John Locke and the Creation of Liberal Subjects

I argue that John Locke’s epistemology leads him to an understanding of the subject as highly malleable, and that his writings on education are best understood as a response to this. In my account, Locke’s educational program is an early manifestation of what Michel Foucault would later identify as “discipline,” those institutional practices that work subtly and unceasingly to normalize subjects. Locke’s goal in Some Thoughts Concerning in the...