–767.
  • Bernd Ludwig: John Locke: Two treatises on the government. Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2012. (Expose Classics, Vol. 43)

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