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. |
From inside the book
Results 1-3 of 91
... Mind takes of its own Operations , and the manner of them ” ( 2.1.4 ) . It is achieved when the mind " turns its view inward upon it self , and observes its own Actions about those Ideas it has " ( 2.6 . 1 ) . Locke holds that through ...
... Mind . " But no one's “ mind " can be “ raised ” except through the direct agency of the " mind ” to be “ raised . " Hence , again , the father's role is that of creating the opportunity for the child's free agency that results in the ...
... minds ... barely by a thought or preference of the mind ordering , or as it were commanding the doing or not doing such or such a particular action . This power which the mind has , thus to order the consideration of any Idea , or the ...
Contents
A Reason and the Nature of a Master | 39 |
The Dogma of Infallible Reason | 73 |
Infallible Reason Prejudice and Passion | 92 |
Copyright | |
6 other sections not shown