Table Of ContentPHILOSOPHERS ON EDUCATION
Also by Roger Straughan and John Wilson
PHILOSOPHIZING ABOUT EDUCATION
Also by Roger Straughan
I OUGHT TO, BUT ... : A Philosophical Approach to the Prob
lem of Weakness of Will in Education
CAN WE TEACH CHILDREN TO BE GOOD?
VALUES AND EVALUATION IN EDUCATION (edited with
Jack Wrigley)
Also bv John Wilson
LANGUAGE AND THE A TEACHER'S GUIDE TO
PURSUIT OF TRUTH MORAL EDUCATION
THINKING WITH LOVE, SEX AND
CONCEPTS MORALITY
REASON AND MORALS FANTASY AND COMMON
PHILOSOPHY & RELIGION SENSE IN EDUCATION
PHILOSOPHY PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND
PRIVATE PRACTICE
EDUCATION IN RELIGION
AND THE EMOTIONS PHILOSOPHY AND
EDUCATIONAL
PRACTICAL METHODS OF
RESEARCH
MORAL EDUCATION
EDUCATIONAL THEORY
RELIGION
AND THE PREPARATION
INTRODUCTION TO OF TEACHERS
MORAL EDUCATION
THE ASSESSMENT OF
LOGIC AND SEXUAL
MORALITY
MORALITY
DISCIPLINE AND MORAL
THE CONCEPT OF MENTAL
EDUCATION
HEALTH
MORAL EDUCATION AND
PHILOSOPHY AND
THE CURRICULUM
PRACTICAL EDUCATION
PYLOS 425
PREFACE TO THE
ITHACA AND PYLOS
PHILOSOPHY OF
EDUCATION ATHENS AND CORCYRA
LANGUAGE AND CANOEING DOWN THE
CHRISTIAN BELIEF RHONE
THE TRUTH OF RELIGION THE FAITH OF AN ARTIST
(editor)
EQUALITY
WHAT PHILOSOPHY CAN DO
PHILOSOPHERS
ON EDUCATION
Edited by
Roger Straughan
School of Education
University of Reading
and
John Wilson
Department of Educational Studies
University of Oxford
~
MACMILLAN
Selection, editorial matter and Chapters I, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9
© Roger Straughan and John Wilson 1987
Chapter 3 © Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain 1982
Chapter 10 © University of Chicago Press 1984
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1984 978-0-333-39530-1
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First published 1987 by
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Companies and representatives
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ISBN 978-1-349-08108-0 ISBN 978-1-349-08106-6 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-08106-6
A catalogue record for this book is available
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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
04 03 02 01 00 99 98 97 96
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Notes on the Contributors viii
INTRODUCTION 1
PART I THE LOGIC OF EDUCATIONAL AIMS AND
ACHIEVEMENTS
1 Education and Magic 7
D. Z. Phillips
2 Examination not Attempted 21
Antony Flew
3 Education as a Positional Good 43
Martin Hollis
PART II RATIONALITY, UNDERSTANDING AND
EDUCATION
4 The Transmission of Knowledge 61
Neil Cooper
5 On Having a Mind of One's Own 79
R. S. Downie
6 Humanistic Education: Some Philosophical Considerations 93
G. H. R. Parkinson
PART III REASON IN RELIGIOUS AND MORAL
EDUCATION
7 Two Questions about Religious Education 109
W. D. Hudson
8 Attitudes to Evidence and Argument in the Field of Religion 127
R. W. Hepburn
v
vi Contents
9 Moral Development as the Goal of Moral Education 147
Don Locke
10 The Roots of Moral Reason 162
Renford Bambrough
Index 176
Acknowledgments
Chapter 3 is reprinted from the Journal of Philosophy of Education,
vol. 16, No. 2, by permission of the Philosophy of Education Society
of Great Britain.
Chapter 10 is reprinted with minor revisions from Gewirth's Ethical
Rationalism: Critical Essays with a Reply by Alan Gewirth, edited by
Edward Regis Jr., (1984) by permission of the University of Chicago
Press.
Vll
Notes on the Contributors
Renford Bambrough is a Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge,
Sidgwick Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Cambridge, and
Editor of Philosophy. He has held the Stanton Lectureship in the
Philosophy of Religion at Cambridge, and visiting appointments at
Cornell University, the Universities of California and Oregon and
Melbourne University. In 1983 he visited Princeton as a Presidential
Fellow of the Carnegie Foundation. He is a member of the Council
for the Accreditation of Teacher Education and is the author of
Reason, Truth and God and Moral Scepticism and Moral Knowledge.
Neil Cooper is Professor in Moral' Philosophy at the University of
Dundee. Educated at the City of London School and Balliol College,
Oxford, he has been Senior Scholar, New College, Oxford, John
Locke Scholar in Mental Philosophy and Lecturer in Philosophy at
the University of St Andrews. He is the author of The Diversity of
Moral Thinking and of articles on a wide range of philosophical
topics.
R. S. Downie is Professor of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow Universi
ty. He is Chairman of the Working Party of the Central Council for
Education and Training in Social Work reporting on the teaching of
values in social work courses. He is the author of Caring and Curing,
Education and Personal Relationships, Roles and Values, Respect for
Persons, and Government Action and Morality.
Antony Flew is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of
Reading and Distinguished Research Fellow of the Social Philosophy
and Policy Centre, Bowling Green, Ohio. He is also a member of the
Education Group of the Centre for Policy Studies and the author of
Crime or Disease?; Thinking about Thinking; Sociology, Equality and
Education; A Rational Animal; The Politics of Procrustes; Darwinian
Evolution and of various other books and articles.
viii
Notes on the Contributors ix
R. W. Hepburn is Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of
Edinburgh and has held earlier academic appointments at the
Universities of Aberdeen, Nottingham and New York. His publica
tions have been chiefly in the fields of aesthetics, the philosophy of
religion and moral philosophy, and include Christianity and Paradox
and eight shorter studies in Wonder and Other Essays.
Martin Hollis is Professor of Philosophy in the School of Economic
and Social Studies at the University of East Anglia. He is the author
of Models of Man and Invitation to Philosophy, co-author of Rational
Economic Man and co-editor of Rationality and Relativism. He has
published papers in the philosophy of several social sciences.
W. D. Hudson is Reader in Moral Philosophy at the University of
Exeter. In 1983-84 he held a research fellowship on the St Luke's
College Foundation. Besides university teaching he has done some
educational broadcasting to sixth forms and served on advisory
committees at the BBC and County Hall. He is the author of Reason
and Right, Modern Moral Philosophy, A Century of Moral Philoso
phy, A Philosophical Approach to Religion and Wittgenstein on
Religious Belief, and has contributed numerous articles to philo
sophical and theological journals.
Don Locke is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Warwick.
He has also taught at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, the
University of Wisconsin-Madison, the American University,
Washington, D.C., and the Universities of Auckland, Waikato and
Canterbury. He is the author of three books in epistemology and a
biography of William Godwin, co-editor of Morality in the Making,
and has published articles in professional philosophical, psychological
and educational journals.
G. H. R. Parkinson is Professor of Philosophy at the University of
Reading. He has written on Hegel, on the early philosophy of
Wittgenstein and on the theory of meaning, and his books include
Spinoza's Theory of Knowledge, Logic and Reality in Leibniz's
Metaphysics and Georg Lukacs.
D. Z. Phillips is Professor of Philosophy at the University College of
Swansea. He has taught at Queen's College, Dundee, and University
College, Bangor, and has been a visiting professor at American and
