Viacheslav Zahorodniuk

Early Childhood in the Early Modern: Locke’s Accounts on Children Perception

The research will be conducted on the topic of children’s mental development in the epistemological conception of Locke. He proposed a new vision of early development, based on sensations and the genesis of experience. The goal of the research will be to reconstruct his account of early development from the passages devoted to the transition from the first sensation to ideas, the genesis of complex ideas, and the ground of moral knowledge and to determine whence he was successful in this attempt. Other goal will be to connect his educational thoughts with the epistemological part’s theory, including my reconstruction of his account of mental development.

Viacheslav Zahorodniuk was an assistant professor in Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. He defended his PhD thesis “The evolution of the ‘idea’ concept in the British philosophy of 17-18th century” devoted to Locke’s, Berkeley’s and Hume’s epistemology. For the last year, Zahorodniuk was working as a postdoc in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Toronto under the supervision of professor Donald C. Ainslie. His project was on Hume’s theory of early children development. His main interests are the history of early modern philosophy and epistemology.