Lost's State of Nature

The phrase state of nature crops up frequently in comments on Lost for two main reasons. The fi rst is that two of the leading characters in the program (John Locke and Danielle Rousseau) bear the surnames of two philosophers who are famous for having used the phrase state of nature as a key term in their writings on political philosophy. These are the Englishman John Locke (1632 – 1704) and the Swiss - Frenchman Jean - Jacques Rousseau (1712 – 1788). The second, much better, reason the phrase crops up so much in discussions of Lost is that the situation the survivors of Oceanic flight 815 find themselves in after the crash can indeed be usefully described as a state of nature.