Synopses & Reviews
Philosophy of education has an honored place in the history of Western philosophical thought. Its questions are as vital now, both philosophically and practically, as they have ever been. In recent decades, however, philosophical thinking about education has largely fallen off the philosophical radar screen. Philosophy of education has lost intimate contact with the parent discipline to a regrettably large extent--to the detriment of both.
The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Education is intended to serve as a general introduction to key issues in the field, to further the philosophical pursuit of those issues, and to bring philosophy of education back into closer contact with general philosophy. Distinguished philosophers and philosophers of education, most of whom have made important contributions to core areas of philosophy, turn their attention in these 28 essays to a broad range of philosophical questions concerning education. The chapters are accessible to readers with no prior exposure to philosophy of education, and provide both surveys of the general domain they address, and advance the discussion in those domains in original and fruitful ways. Together their authors constitute a new wave of general philosophers taking up fundamental philosophical questions about education--the first such cohort of outstanding general philosophers to do so (in English) in a generation.
Review
"[T]he collection has notable strengths. The essays cover a wide range of interesting topics from a variety of philosophical perspectives. They are uniformly well-written and accessible to readers without a prior background in the philosophy of education.... As a collection of papers likely to advance research in the philosophy of education, the collection contains many essays that directly take on issues in the area and make important contributions to on-going debates."--Peter J. Markie, BNotre Dame Philosophical Reviews
"The Handbook delivers twenty-eight substantial, carefully wrought, informative chapters treating such topics as indoctrination, fallibility, empathy, values, skepticism, imagination, stereotypes, and many others. The chapters try to extract the good from the bad in debates about critical thinking, constructivism, multiculturalism, religious toleration, moral and
civic education, parents' rights, and curriculum design. Some of the chapters are quite original (e.g., Philip Kitcher's and Elijah Millgram's); some ought to go on required reading lists (e.g., Nicholas Burbules's and Meira Levinson's); all make important distinctions and clarify contemporary debates. There's not a clunker in the lot." --Social Theory and Practice
"[T]he book deserves to be on a philosopher of education's shelf." --Science and Education
About the Author
Harvey Siegel is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Miami.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Philosophy of Education and Philosophy: -
Harvey Siegel Aims of Education
1. The Epistemic Aims of Education - Emily Robertson
2. Moral and Political Aims of Education -Harry Brighouse
3. Tagore, Dewey, and the Imminent Demise of Liberal Education - Martha Nussbaum
Thinking, Reasoning, Teaching and Learning
4. Thinking, Reasoning, and Education - Richard Feldman
5. Why Fallibility Has Not Mattered and How It Could - Jonathan E. Adler
6. Indoctrination - Eamonn Callan and Dylan Arena
7. Educating for Authenticity: The Paradox of Moral Education Revisited - Stefaan E. Cuypers
8. The Development of Rationality - David Moshman
9. Philosophy and Developmental Psychology: Getting Beyond the Deficit Conception of Childhood - Gareth B. Matthews
10. Socratic Teaching and Socratic Method - Thomas C. Brickhouse and Nicholas D. Smith
11. Educating the Practical Imagination: A Prolegomena - Amélie Rorty
Moral, Value, and Character Education
12. Caring, Empathy, and Moral Education - Michael Slote
13. Kantian Moral Maturity and the Cultivation of Character - Marcia C. Baron
14. The Persistence of Moral Skepticism and the Limits of Moral Education - Elijah Millgram
15. Values Education - Graham Oddie
Knowledge, Curriculum, and Educational Research
16. Curriculum and the Value of Knowledge - David Carr
17. Education, Democracy, and Capitalism - Philip Kitcher
18. Art and Education - Catherine Z. Elgin
19. Science Education, Religious Toleration, and Liberal Neutrality Toward the Good - Robert Audi
20. Constructivisms, Scientific Methods and Reflective Judgment in Science Education - Richard E. Grandy
21. Empirical Educational Research: Charting Philosophical Disagreements in an Undisciplined Field - D. C. Phillips
Social/Political Issues
22. Educating for Individual Freedom and Democratic Citizenship: In Unity and Diversity There Is Strength - Amy Gutmann
23. Mapping Multicultural Education - Meira Levinson
24. Prejudice - Lawrence Blum
25. Educational Authority and the Interests of Children -Rob Reich
Approaches to Philosophy of Education and Philosophy
26. Pragmatist Philosophy of Education - Randall Curren
27. Feminist Philosophy and Education - Nel Noddings
28. Postmodernism and Education - Nicholas C. Burbules