John Locke's The Nature-Nurture Debate

The Nature- Nurture Debate

The Nature-Nurture debate is the thought provoking dispute which explains the development of a child in relation to the biological factors: genetic inheritance (Nature), and the acquirement of knowledge in life, which means that the child learns through watching the behavior of other humans. The nature and nurture side both propose great ideas for explaining development in each of the domains. The cognitive development which is “how the mind processes, stores and retrieves information” (Mhic Mhathúna & Taylor, 2012S p.17), motor-physical development which is how a child develops physically with fine/ gross motor skills and socio-emotional development which is “the child’s experience, expression and management of

The empiricists, as I mentioned above stand by the fact the child learns from others. One of the greatest philosophers in my opinion, John Locke, was an empiricist. He proposed very advanced theories for his time (1632-1704), which was just after the 16th century, The Reformation. During this time, adults were ignorant about child development. They believed children were “born evil and they needed to be ‘tamed because of their dangerous impulses.” (Lecture notes, 2017). Locke proposed the idea of Tabula Rasa, which meant “all children were born with a blank slate” (Lecture notes, 2017) and that they learned from the nurture of adults. He also stated that children were influenced greatly by the parent/ primary caregiver (Lecture notes, 2017). This was obviously a huge breakthrough for the children at the time, as they weren’t getting the extensive care they needed. Adults then realized that having a child meant caring for not one, but two.

This was a huge step forward towards child development as now parents were aware of the sensitive period that a child goes through when they’re born and all of the care they would need, as the children couldn’t take care of themselves. This would have helped with the child’s socio-emotional development because the child would now, have more attention and care from a mother, allowing the child to feel loved and therefore, building the child’s

Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) was a French philosopher that was influenced by John Locke. He believed that children needed to be educated by specially educated tutors, however he didn’t believe that children were born as blank slates and that they were born with morals. This is a form of innate knowledge because the children were born with the understanding. Rousseau emphasized the importance of the stages of maturation. In Noirin Hayes’ piece, ‘An Introductory Text’, she states that Rousseau explained that “children require different experiences and treatment at different stages in childhood”. This again was a huge break- through for the care and development of children as caregivers realized that different ages and sensitive periods, have different needs. The people of the time now started to realize that the education of the child was very important, but also when they are ready for it. These stages grouped children together and, in a way, protected them because now the idea of children having to be developmentally ready for something, let it be education or work, was laying the foundation of early childhood education and