Abstract

Some Thoughts Concerning Education, Locke's treatise on education, has yet to be fully integrated with his more familiar political and philosophical works. This is true in spite of the fact that his philosophy of education is central to an understanding of his political theory. On the surface, there seems to be some tension between Locke's advice on how best to educate the young, and his prescriptions for political legitimacy. The emphasis on consent in the Second Treatise of Government seems to require a parallel emphasis on freedom of thought; but it is the possibility of precisely this sort of freedom that Locke calls into question with a theory of education grounded in the external inculcation of mental habits that control behavior throughout life. This surface tension, however, is dispelled by Locke's theory of knowledge, as it is expressed in the Essay Concerning Human Understanding. The Essay's skepticism with regard to an objective and public knowledge makes clear first, that education is reducible to indoctrination; and second, that liberty therefore requires the rejection or fundamental reconstitution of what has been learned. In this light, the Two Treatises are central elements in Locke's education to "virtue," which is nothing more than the indoctrination of liberal belief