Abstract

John Locke (1632 - 1704) is one of the most influential names in the history of British and Western European thought in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The main theme and concern of Locke’s philosophy first is epistemology, followed by religious, political, and educational issues. As the third major delegate of seventeenth-century British empiricism, Locke continued the F. Bacon tradition and associated empiricism with sensualism. Locke’s empiricalsensationalism is condensed expressed in the concept of the “tabula rasa” (the whiteboard), which implies the spirit of the newborn, with no signs or ideas at all; each step of human growth will make that board “filled” with experience and knowledge. The concept of “tabula rasa” became the starting point for the critique of the innate ideological theory of the rationalist and at the same time established the foundation for Locke’s educational philosophy. Over time, the viewpoint “tabula rasa” has been surpassed, replaced by “self-constructivist” thinking, “self-revealing” of the individual, but the core of the experimental method is still maintained in the form of one of which is the empiricism - the spontaneity of John Dewey.

Key words: John Locke, John Dewey, tabula rasa,instrumentalism, education