Concept of education

John Locke (1632-1704)

CONTEXT

. A defining experience that Locke went through that was

definite to mould his ideological way of thinking was

Cromwell’s dictatorship. One of Locke’s main objectives

was to avoid tyranny  and preserve our rights.

There was a restoration of the monarchy Charles II reclaimed the monarchy’s former grip on both church and state institutions. Locke welcomed these changes.

During Charles II  found himself fleeing to Holland after being accused of plotting Charles II 

The Glorious Revolution supposed to be a turning point. It was bloodless, and a clear act of toleration. After this revolution, it followed the Declaration of Rights renamed to Bill of Rights in 1689. This was is an act of the

Parliament of England that deals with constitutional matters and sets out certain basic civil rights for Free Born Englishmen. The Bill includes: freedom of speech, freedom of petition, freedom to own arms, and the prohibition of ‘cruel and unusual punishment’. 

HIS LIFE

 He was born in to middle-class family, therefore he

was not an aristocrat, he was part of the bourgeuoise.

he was influenced with an extraordinarily diverse education. 

specialised on medicine and chemistry, creating elaborate essays containing theological arguments All of this changed when he met Lord Ashley, a statesman who came to Oxford looking for medical treatment and eventually ending offering Locke a job as his personal physician. During this

period, he developed a huge interest on politics, and ended working for the British government.

MAIN WORKS

 An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1684)

o Empiriscism. Not as pessimistic as Hobbes.

o Tabula Rasa. Had more faith in education to

change people when they are children.

o Limits to human capacity for understanding

 A Letter Concerning Toleration (1689)

o Separation of church and state. In order to live in peace people need to have

religious toleration, separating church from the state.

o Converstion through persuasion. Stop people forcing them by violence, only through persuasion, the solution to the religious wars was to remove wars.There were religion wars to control the state. If you separate religion from thecoercive capacity of the state you eliminate the source of conflict. States

should allow freedom of conscious. Government should be separated from

religion.

 Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)

 Before the Glorious Revolution in 1688, all works were

banned in England.

FUNDAMENTAL CONSTITUTIONS OF CAROLINA (1669)

 “Modern” considerations

Tolerance for protestant sects. Admission of censitary suffrage. Democratic liberal state will

survive with the intervention of the people.

 “Pre-modern” considerations

Slaves and servants were prevailing, (the idea was to invest in human trade) landgraves- caciques and lord proprietors. These were the three new juridical statuses (Locke was troubled

in accepting slave trade). Furthermore, we can find two categories: the hereditary, whichwould include the landgraves and caziques, and the owners of the land “Lord Proprietors”.