Reasoned Freedom: John Locke and EnlightenmentAlthough John Locke has often been called the Enlightenment's great progenitor, his use of the concepts that characterize Enlightenment thought has rarely been examined. In this lucid and penetrating book, Peter A. Schouls considers Locke's major writings in terms of the closely related ideas of freedom, progress, mastery, reason, and education. The resulting intellectual portrait provides a historically nuanced interpretation of a thinker crucial to the development of Western political philosophy and philosophy of education. Schouls centers his analysis on Locke's Essay concerning Human Understanding, but he also reexamines the often-ignored texts on education. Stressing the originality of Locke's enterprise, Schouls first explores Locke's reliance on Descartes for a method for the pursuit of general knowledge. He then examines Locke's thinking on (self-)mastery and the importance of reason to its achievement. For Locke, a human being has a radically autonomous nature that enables him or her to attain mastery; nurture may help or hinder this achievement. Turning to the critical role of freedom in the struggle for self-liberation from passions and prejudices, Schouls concludes that, although wrong education explains widespread failure to achieve mastery, right education cannot guarantee its achievement. It is, rather, in the interplay of education, reason, and freedom that Schouls locates the revolutionary promise of Locke's account of human self-fulfillment. |
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... chapter ( Chapter 4 ) . Before I turn to that relationship , I address the important issue of the infallibility of reason in the middle chapter of this part ( Chapter 3 ) . To deal with human nature in terms of rationality , prejudice ...
... chapter.2 As I do so I follow Locke's argument in the order he pre- sents it . The very organization of this twentieth chapter is instructive . Locke identifies and discusses four causes of " Contrariety of Opinions . " They are " 1 ...
... chapter ( 4.20.7-18 ) . Hence we may take that part of the chapter , which is its largest part by far , as a discussion of specific limitations that flow from lack of examination . It is self - willed when people refuse to examine their ...
Contents
A Reason and the Nature of a Master | 39 |
The Dogma of Infallible Reason | 73 |
Infallible Reason Prejudice and Passion | 92 |
Copyright | |
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