Showcase of John Locke Scholarship in Japan Locke on Knowledge, Politics and Religion: New Interpretations from Japan presents provocative readings of Locke's philosophical thought.

Prof. Shigeyuki Aoki, Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Letters, played an important role in this work.
His part is Part 1 Knowledge and Experimental Method, Chapter 2 “Boyle and Locke on Primary and Secondary Qualities: A Reappraisal”.
Locke scholarship has been flourishing in Japan for several decades, but its output is largely unknown to the West. This collection makes available in English for the first time the fruits of recent Japanese research, opening up the possibility of advancing Locke studies on an international scale.

Covering three important areas of Locke's philosophical thought,
Part 1: Knowledge and Experimental Method
Part 2: Law and Politics
Part 3: Religion and toleration
this volume criticizes established interpretations and replaces them with novel alternatives, breaking away from standard narratives and providing fresh ways of looking at Locke's relationship with philosophers such as Boyle, Berkeley and Hume. The specific topics that have been selected are ones that continue to have important contemporary moral and political implications, from constitutionalism and toleration to marriage and the death penalty.

Applying Locke's views to 21st-century questions, this collection presents provocative readings of the defining aspects of Locke's philosophical thought, stimulating current debates and heralding a new era of collaborative work for Locke scholars around the world.

Prof. Shigeyuki Aoki
Shigeyuki Aoki is a professor at Philosophy Department, Faculty of Letters, Chuo University, Japan.
After finishing his M.Res under Professor G.A.J. Rogers at Keele University, he completed his Ph.D dissertation on Locke's theory of ideas at Kyoto University, Japan, in 2005.
His research centres around Locke's philosophy of knowledge and the　interconnection of philosophy and science in the 17th century England, and the impact of English Enlightenment on the later Enlightenment thinkers and modern Japan.
His publications include Studies on Locke: Sources, Contemporaries, and Legacy (co-author, Springer-Kluwer, 2008) and Locke on Knowledge, Politics and Religion: New Interpretations from Japan (co-author, Bloomsbury Academic, 2021).