-
3Philosophy as interplay and dialogue: viewing landscapes within philosophy of education (edited book)LIT. 2017.Philosophy as Interplay and Dialogue is an original and stimulating collection of essays. It covers conceptual and critical works relevant to current theoretical developments and debates. An international group of philosophers of education come together each summer on a Greek island. This book is the product of their diligent philosophical analysis and extended dialogues. To deploy their arguments, the authors draw on classical thinkers and contemporary prominent theorists, such as Badiou and Ma…Read more
-
5Writing Up and Down: The Language of Educational ResearchJournal of Philosophy of Education 54 (3): 666-678. 2020.Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.
-
10Unsettling Knowledge: Irony and EducationJournal of Philosophy of Education 54 (3): 757-771. 2020.Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.
-
Reading Between the LinesIn Amanda Fulford & Naomi Hodgson (eds.), Philosophy and Theory in Educational Research: Writing in the Margin, Routledge. 2016.
-
4Philosophy of education, II: major themes in education (edited book)Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. 2015.A new title from Routledge's Major Works series, Major Themes in Education, Philosophy of Education II is a five-volume 'mini library' of the very best scholarship. It is an essential successor collection to Philosophy of Education (1998) (978-0-415-12944-2), edited by Paul Hurst and Patricia White, and described by the Bulletin of the UK-Japan Education Forum as 'indispensable for libraries'. Philosophy of Education (1998) was the first comprehensive collection of the field's canonical and cutt…Read more
-
26Metamorphosis and the Management of ChangeJournal of Philosophy of Education 50 (1): 8-19. 2016.Talk of educational reform and of the importance of ‘the management of change’ in education and elsewhere is still in vogue. However it often seems concerned to persuade us that if we engage fully with change rather than resisting it we will find our lives more meaningful, thus omitting the important matter of the goal of the change in question. Change here is in any case invariably a euphemism for the impoverishment of education and the annihilation of its ideals, together with the deprofession…Read more
-
19A Strange Condition of Things: Alterity and knowingness in Dickens' David CopperfieldEducational Philosophy and Theory 45 (4): 371-382. 2013.It is sometimes said that we are strangers to ourselves, bearers of internal alterity, as well as to each other. The profounder this strangeness then the greater the difficulty of giving any systematic account of it without paradox: of supposing that our obscurity to ourselves can readily be illuminated. To attempt such an account, in defiance of the paradox, is to risk knowingness: a condition which, appearing to challenge our alterity but in fact often confirming it, holds an ambiguous place i…Read more
-
35Being a Stranger and the Strangeness of Being: Joseph Conrad’s ‘The secret sharer’ as an allegory of being in educationEducational Philosophy and Theory 45 (4): 409-419. 2013.Joseph Conrad’s ‘The secret sharer’ has often been associated with what can be called initiation stories. However, in this article I argue that Conrad’s text is more than that. It can, I suggest, be read as an allegory of the inaccessibility to reveal the essence of being in command, being in education, and also the inaccessibility of the essence of the meaning of the text itself. It keeps its secret by allegorically staging alternative readings. This inaccessibility gives rise to a feeling of s…Read more
-
25The Ethics of Research ExcellenceJournal of Philosophy of Education 51 (4): 693-708. 2017.We here analyse the ethical dimensions of the UK's ‘Research Excellence Framework’, the latest version of an exercise which assesses the quality of university research in the UK every seven or so years. We find many of the common objections to this exercise unfounded, such as that it is excessively expensive by comparison with alternatives such as various metrics, or that it turns on the subjective judgement of the assessors. However there are grounds for concern about the crude language in whic…Read more
-
13Philosophy, methodology and educational research (edited book)Blackwell. 2007.This book evaluates the increasingly wide variety of intellectual resources for research methods and methodologies and investigates what constitutes good educational research. Written by a distinguished international group of philosophers of education Questions what sorts of research can usefully inform policy and practice, and what inferences can be drawn from different kinds of research Demonstrates the critical engagement of philosophers of education with the wider educational research commun…Read more
-
14University FuturesJournal of Philosophy of Education 46 (4): 649-662. 2012.Recent radical changes to university education in England have been discussed largely in terms of the arrangements for transferring funding from the state to the student as consumer, with little discussion of what universities are for. It is important, while challenging the economic rationale for the new system, to resist talking about higher education only in the language of economics. There is a strong principled case for rejecting the extension of neoliberalism to education and university edu…Read more
-
7Thinking With Each Other: the Peculiar Practice of the UniversityJournal of Philosophy of Education 37 (2): 309-323. 2003.This chapter enquires into the nature of university teaching. I consider whether Alasdair MacIntyre’s notion of a practice, together with some of his related ideas, is useful to us here. My argument is that MacIntyre’s talk of incommensurable rationalities tells in the end against the fragmentation of higher education and rather points to one distinctive and important role for the university: that the university should be conceived in some respects as a therapeutic community, whose function it i…Read more
-
21Thinking with each other: The peculiar practice of the universityJournal of Philosophy of Education 37 (2). 2003.This chapter enquires into the nature of university teaching. I consider whether Alasdair MacIntyre's notion of a practice, together with some of his related ideas, is useful to us here. My argument is that MacIntyre's talk of incommensurable rationalities tells in the end against the fragmentation of higher education and rather points to one distinctive and important role for the university: that the university should be conceived in some respects as a therapeutic community, whose function it i…Read more
-
49The Virtues of UnknowingJournal of Philosophy of Education 50 (2): 272-284. 2016.Traditional epistemology is often said to have reached an impasse, and recent interest in virtue epistemology supposedly marks a turn away from philosophers’ traditional focus on problems of knowledge and truth. Yet that focus re-emerges, especially among ‘reliabilist’ virtue epistemologists. I argue for a more ‘responsibilist’ approach and for the importance of some of the quieter and gentler epistemic virtues, by contrast with the tough-minded ones that are currently popular in education. In p…Read more
-
87The long slide to happinessJournal of Philosophy of Education 42 (3-4): 559-573. 2008.The recent wave of interest in 'teaching happiness' is beset by problems. It consists of many different emphases and approaches, many of which are inconsistent with each other. If happiness is understood as essentially a matter of 'feeling good', then it is difficult to account for the fact that we want and value all sorts of things that do not make us particularly happy. In education and in life more broadly we value a wider diversity of goods. Such criticisms are standard in philosophical trea…Read more
-
42Self‐Esteem: The Kindly ApocalypseJournal of Philosophy of Education 36 (1). 2002.Self-esteem has become an educational shibboleth. But over-valuing it brings dangers, particularly of dishonesty, manipulation and devaluation of human relationships. Yet there is clearly something here we want to save: a gentler culture with wider possibilities of self-fulfilment. Here I try to distinguish three levels of self-esteem talk. There is the exaltation of self-esteem as the chief aim of education, the therapeutic approach to education and the recognition of self-esteem as one educati…Read more
-
9Self-Esteem: The Kindly ApocalypseJournal of Philosophy of Education 36 (1): 87-100. 2002.Self-esteem has become an educational shibboleth. But over-valuing it brings dangers, particularly of dishonesty, manipulation and devaluation of human relationships. Yet there is clearly something here we want to save: a gentler culture with wider possibilities of self-fulfilment. Here I try to distinguish three levels of self-esteem talk. There is the exaltation of self-esteem as the chief aim of education, the therapeutic approach to education and the recognition of self-esteem as one educati…Read more
-
85Proteus rising: Re-imagining educational researchJournal of Philosophy of Education 42 (s1): 183-198. 2008.The idea that educational research should be 'scientific', and ideally based on randomised control trials, is in danger of becoming hegemonic. In the face of this it seems important to ask what other kinds of educational research can be respectable in their own different terms. We might also note that the demand for research to be 'scientific' is characteristically modernist, and thus arguably local and temporary. It is then tempting to consider what non-modernist approaches might look like. The…Read more
-
8Philosophy in Context: Reply to TröhlerEducational Philosophy and Theory 39 (1): 20-27. 2007.This paper responds to Tröhler's charge that my paper ‘As if by Machinery: The levelling of educational research’ takes Francis Bacon's vision of scientific research out of context. I distinguish four senses of ‘decontextualisation’: as ignorance, as belief in ‘timeless truths’, as comparison of contexts, and as genealogy. I argue that Tröhler has a case against the first sense and aspects of the second, but that his argument against the last two makes philosophy and philosophical conversation i…Read more
-
18Philosophy in context: Reply to tröhlerEducational Philosophy and Theory 39 (1). 2007.This paper responds to Tröhler's charge that my paper ‘As if by Machinery: The levelling of educational research’ takes Francis Bacon's vision of scientific research out of context. I distinguish four senses of ‘decontextualisation’: as ignorance, as belief in ‘timeless truths’, as comparison of contexts, and as genealogy. I argue that Tröhler has a case against the first sense and aspects of the second, but that his argument against the last two makes philosophy and philosophical conversation i…Read more
-
9PrefaceJournal of Philosophy of Education 44 (2-3). 2010.There is a widespread intuition, not peculiar to our own time, that certain forms of work are more than a way of earning a wage: more even than those traditiona.
-
9On Diffidence: the Moral Psychology of Self-BeliefJournal of Philosophy of Education 40 (1): 51-62. 2006.The language of self-belief, including terms like shyness and diffidence, is complex and puzzling. The idea of self-esteem in particular, which has been given fresh currency by recent interest in ‘personalised learning’, continues to create problems. I argue first that we need a ‘thicker’ and more subtle moral psychology of self-belief; and, secondly, that there is a radical instability in the ideas and concepts in this area, an instability to which justice needs to be done. I suggest that aspec…Read more
-
79On diffidence: The moral psychology of self-beliefJournal of Philosophy of Education 40 (1). 2006.The language of self‐belief, including terms like shyness and diffidence, is complex and puzzling. The idea of self‐esteem in particular, which has been given fresh currency by recent interest in ‘personalised learning’, continues to create problems. I argue first that we need a ‘thicker’ and more subtle moral psychology of self‐belief; and, secondly, that there is a radical instability in the ideas and concepts in this area, an instability to which justice needs to be done. I suggest that aspec…Read more
-
54Liberal Arts Education and Brain PlasticityPhilosophy in the Contemporary World 17 (2): 119-130. 2010.This paper addresses what some view as a progressive and decades-long devaluing of the liberal arts in our educational institutions and society at large. It draws attention to symptoms of this trend and possible contributing factors, identifies benefits commonly attributed to the liberal arts, and then shows how insights from recent research on neuroplasticity provide good reason to believe that a traditional liberal education has positive effects on a person's brain. The paper supports the thes…Read more
-
38Fathoming the Changes: The Evolution of some Technical Terms and Interpretive Strategies in Yijing ExegesisJournal of Chinese Philosophy 40 (S1): 146-170. 2013.This essay maps the changing contours of Yijing 《易經》 exegesis, focusing in particular on certain specialized terms that deal with the related problems of “knowing fate” and “establishing fate” . Among the concepts to be discussed are hui 悔, ji 吉, jiu 咎, li 利, li 厲, lin 吝, wang 亡, heng 亨, wujiu 旡咎, xiong 凶, yong 用, yuan 元, and zhen 貞
-
32Educational Research: The Importance of the HumanitiesEducational Theory 65 (6): 739-754. 2015.It is one sign of the lack of understanding of the value of the humanities, to educational research and inquiry as well as to our world more widely, that such justifications of them as are offered frequently take a crudely instrumental form. The humanities are welcomed insofar as they are beneficial to the economy, for example, or play a therapeutic role in people's physical or mental well-being. In higher education in the UK, they are marginalized for similar reasons, on the grounds that they n…Read more
-
1EditorialJournal of Philosophy of Education 46 (4). 2012.Education as a public activity is inescapably political. There are different and competing views about what constitutes the good life, about human nature, about justice and equality, about what is worth learning and why, and about the purposes of education in relation to these. Accordingly it is entirely proper in a democracy that education policy should be created by the people’s elected representatives in parliament, even if the thought that it would be good to keep politics out of education f…Read more
-
10EditorialJournal of Philosophy of Education 46 (4). 2012.Education as a public activity is inescapably political. There are different and competing views about what constitutes the good life, about human nature, about justice and equality, about what is worth learning and why, and about the purposes of education in relation to these. Accordingly it is entirely proper in a democracy that education policy should be created by the people’s elected representatives in parliament, even if the thought that it would be good to keep politics out of education f…Read more
-
37Between the lines: Philosophy, text and conversationJournal of Philosophy of Education 43 (3): 437-449. 2009.In doing philosophy we need to be aware of the awkwardness of thinking in terms of having a method, still more any kind of 'methodology'. Instead we might consider the different ways in which philosophy has been conceived in terms of contrasts: for example between the written and the spoken word, between exposition and dialogue, and between—in Richard Rorty's terms—systematic and edifying philosophy. This article offers no easy answer to how to proceed, suggesting rather that those who attempt p…Read more
-
14BooknotesJournal of Philosophy of Education 41 (1). 2007.‘All prescriptions for child-rearing are, albeit tacitly, projects to produce the sane child’, the psychoanalyst Adam Phillips writes, in Going Sane (Penguin, 2.
Fort Collins, Colorado, United States of America
Areas of Interest
Epistemology |
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Religion |
Asian Philosophy |