[Borges]

Locke's materialist philosophy can be traced to Marx and forward to convicts being ‘products of their society’. That doesn't diminish his work as hugely important. My point is that the idea of taking down people like Darwin and Wells because of the off handed influence they had on others is silly.

[Lorianne]

I agree in part, people are also products of their time period and shouldn’t be judged by our own time period.

But with regard validating the theory of eugenics, the influence was catastophic for millions of people, so not inconsequential or “off-handed” in the least.

I don’t think we can let some people totally off the hook for their ‘influences’, even if they did not know where their influence would lead.

History is a harsh judge.

[Wallace T.]

Locke's materialist philosophy can be traced to Marx

Marx was born in 1818, over a century after Locke's death. If Locke was a materialist, it had nothing to do with Marx's influences, or those of those who immediately influcencd Marx, notably Feuerbach and Hegel.