1. JOHN LOCKE
(1632-1704)
BY:
YAASHINI A/P CHELLATHORAI
SITI NUR FATEHAH BINTI SAMSUDDIN
SITI NURSOLEHAH BINTI TAHA

2. WHO IS JOHN LOCKE?

3. John Locke FRS, was an English philosopher and physician
regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers and
known as the "Father of Classical Liberalism".
Born: August 29, 1632, Wrington, United Kingdom
Died: October 28, 1704, Essex, United Kingdom
Nationality: English
Education: Westminster School, Christ Church, Oxford
Parents: Agnes Keene, John
BIBLIOGRAPHY

4. John Locke was born on August 29th, 1632 in England and lived to
became one of the most influential people in England and, perhaps,
one of the most influential people of the 17th century.
Before his death on October 28th, 1704 he would earn the title as the
Father of liberal philosophy. His ideas would also be used as a
keystone for the revolution of the North American colonies from
England.
A BIOGRAPHY OF JOHN LOCKE
(1632-1704)

5. Locke had many prominent friends who were nobles in
government and also highly respected scholars of the times. He was
good friends with the Earl of Shaftesbury and he was given
government jobs which he served with Shaftesbury.
Locke lived in France for a while and returned to troubled
times in England. In 1679 his friend the Earl was tried for treason.
Although Shaftesbury was acquitted, the Earl decided to flee
England anyway to escape further persecution.
He fled to Holland where William and Mary ruled but had
some claim to the English throne. Owing to his close association with
the Earl, Locke also fled fled to Holland in 1683.
He returned to England in about 1688 when William and
Mary were invited to retake the reign of England in what historians
call the Bloodless Revolution. Eventually Locke returned to Oates in
Essex where he retired. He lived there until his death in 1704.
EARLY YEARS

6. His theory implied the citizen were to establish their own government
& to do this intelligibility & responsibly ,they had to be educated.
-Believed that at birth human mind is a blank slate; a tabula rasa (empty
of ideas).
-All ideas are based on sensation – arriving at explanation by observing
phenomena.
-Learning should be a gradual process ,slow & cumulative
-Education goal was to cultivate ethical individuals
-Contribute to modern education :”learning by doing “& interaction with
the environment.
JOHN LOCKE

7. -THEORY OF VALUE
-THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE
-THEORY OF HUMAN NATURE
-THEORY OF LEARNING
-THEORY OF TRANSMISSION
-THEORY OF SOCIETY
-THEORY OF OPPORTUNITY
-THEORY OF CONSENSUS
CONCEPT OF EDUCATION
PIONEER IN EDUCATION

8. What knowledge and skills are worthwhile learning? What are the goals of Education?
The skill and knowledge needed to order our actions in accordance with the laws of nature; to
treat our possessions and persons responsibly, and to avoid coming under the absolute control of
others (Yolton, p. 16)
Acquiring knowledge frequently establishes a habit of doing so -satisfying natural curiosity
frequently establishes the habit of loving and esteeming all learning (Deighton, p. 23)
Pursuit of truth is a duty we owe to God and ourselves (Cranston, p. 23)
The goal of education is the welfare and prosperity of the nation -Locke conceived the nations's
welfare and prosperity in terms of the personal happiness and social usefulness of its citizens
(Deighton, p. 20)
Education for Locke provides the character formation necessary for becoming a person and for
being a responsible citizen (Yolton, p. 3)
His education philosophy is an effort to show how democratic constitutional monarchy might be
preserved and improved (Deighton, p. 20)
THEORY OF VALUE

9. What is knowledge? How is it different from belief? What is a
mistake? A lie?
Knowledge is publicly verifiable, measurable, plain, demonstrable facts -
not imagination (Cranston, p. 17) the best instance of knowing is
intuiting - by intuiting is meant a power which the mind possesses of
apprehending truth (Aaron, p. 221)
Knowledge, like good character, is a set of mental habits rather than a
body of belief (Deighton, p. 21)
Knowledge is limited to imperfections of ideas we have; we can have
probable knowledge even when we can't have certain knowledge
(Cranston, p.22)
THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE

10. Knowledge is the perception of the agreement or disagreement of two ideas
(Hutchins, p. 347) - may be four sorts: identity or diversity, relation, co-existence and
real existence
Knowing is an infallible intuition; opening is coming to a conclusion after weighing the
evidence, but without certainty (Aaron, p 248). Mistakes and lies would be a lack of
evidence and defiance of evidence.

11. What is a human being? How does it differ from other species? What are the limits of
human potential?
Man becomes moral through education - humans have no innate ideas of God, no innate
moral truths, no natural inclination of virtue - Locke defined man as both rational and moral
(Yolton, p. 26, 27)
Man is subject to the rule of natural law which was ultimately God's law made known to
man through the voice of reason (Cranston, p. 11)
Locke's denial of innate ideas put a premium on individual effort, on the labor necessary to
gain knowledge from experience (Tarcov, P. 83). Man could be ruled and be free - man is
endowed with natural rights such as life, liberty and property (Cranston,, p. 12)
THEORY OF HUMAN NATURE

12. What is learning? How are skills and knowledge acquired?
The learning that gentlemen should possess is general, according to Locke (Deighton, p
21). Learning is the last and least part of education. Learning is a great help to virtue and
wisdom, but without them it produces only the more foolish or worse men (Tarcov, p. 198)
From infancy onwards, the child's efforts toward bodily pleasure and toward power in
possessions and over others should be thoroughly frustrated. The result will be that habits
of self-centered, aggressive behavior and of preferring ignorance to learning will not
become established (Deighton, p. 22)
Skills and knowledge are acquired by example and practice instead of charging of
children's memories with rules and principals (Cranston, p. 16)
Unconscious habits are bred by practice and manners learned by example (Cranston, p.
16)
THEORY OF LEARNING

13. Who is to teach? By what methods? What will the curriculum be?
The goal of the gentlemen's education cannot be achieved by sending him
to a school. Learning should be superintended by a tutor assisted by
genuinely interested parents (Deighton, p. 22
For working classes, poor children of both sexes between the ages of 3-14
should be compelled to attend school with "teachers" (Deighton p. 20)
Locke attacked ordinary method of teaching - manners learned by example,
latin learned by speaking (cranston p. 16)
The best way to get men to do what is wanted is not t terrify or force them
but to motivate them, to arouse and then rely on desires, while letting them
think, not without justice, that they are acting for their own sakes and of their
own free will (Tarcov, p. 98)
THEORY OF TRANSMISSION

14. Methods for poor - learn by practice; for gentlemen - bring pupil to practice the
activities of the gentlemanly ideal until they become habitual (Deighton, p., 22)
Curriculum for the poor: focus on regular worship for sake of religion and moral
improvement, handicrafts and agricultural skills, vocational arts - may have intended
that young should learn to read, write and do math but made no statements to that
effect (Deighton, p. 20)
Curriculum for gentlemen: health - the first ingredient of personal happiness;
development of good character - consisting of three groups of habits - virtue, wisdom
and breeding; to include reading, writing and arithmetic, Latin, language and literature
(Greek for scholars only) ; literature of France and England, the natural and social
sciences; the arts should occupy a minor place -which Locke considered a useless or
dangerous thing (Deighton, p. 21-22)
Learning -that gentlemen should possess is general; detailed learning is only for
those who would become scholars; one should know in detail what is directly useful in
managing personal affairs. (deighton, p. 21)

15. What is society? What institutions are involved in the educational process?
Men once lived in a state of natural anarchy but had banded together to form political
society (Cranston, p. 11) Men entrusted power to rulers on the condition that natural rights
were respected by rulers. Natural rights and natural law are rooted in edicts of God which
were inalienable (Cranston, p. 12, 13)
Men possess these traits: 1) natural freedom - right to life and liberty; 2) necessity for
labor; and 3) capacity of reason - from # 1 & 2 - f lows right of property in things which is
chief factor in foundation of society (Cranston, p. 24-25)
The child enters both a family and a nation. The family's duty being slowly to awaken the
child to virtue. The government must perform its part in the social contract - to preserve the
rights to life and liberty of all the citizens (Deighton, p. 23) Each of these communities
should be guided by moral laws, laws devised from the laws of nature which are God's
laws (Yolton, p. 20)
THEORY OF SOCIETY

16. Who is to be educated? Who is to be schooled?
The citizens of the nation fall into two kinds: those who posses property to some
significant degree and those who do not. The f first group is made up of gentlemen,
the second of workingmen. Both gentlemen and workingmen ought to be personally
happy and socially useful, but since they occupy different stations in society, their
happiness and usefulness must differ. The welfare and prosperity of the nation
demand that children of the propertied class be educated in a way quite different from
children of the poor (Deighton, p. 21). Locke believed that the daughters of gentlemen
should be education in much the same way as their sons (Deighton, p. 24)
Children of the poor class should be kept away from schools - even the best -
because they would fall into the company of undesirables (Cranston, p. 17)
THEORY OF OPPORTUNITY

17. Why do people disagree? How is the consensus achieved? Whose opinion takes precedence?
Wrong doing is a sign of ignorance; people should be enlightened, use own power of
reason, be prudent, reflective and calculatory instead of being moved by impulse
(Cranston, p. 24).
The mind perceives the agreement between our idea and itself, and a disagreement
in this respect between it and all others (for example, white is white and not black).
The mind also perceives a violation between its ideas. In one sense all the
agreements are violations, for an agreement is a violation. (Aaron, p. 225)
THEORY OF CONSENSUS

18. In 1693 John Locke, after writing extensively on topics such as human understanding,
government, money, and toleration, published a book which seemed quite heretical at
the time: Some Thoughts Concerning Education.
Consider the three key themes which are addressed:
1. the development of self-discipline through esteem and disgrace rather than force
or reward;
2. the significance of developing a good character; and
3. the importance of developing reason in a child by treating the child as a rational
entity.
Many of Locke’s ideas are quite humane and consistent with his strong democratic
sentiments. Locke’s belief that the mind is a piece of wax or white paper which the
active educator must keep as still as possible in order to accurately stamp the
information she would have the pupil passively receive.
JOHN LOCKE’S PEDAGOGY

19. “As the strength of the body lies chiefly in being able to endure hardships, so
also does that of the mind. And the great principle and foundation of all
virtue and worth is placed in this, that a man is able to deny himself his own
desires, cross his own inclinations, and purely follow what reason directs is
best, though the appetite lean the other way.”(Locke writes in Some
Thoughts Concerning Education, section 32)
Locke begins his book by noting that a sound mind in a sound body is the
formula for happiness. The problem is that nature rarely supplies an
individual with both; thus one needs education to acquire both physical and
mental fortitude.
SELF DISCIPLINE

20. The great mistake I have observed in people’s breeding their children
has been, that this has not been taken care enough of its due
season; that the mind has not been made obedient to discipline, and
pliant to reason, when at first it was most tender, most easy to be
bowed.
Some Thoughts Concerning Education,section 34

21. Locke’s “great principle”, that which allows one to cross one’s inclinations, is self-
discipline. But in order to achieve such discipline one must first be disciplined.
parents all too often err by being too lenient or too strict. Either extreme prevents a
child from growing up as an adult governed by reason, that is, an adult marked by
self-discipline.
For a spoiled child will end up having no mastery over inclinations and a severely
disciplined child will lose the vigorous, self-confident spirit necessary to amount to
something in the world.a perfect balance between the two is where the secret of
education resides.
“To avoid the danger that is on either hand is the great art: and he that has found a
way to keep up a child’s spirit, easy, active, and free; and yet, at the same time, to
restrain him, from the many things he has a mind to; and to draw him to the things
that are uneasy to him; he, I say, that knows how to reconcile these seeming
contradictions, has, in my opinion, got the true secret of education.”
Some Thoughts Concerning Education, section 46

22. The first approach which Locke is interested in refuting, is the so-called “rod”.
This common chastisement “is the most unfit of any to be used in education” (section 47)
insofar as the rod
(1)leads to no mastery over our inclination to indulge corporeal pleasure and avoid pain but
rather encourages it;
(2) leads to an aversion of what the tutor is trying to get the student to be interested in;
(3) leads to the development of a “slavish temper”;
(4) leads to a timid creature who has no spirit and will therefore be “useless to himself and
others” (section 51).
All four criticisms are united by the same logic: the rod ends up producing and/or
strengthening the faulty disposition it was employed to remove. As a result the rod is self-
defeating as a means of developing the discipline which is to lead to self-discipline or
rational autonomy.

23. Locke’s own answer in section 56: the incentives of esteem and disgrace
(1)children are very susceptible to praise and commendation;
(2) esteem and disgrace works best when accompanied by corresponding agreeable
or disagreeable rewards.
Locke’s idea is this: the best means of discipline is to cast a cold shoulder and to use
the silent treatment when a child does wrong. For no child wants to be left out.
No child wants his or her actions to go unrecognized. Thus to be disgraced is to allow
the child to experience the consequences of its bad behavior.
The child comes to realize that certain actions will lead the group to turn their backs
on uncivilized behavior.
Conversely, esteem leads to acceptance, recognition, and productive social
cooperation.

24. And here gives me leave to take notice of one thing I think a fault in
the ordinary method of education; and that is, the charging of
children’s memories, upon all occasions, with rules and precepts,
which they often do not understand, and are constantly as soon
forgot as given.
Some Thoughts Concerning Education, section 64
REASON AND CHARACTER

25. Locke thinks we should proceed:
(1) make sure the child understands and can carry out the task you set for them;
(2) have them repeat the task over and over until the performance of the task no
longer depends on memory or reflection.
“It will perhaps be wondered, that I mention reasoning with children and yet I cannot
but think that the true way of dealing with them. They understand it as early as they
do language; and, if I misobserve not, they love to be treated as rational creatures
sooner than is imagined. It is a pride should be cherished in them, and, as much as
can be, made the greatest instrument to turn them by.”
Some Thoughts Concerning Education,section 81

26. Locke's writing which most influenced the founding fathers of the United States
Constitution was the idea that the power to govern was obtained from the permission
of the people.
He thought that the purpose of government was to protect the natural rights of its
citizens. He said that natural rights were life, liberty and property, and that all people
automatically earned these simply by being born. When a government did not protect
those rights, the citizen had the right and maybe even the obligation of overthrowing
the government.
We can concluded that in order to educate, we must “make room” in the head: the
paper must be clean, the wax must be smooth, the cabinet must be empty. Any
thoughts of fear or frustration will inevitably crowd the space which must receive the
sensory data from without.
CONCLUSION

27. Retrieved from:
http://www.newfoundations.com/GALLERY/Locke.html
http://www.iep.utm.edu/locke/
http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/biographies/john-locke/
http://eepat.net/doku.php?id=john_locke_s_pedagogy
REFERENCES