Formation of Terminological System of Moral Philosophy in Works of John Locke: Innovation and Tribute to Tradition

Abstract

The formation of ideas about the phenomenon of morality and moral responsibility in the works of the English thinker John Locke is considered. Two of his works served as the material: “Essay Concerning Human Understanding” and “Two Treatises of Government”. On the basis of philological methods, conceptual and discursive types of analysis, as well as procedures used in corpus studies, it was proved that the vocabulary of describing morality and moral responsibility in English was formed by the end of the 17th century and John Locke played a huge role in this process. Although the linguistic means of describing the categories of morality were based on the discussions of thinkers of previous eras, Locke made an attempt to rethink the existing vocabulary in order to create an integral system of concepts and terminological framework of moral philosophy. The novelty of the study is seen in the fact that for the first time a complex methodology for analyzing Locke’s texts was used with quantitative methods and a thorough study of the previous cultural and historical context. The key lexical units in Locke’s texts, as well as in publications of the previous two centuries, have been studied. It is proved that the moral and ethical philosophical discourse of the scientist was formed on the basis of the vocabulary of religious discourse and partially philosophical discourse, as well as neutral words that were not associated with any discourse.

Keywords

• moral responsibility
• philosophical discourse
• corpus linguistics
• conceptual analysis
• terminology formation
• john locke