Abstract

This dissertation analyzes the nature of 'liberty in human learning' in light of John Locke's philosophies of politics, knowledge and education. The dissertation presents an argument that Locke's theory ultimately demands that future citizens are to be educated for freedom of learning and knowing in order to realize Locke's political liberalism. This philosophical study justifies the Lockean tenet that properly exercised freedom of learning will guide a learner to attain sound epistemic outcome, once free rationality overcomes the malice of undesirable customs and unreasonable external influences. Thus the practical task left for an educator is to manage freedom of learners' reasoning and understanding processes. I start by introducing the topic and offering the historical background of Locke's philosophy and the methodology of the research. I then proceed onto a critical assessment of Locke's theory of liberty. This part begins with an examination of Locke's slight distrust of total liberty and his related request for dual restriction—limited governance and constrained freedom. This dualistic conceptual framework of the Lockean liberty parallels with his view on liberty in education in that he requests the limitation of both educational governance (teaching) and freedom (freedom of learning). I also extricate from his theory the autogenicity of liberty that the source of liberty should be found autogenically from within a human being, which Locke discusses in an epistemological context. Then I continue with a discussion of Lockean epistemology that has ideas as the materials of knowledge, knowledge as the perception of association among ideas, and human rationality as the critical examination of idea-connections. There I expand on Locke's view on human rationality into a normative claim that rationality is to be exercised in a rather mildly skeptical way in examining unchecked connections of ideas. The free and rational mind should not accept any information without going through this skeptical rationality, Locke demands. Finally, I argue that thusly defined liberty of knowing and learning, which I call epistemic liberty, is an educational goal and principle in Locke's theory of education. After an extensive investigation of Locke's educational theories, I then compare Locke's principle of epistemic liberty to some contemporary educational theories such as Education for Understanding, Critical Thinking Education, Freirian Theory and Critical Exploration. John Locke has left significant influence on the subsequent educational thinkers such Rousseau and Dewey, and yet been greatly understudied by educational scholars. I hope this research could contribute to the field of educational theory that is to be built upon a link among the theories of politics, knowledge and education, a model of which is found in Locke's thought. This dissertation may also show that the study of a classical thought has much to offer to today's educational theory and practice.