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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... moral Man , as I may call him , which is this immoveable unchangeable Idea , a corporeal rational Being . ( 3.11.16 ) At first sight it may look as if Locke is here speaking of the nominal essence of moral man . Two sets of phrases may ...
... moral man's essential properties of being corporeal and rational . Of course , none of this is to say that there are ... moral philosophy , that is , ethical and political theory . Neither does it concern educational theory . Also in ...
... moral man ” as a “ model ” : “ L'idée complexe de l'homme est donc susceptible de trouver une signification , non pas au niveau de la nature physique et de la référence à des substances , mais au niveau de l'homme moral ' . . . l'idée ...
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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