This quotation from twentieth-century education theorist Jean Piaget — “Play is the answer to how anything new comes about” — reminds me of a passage from seventeenth-century philosopher John Locke’s Some Thoughts concerning Education. “Great care is to be taken, that [education] be never made as a business to him, nor he look on it […]
Piaget and Locke on play and creativity Read More »
Who are the great philosophers, and what makes them great? Episodes: The full playlist. Stephen R. C. Hicks, Ph.D., is Professor of Philosophy at Rockford University, USA, and has had visiting positions at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., the University of Kasimir the Great in Poland, Oxford University’s Harris Manchester College in England, and Jagiellonian
The first three sessions in my new, free, and online course will be: We will read and discuss primary sources — Plato, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau in their own words. Mark your calendars. More information forthcoming.
Education’s Heroes and Villains course — Plato, Locke, Rousseau Read More »
15-lecture series by Professor Stephen R.C. Hicks, Rockford University. Part Eight: Realism and Education. What did the great Realist philosophers believe and how they apply it to education? Previous lectures in the series: Part One: Introduction: What is the purpose of education, and what is philosophy’s relevance? Part Two: Reality: Metaphysics and Education. The Creation
Education Theory 8: Realism, Aristotle, and Locke Read More »
My 20-minute talk for the City of Ideas festival in Puebla, Mexico is online here. In English with Spanish subtitles. I use four examples — two good and two awful — from the history of medicine to frame my recommendations for transforming education.
Entrepreneurial Education — Medici, Locke, Rothschild, Semmelweis Read More »
University of Maryland historian Holly Brewer’s very good overview of Locke’s role in English slavery in the mid-1600s and his philosophical opposition as developed by the 1680s: “Slavery-entangled philosophy.” John Locke took part in administering the slave-owning colonies. Does that make him, and liberalism itself, hypocritical? Related: My other posts on Locke. “The Stain of
My review of Nicholas Capaldi & Gordon Lloyd’s Liberty and Equality in Political Economy: From Locke versus Rousseau to the Present is now published at the Library of Law and Liberty site.
Review of Capaldi and Lloyd on Locke versus Rousseau Read More »
Stephen Hicks discusses John Locke’s views on education, with excerpts from Locke’s Some Thoughts concerning Education. This is from Part 8 of his Philosophy of Education course. Clips 1-6: Previous: Contrasting Realist to Idealist philosophy. Next: Realist curriculum: 3 R’s, foundational knowledge and methods. Return to the Philosophy of Education page. Return to the StephenHicks.org
John Locke on education Read More »
The education of children is a highly philosophical enterprise — the project is long-term, of great importance, requires a strategic understanding of human life, and puts our actual values to the test. In my Philosophy of Education course, we spend much of our time finding where the rubber meets the road — that is, connecting
Education: Locke versus Kant Read More »
An evocative quotation from philosopher Sidney Hook (1902-1989), from his autobiographical Out of Step. In an earlier post I quoted Hook’s account of his family’s living conditions. Here Hook recalls his authoritarian-style education in American schools circa one century ago: “Although the public schools were religiously attended (children feared the wrath of their parents much
Sidney Hook on public education Read More »