The representative figures of the thought of "education is omnipotent" mainly include: German philosopher, mathematician, natural scientist Leibniz, British educator Locke, German philosopher Kant, French enlightenment thinker helvetius and so on. Among them, helvetius is the most famous representative of the omnipotence of education.
The omnipotent theory of education was put forward by helvetius, a French enlightenment thinker and materialist philosopher in the18th century. Helvetius attaches great importance to the role of education, and even exaggerates it, arguing that education is omnipotent. He believes that man is the product of education, and his spirit, character and temperament are the result of education. "What kind of people are educated will become what kind of people", "Education is omnipotent, and it can even create genius".
Helvetius believed in the omnipotence of education, insisted on changing the society through education, and fantasized about eliminating feudal superstitions and prejudices through education, developing people's rationality and forming "sound morality", thus changing the social status quo and establishing a "reasonable" social system.
Advantages and disadvantages of educational omnipotence
Helvetius's thought that man is the product of environment and education has materialistic factors. Although the theory of "education omnipotence" advocated by him exaggerated the social function of education and had obvious one-sidedness and absolute defects, under the historical conditions at that time, this utopian theory of transforming society through education reflected the progressive requirements of the emerging bourgeoisie to overthrow the feudal system.
However, on the one hand, helvetius thought that man is the product of environment and education, on the other hand, he thought that the transformation of man must first transform the environment and education, thus falling into an inevitable circular contradiction. Finally, he had to turn to genius and thought that he would save the world, educate the public and change human nature by criticizing the foresight. In this way, he regarded the people as passive mobs and a few talented people as natural educators, thus falling into the historical view of "opinions dominate the world".