Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T07:05:59.418Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Philosophies of Education

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2009

R. J. Haack
R. J. Haack
Affiliation:
University of Warwick
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

It is commonly supposed that the philosophy of education is not a reputable area of concern for a philosopher. I have never heard a coherent, sustained and successful case made for this view. Only vague remarks about ‘autonomy’ and narrowly protectionist views of philosophy are ventured. So I shall not discuss the matter further. I shall simply be content to side with Plato, Aristotle, Comenius, Locke, Rousseau, Kant, Mill and Dewey, who thought that educational issues fell within the province of philosophy. Kant was so concerned with education that he interrupted his work on the Critique of Pure Reason in order to support Basedow's experimental school, the Philanthropin, and the educational reforms which it intended to institute. Kant says ‘… the greatest and most difficult problem to which man can devote himself is the problem of education.’ But if those who hold that the philosophy of education is unimportant, or even disreputable, have come to that view after examining a good deal of what is currently being said in this field, then their adverse reaction is not hard to understand, because a good deal of contemporary work here is clearly inadequate. I hope to show that the contemporary perspective is too narrow, and to advocate a return to a more traditional view of the philosophy of education in the hope that the subject may once again be given the importance which was formerly attributed to it.

Type
Articles
Information
Philosophy , Volume 51 , Issue 196 , April 1976 , pp. 159 - 176
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1976

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Kant, I., Education, transl. Churton, Annette (Ann Arbor, 1960), p. 11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 I. Kant, op. cit., p. 73.

3 Peters, R. S., ‘The Philosophy of Education’, in Tibbie, J. W. (ed.), The Study of Education (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1966), p. 60.Google Scholar

4 Mayo, Bernard, Ethics and the Moral Life (Macmillan, 1958), esp. Ch. 1.Google Scholar

5 R. S. Peters, op. cit., pp. 62–64.

6 R. S. Peters, op. cit., pp. 64–66.

7 R. S. Peters, op. cit., pp. 66–69.

8 Comenius, John Amos, The Great Didactic, transl. Keatinge, M. W. (Adam and Charles Black, 1896), Ch. 16.Google Scholar

9 John Amos Comenius, op. cit., p. 266.

10 Axtell, James L. (ed.), The Educational Writings of John Locke (Cambridge University Press, 1968), p. 279.Google Scholar

11 Spencer, Herbert, Essays on Education (Everyman, 1911).Google Scholar

12 R. S. Peters, op. cit., p. 63.

13 R. S. Peters, ibid.

14 Peters, R. S., Ethics and Education (George Allen and Unwin, 1966), pp. 94–100.Google Scholar

15 R. S. Peters, ibid.

16 Peters, R. S., ‘Education as Initiation’, in Archambault, Reginald D., (ed.), Philosophical Analysis and Education (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1965), p. 99.,Google Scholar

17 R. S. Peters, op. cit, pp. 99–100.

18 R. S. Peters, op. cit., p. 92.

19 Peters, R. S., Ethics and Education (George Allen and Unwin, 1966), Chs.1, 5.Google Scholar

20 Peters, R. S., ‘What is an Educational Process?’, in Peters, R. S. (ed.), The Concept of Education (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967), p. 4.Google Scholar

21 R. S. Peters, ‘Education as Initiation’, loc. cit., p. 91.

22 Peters, R. S., Ethics and Education (George Allen and Unwin, 1966), p. 45.Google Scholar

23 R. S. Peters, ‘Education as Initiation’, loc. cit., p. 88.

24 R. S. Peters, ‘What is an Educational Process?’, loc. cit., p. 4.

25 Peters, R. S., Ethics and Education (George Allen and Unwin, 1966), p. 319.Google Scholar

26 R. S. Peters, ‘The Philosophy of Education’, loc. cit, p. 64.

27 R. S. Peters, op. cit., p. 65.

28 R. S. Peters, op. cit.

29 R. S. Peters, op. cit., pp. 65–66.

30 R. S. Peters, op. cit., p. 66.

31 R. S. Peters, op. cit., p. 67.

32 R. S. Peters, ‘Education as Initiation’, loc. cit., p. 92.

33 R. S. Peters, op. cit., pp. 102–110.

34 Peters, R. S., Ethics and Education (George Allen and Unwin, 1966), pp. 41–42Google Scholar; ‘What is an Educational Process?’, loc. cit., p. 4.

35 R. S. Peters, ‘Education as Initiation’, loc. cit., p. 97.

36 Peters, R. S., ‘Aims of Education—A Conceptual Inquiry’, in Peters, R. S. (ed.), The Philosophy of Education (Oxford University Press, 1973), pp. 18–20Google Scholar; Ethics and Education (George Allen and Unwin, 1966), pp. 32–35; ‘What is an Educational Process?’, loc. cit., pp. 14–16.

37 R. S. Peters, ‘Aims of Education—A Conceptual Inquiry’, op. cit., p. 44.

38 R. S. Peters, op. cit., p. 45.

39 Woods, John, ‘Commentary on “Aims of Education—A Conceptual Inquiry”‘, in Peters, R. S. (ed.), The Philosophy of Education (Oxford University Press, 1973). PP 29–34.Google Scholar

Dray, William H., ‘Commentary on “Aims of Education—A Conceptual Inquiry”’, loc. cit., pp. 34–39.Google Scholar

40 R. S. Peters, ‘Aims of Education—A Conceptual Inquiry’, loc. cit., pp. 44–46.

41 R. S. Peters, ‘Education as Initiation’, loc. cit., pp. 88–89.

42 R. S. Peters,‘Aims of Education—A Conceptual Inquiry’, loc. cit., p. 20.

43 R. S. Peters, op. cit., p. 27.

44 Hirst, P. H. and Peters, R. S., The Logic of Education (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1970), p. 25.Google Scholar

45 R. S. Peters, ‘Aims of Education—A Conceptual Inquiry’, loc. cit., p. 18.

46 Hirst, P. H. and Peters, R. S., The Logic of Education (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1970), p. 23.Google Scholar

47 P. H. Hirst and R. S. Peters, ibid.

48 P. H. Hirst and R. S. Peters, op. cit., p. 25.

49 O'Connor, D. J., An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1957), p. 110.Google Scholar

50 D. J. O'Connor, op. cit., pp. 92–104.

51 R. J. Haack, The Practice of Philosophy, Unpublished, Ch. 4.

52 Piaget, Jean, Science of Education and the Psychology of the Child (Longman, 1971) PP 5–7Google Scholar

53 Hirst, P. H., ‘Philosophy and Educational Theory’, in Schemer, Israel (ed.), Philosophy and Education, Second edition (Allyn and Bacon, 1966), pp. 89–90.Google Scholar

54 Hamlyn, D. W., ‘Human Learning’, in Peters, R. S. (ed.), The Philosophy of Education (Oxford University Press, 1973), pp. 178–194Google Scholar; ‘Conditioning and Learning’, in Borger, R. and Cioffi, F. (eds.), Explanation in the Behavioural Sciences (Cambridge University Press, 1970).Google Scholar

55 Illich, Ivan D., Deschooling Society (Calder and Boyars, 1971).Google Scholar

56 Hirst, P. H. and Peters, R. S., The Logic of Education (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1970), p. 69.Google Scholar

57 P. H. Hirst and R. S. Peters, op. cit., p. 72.

58 P. H. Hirst and R. S. Peters, op. cit., p. 73.

59 Peters, R. S., Ethics and Education (George Allen and Unwin, 1966), p. 63.Google Scholar