Launching Liberalism

In this volume, prominent political theorist Michael Zuckert presents an important and pathbreaking set of meditations on the thought of John Locke. In more than a dozen provocative essays, many appearing in print for the first time, Zuckert explores the complexity of Locke's engagement with his philosophical and theological predecessors, his profound influence on later liberal thinkers, and his amazing success in transforming the political understanding of the Anglo-American world. At the same time, he also demonstrates Locke's continuing relevance in current debates involving such prominent thinkers as Rawls and MacIntyre.Zuckert's careful reconsideration of Locke's role as "launcher" of liberalism involves a sustained engagement with the hermeneutical issues surrounding Locke, an innovator who faced special rhetorical needs in addressing his contemporaries and the future. It also involves highlighting the novelty of Locke's position by examining his stance toward the philosophical and religious traditions in place when he wrote.Zuckert argues that neither of the dominant ways of understanding Locke's relations to his predecessors and contemporaries is adequate; he is not well seen as a follower of any orthodoxy nor of any anti-orthodoxy of his day, either philosophical or theological. He found a path to innovation that was philosophically radical but which was also able to connect with prevailing and accepted traditions. This path allowed him to exercise a practical influence in history rarely, if ever, matched by any other philosopher.Zuckert illustrates that influence by showing how William Blackstone used Lockean philosophy to reshape the common law and how the Americansof the eighteenth century used Lockean philosophy to reshape Whig political thought. Zuckert argues that Locke's philosophy has continuing philosophic and political force, a proposition he demonstrates by arguing that Locke presents a form of political philosophy superior to that of the liberal theorists of our day and that he has solid rejoinders to contemporary critics of liberalism.

迈克尔·扎克特（Michael Zuckert，1942-），美国著名的政治理论家，芝加哥大学哲学博士，圣母大学政治科学系讲座教授，《美国政治思想》期刊创刊人，曾任教于康奈尔大学、明尼苏达大学和密歇根大学。先后获得美国自由制度研究协会（ASFI）奖（2010）、杰克米勒中心（JMC）主席终身成就奖（2011），是洛克政治思想、美国政治思想和宪法研究最为著名的学者之一。除了本书外，主要著名作还有《自然权利与新共和主义》（Natural Rights and the New Republicanism，1994）、《自然权利的共和国》（The Natural Rights Republic，1997）、《施特劳斯的真相：政治哲学与美国民主》（The Truth about Leo Strauss：Polittical Philosphy and American Democracy，2006）等。