Nurturing Freedom: The Essence of Locke's Philosophy of Education
Author: Wang Nan
Associate Professor, School of Sociology, China University of Political Science and Law
"Young people have become corrupt early on and have recently become a common complaint." Locke wrote in his dedication to some thoughts concerning education. [1] Such a statement is not an exaggeration for England, which moved from the Restoration to the Glorious Revolution. Baptized by civil war and revolution, Britain can be described as "the world turn upside down" (Christopher Hill). Old traditions have been abandoned, the harmonious and unified mixed government of the king and parliament has ceased to exist, and the clash of faiths, though not a blatant war, continues in secret. During this period, various works and pamphlets were scattered all over the world, and people of all colors were "competing with each other", but it was more and more indicative that people could not find a direction in their thinking and were in a state of wandering and helplessness. Thus, the view of appealing to the power of the absolute sovereign to maintain the superficial order of society prevails. Charles II studied under Hobbes and enshrined his teachings as a guideline, which, while not necessarily true, is sufficient to indicate the prevailing view of the people of the time. It is an indisputable fact that Fermer's views, which are similar to Hobbes's theories, are widely supported by the Tories. The latter wanted to establish Leviathan's authority on a seemingly more religious basis.
But the Leviathan beast still has to be made up of an infinite number of individuals, and its existence is still based on the unanimous agreement and self-restraint of at least the leading class of the country in the most basic aspects. However, "in the undesirable forces of the Civil War, the Revolution, and the confiscation of property, the character of the British politicians was greatly corrupted, that is, the entire Arita gentry class had the same tendency, even if there were no politicians." [2] On the one hand, the disillusionment of the Puritan Republic, the absence of religious morality, has made worldly desires unconstrained, and what about not having timely pleasure in this rootless life without God?" At this time, riding on the victory in the country, gu pan's proud young wang dang squires also did not know how to do what they should do because of the lack of considerable education. ...... The rise and fall of the Puritans, on the one hand, made them hate the world and felt that everything in the world was hypocritical, and on the other hand, they were convinced that the joy of life was the truth. [3] On the other hand, the more the spirit is trapped in the darkness of this world, the more anxious it is to obtain God's light, the more intense the debates about doctrine and rituals, the more the fire of enthusiasm that wants to break free from all bondage, and many people promise to be sheltered by the dazzling light of revelation, deluding themselves and acting arbitrarily in a state of fascination. [4] With these people, it is impossible to establish any order.
Society is completely divided, and the flames of a state of war are spreading freely. Everyone is asserting his own interests, rights and beliefs, everyone's own desires, wills and opinions are absolutely justified, everyone is fighting with each other, and greed, hypocrisy, pride and fanaticism are sweeping through society. Everyone seems to have absolute freedom to be recognized by others and to be the master of others, but every such person is enslaved by the surging passion, the vagaries of illusion, and the strong will of his own heart. Faceless people keep stretching out their pale hands, trying to grasp a little thing to enrich themselves, searching in vain for a home where they can rest in this desolate world.
Locke was facing such an era, and it was the children of this era that he wanted to educate.
Locke was often dismissed as a secret follower of Hobbes, arguing that his moral doctrine was a kind of hedonism cloaked in the cloak of natural law. [5] Some passages in an essay concerning human understanding also seem to support this view. [6] It is from this perspective that many people interpret Two Treatises of Government as a market-oriented version of society of political hedonism. But a cursory examination of Locke's thought reveals that he himself is well aware that it is impossible to establish a moral and political order in the midst of the vagaries of personal interests. [7] Self-loving people who are merely pursuing pleasure and their own interests can never take on the responsibility of leading the country. Therefore, to reconcile this superficial contradiction presented in Locke's writings, it is necessary to understand what Locke's true views on human nature and morality really are, so that we can truly understand what Locke's political ideals really are and what kind of citizens they depend on. In the final analysis, the basis of order lies in the people who make it up, and what kind of people determine what kind of political order.
John locke
To understand the thinker's view of human nature and morality, its pedagogical doctrine is a good entry point. Because people are the object of education, why and how to educate, and what kind of people you want to educate, must be based on an understanding of human nature and morality. The Thoughts on Education was one of two books that Locke signed during his lifetime. It is from this point of view that Professor Nathan Tarcov wants to start with Locke's pedagogy to illustrate what kind of people the citizens on which Locke's politics depended. In Locke's Education for Liberty, he argues that while on the face of it seems to lack a link between Locke's educational writings and two treatises of government, in educational writings Locke wants to mold the virtuous and intelligent gentlemen, the political leaders of the representative state who bear the mission of governing the country. The patriarchy recognized by Locke in the "Theory of Government" is essentially the obligation of parents to educate their children. [8] He goes on to elaborate, paragraph by paragraph, on how Locke's education, with the help of customs and habits, relied on the innate desire for freedom in human nature, and harnessed its own nature of desire for domination and possession, thus creating a gentleman of courtesy, moral integrity, and ability, who was a citizen of self-government as the basis of liberal politics.
Tarkov correctly sees that Locke's discussion of human nature in Educational Reflections is richer and more specific than his other writings, which helps us to understand Locke's overall view of human nature, in which certain irrational elements of human nature, such as the emphasis and habit of reputation, are of great significance, and education as a kind of manmade is to establish qualities that seem to be "rational and natural" with the help of customs and external circumstances. [9] But his interpretation of Locke's educational ideas remains problematic. Because his analysis of Locke's educational thought is too focused on the Educational Thought itself, his interpretation is too focused on the role of certain irrational principles and human customs in human nature. The gentleman he portrays for us, capable of limiting his freedom to customs, restraining passions with habits, familiarizing himself with the world, paying attention to fame, being polite, valuing the rights of himself and others, but does not seem to be far removed from the image of the "rational self-interested", but only with a more refined and thorough understanding of the way of dealing with the world. God seems to be far away, the legitimacy of worldly interests seems self-evident, and there is an intrinsic unity between shrewd self-governance and state governance. [10]
There is no doubt that Tarkov's approach to understanding Locke from an educational perspective, emphasizing the importance of the Educational Tales, which is often overlooked by researchers, and interpreting it in detail, is of great significance. Selecting only a few words from the "Theory of Human Understanding" and combining it with the arbitrary interpretation of the "Two Treatises on Government" is an important flaw in Locke's research in the past, and adding "Educational Thoughts" to the discussion can have a richer understanding of Locke. However, it is necessary to go further in the direction of Professor Tarkov's efforts, to expand the vision of understanding Locke's conception of education from the "Thoughts on Education" to his other works, and to fully understand Locke's educational thought in a way that is mutually consistent and cross-referential. In fact, Locke's educational works are not one but three, and the Theory of Human Understanding and his posthumous publication of the Conduct of the Understanding are also his educational works. [11] The former is both a discussion of human understanding and the scope of knowledge available, as well as a natural history of the growth of the human mind written in a "historical, superficial way". [12] Locke wanted to describe how the mind acquired reasonable ideas and knowledge in the course of its gradual development, while On Guiding Understanding more clearly taught people how to use understanding correctly. If these works cannot be viewed together, it is difficult to realize that the people in Locke's eyes do not only have a simple existence of one or two original origins, but have intrinsic power and have their growth process. [13] People are at different stages of growth, their origin and force are different, and the focus of education is also different. The different stages are successive, and the former stage lays the foundation for the latter stage. There are extremely complex connections and cooperations between emotions and wills, between habit and reason, between custom and freedom. Therefore, the inability to fully understand Locke's educational system can easily lead to a biased understanding of his views, or to the impression that his writings are full of inconsistencies. [14] On the other hand, to understand Locke's view of education, one cannot confine oneself to these works, for Locke's understanding of human nature and morality cannot be separated from his basic holistic worldview. If Locke's basic views on God, nature, and society are not grasped, it is very easy to miss some of the small but extremely important aspects of his educational writings. [15] The difficulty of determining the place of "society" in Locke's thought will inevitably lead to an incomprehension of Locke's polite education, and it is not clear whether it is just an instrumental "human training". Without understanding Locke's theory of natural rights and ideas about social history, it is inevitable to feel that the gentlemen that Locke wanted to cultivate were only a class of landlords who had earned nothing for nothing, and that the ideal gentleman of good character in Locke's mind, as a mental laborer and a leading class of society, was only divided into different divisions of labor and had no essential differences compared with the farmers and craftsmen who worked hard all day. In civil society, they are also labourers exercising their natural rights. Therefore, to understand Locke's educational thought, we must not be limited to a certain book, a certain point of view, but we must have a full understanding and grasp of Locke's thought as a whole, in order to figure out what kind of understanding Locke has about education.
Why is it so important to understand Locke's philosophy of education?
Like Hobbes, Locke faced the crisis of modern human nature, but unlike Hobbes, he tried to find for modern man the possibility of taming the infinitely inflated desires and wills of the heart in addition to appealing to human passion and leviathan power, and to shape the character of freedom on the basis of a new view of human nature, not relying on the other rule of the powerful sovereign, but realizing man's self-governance. The hedonistic view of human nature presented on the surface in Locke's writings is actually a description of people trapped in a highly conceptual state, and this conceptual solipsism is the starting point of humanity that educators need to face. Locke clearly realized that wanting to act according to his own will is an insurmountable nature of modern man, and it is also the vitality and vitality of man, which contains the possibility of achieving goodness. But the pure will of the self, which tends to be infinite and abstract, is also the greatest threat lurking in our hearts. The abolition of the free exercise of the will of the subjects and the substitution of the will of the sole sovereign for the will of all in order to ensure social peace can only produce arbitrary, wayward masters and lifeless and responsible slaves.
Based on a profound understanding of this tension contained in man's inner force, the purpose of Locke's philosophy of education is precisely to free man from this state of abstraction and empty uneasiness of the self, to teach people to learn to control and use their own inner forces, to form a good disposition, to acquire self-regulation in this life through practice and action, and to use the mind and body. Create property that belongs to oneself and society[16], acquire an independent personality of rational freedom, and be one's own master. The essence of Locke's education is to teach children to use their liberty properly. To enable the inner forces of man to be truly free to exert themselves within a reasonable range, and to cultivate the formal disposition of children to use freedom.
On the other hand, "natural rights" mean not only freedom, but also sacred legitimacy. In Locke's view, rational and free labor and practice are also the natural way of life of man in this life. God created free man and the natural world outside of man, and it is precisely to require man to use his innate freedom to act on external objects and to create products to meet his own needs. This is a natural right given to everyone by God, and it is also an obligation of man in this world to his Creator. Locke's free-form affirmation of man also contains a substantial set of creative views of nature.
From "Reflections on Education" to "On Guiding Understanding", Locke's philosophy of education describes the complete growth and education of such rational free men. Starting from the irrational child who lacks self-restraint, through continuous practice to cultivate good habits ( habits ) , cultivate good principles in the mind and body, so that children can exercise their will autonomously within reasonable limits. Further, on the basis of establishing the Creator's belief and the will to seek truth, through continuous learning, combining empirical observation with rational thinking, and finally using reason autonomously, acquiring knowledge, and making reasonable judgments, so as to guide their own desires and wills and dominate their own actions.
Therefore, the author tries to present a complete picture of Locke's pedagogical theory on the basis of a detailed interpretation of Locke's "Thoughts on Education" and "On Guiding Understanding", combined with "Human Understanding" and Locke's other works. Only by combining "Educational Thoughts" and "On Guiding Understanding" can we see the complete image of the rational free man that Locke wants to cultivate. If "Educational Reflections" can enrich and correct our one-sided understanding of Locke's "rationalist tendencies", then "On Guiding Understanding" can in turn correct our overemphasis on the affirmative customs and habits of "Educational Thinking". Locke is not to cultivate people who can sway and excel in society, but to cultivate people with conscience who know both politeness and independent thinking. It is precisely to use customs and education to teach children to transcend customs and education, to learn to examine opinions with reason, and to avoid prejudices and adverse effects that customs and education are prone to. Originally intended to be the last chapter of "Human Understanding", "On Guiding Understanding" is to specifically explain how to cultivate good understanding and give full play to people's rational thinking ability, so as to explore truth and create knowledge. But without understanding Locke's basic view of created nature, it is impossible to understand the scope and tasks locked by Reason. Reason is the noblest power of the human mind and the way that leads man to truth and God. [18] Locke abandoned the decadent scholastic education and placed the task of seeking truth on the gentry class that in reality was conditionally able to assume it, and what Locke wanted to cultivate and shape was neither a lonely individual who relied too much on his own reason, nor a puppet at the mercy of society and customs. His goal was to train gentlemen with rational freedom who could dominate the direction of the state through social interaction and political activity, and to make god-like rational freedom prevail in civil society.
This article is an introduction to the first article of Liberty and Education: Locke and Rousseau's Philosophy of Education.
For comments, see the original article.
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