This article reexamines the intellectual history of the first public kindergartens, established in St Louis, Missouri, by William Torrey Harris and Elizabeth Blow in 1873. This piece argues that historians have overlooked a critical influence on the establishment of the first public kindergartens; namely, Harris and Blow's conviction that…

In this essay, Robbie McClintock argues that educational theorists have inflated John Dewey's deserved reputation beyond what the quality of his work can sustain. He briefly recounts how Dewey developed a program for reconstruction in philosophy, education, and social life with the aim of overcoming chronic dislocations in social life. McClintock…

How can we begin to imagine a post-modern rendering of science education when the disciples of science continue to cling so firmly to a creation myth in which Science, like Botticelli's Venus stepping forth from a clam shell, breaks away from the pre-modern metaphysical commitments of religion, magic and the superstition in a singular event called…

Starting from a suggestion of Stephen Toulmin and through an interpretation of the criticism to which Neurath, one of the founders of the Vienna Circle, submits Descartes' views on science, the paper attempts to outline a pattern of modernity opposed to the Cartesian one, that has been obtaining over the last four centuries. In particular, it…

The goal of this essay is to analyse the influence of Johann Bernhard Basedow and Rousseau on Kant's cosmopolitanism and concept of cosmopolitan education. It argues that both Basedow and Kant defined cosmopolitan education as non-denominational moral formation or "Bildung", encompassing--in different forms--a thin version of moral…

The purpose of the study is to analyze the influence of Shakarim--a follower of Abai--on Kazakh philosophy, his worldview and opinion of existential issues. The specifics of the problem under consideration required taking a synthetic approach to the use of various methods in this research. A synthesis of dialectical, metaphysical, rational,…

Higher education is one of the last democratic institutions in society and it is currently under attack by advocates of neo-liberalism. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how this "battle" can be framed as a battle over the direction of the Enlightenment. Critical Theory and neoliberalism both emerged from academia in response to…

This article was first published in 1982 in "Educational Analysis" (4, 75-91) and republished in 1998 (Hirst, P. H., & White, P. (Eds.), "Philosophy of education: Major themes in the analytic tradition," Vol. 1, "Philosophy and education, Part 1," pp. 61-78. London: Routledge). I was then a lecturer in philosophy…

The post-World War II era in the United States, which ran from 1945 to 1970, has long been divided into two distinct periods; the late 1940s and 1950s and the 1960s. Out of this separation has come a view of the late 1940s and 1950s as a time dominated by a conservative conformist culture that did little to rival pre-war norms. On the other hand,…

In a seminal article, Philip Alperson (1991) first argued that a proper philosophy of music and music education should account for all musical "praxis." Nonetheless, his introduction of the concept of praxis into the philosophical discourse of music education seems to occasion either a yawn or hostility, despite having a much longer and more solid…

Although educational researchers predominately study complex, multidimensional problems, research findings and proposed arguments can sometimes be characterized as definite, simplified, and prone to particular types of answers or expected outcomes. The authors seek to problematize these definite and simplified notions of answers by looking at some…

Huang Zongxi was an influential seventeenth century Chinese political and social theorist who is considered by many to be the inspiration and founding father of democracy and human rights in China. This article examines the many similarities in thought and social influence between Huang and his contemporary, the English philosopher John Locke.…

An individual is in the lowest phase of moral development if he thinks only of his own personal interest and has only his own selfish agenda in his mind as he encounters other humans. This lowest phase corresponds well with sixteenth century British moral egoism which reflects the rise of the new economic order. Adam Smith (1723-1790) wanted to…

Scholars who have taken interest in "Theaetetus'" educational theme argue that Plato contrasts an inferior, even dangerous, sophistic education to a superior, philosophical, Socratic education. I explore the contrasting exhortations, methods, ideals and epistemological foundations of Socratic and Protagorean education and suggest that Socrates'…

Earlier 20th-century thinkers like Lewis Mumford and Edmund Wilson kept the university and its apparatus at arm's length. Indeed, they often disdained it. They oriented themselves toward an educated public, and, as a result, they developed a straightforward prose and gained a nonprofessional audience. As his reputation grew, Wilson printed up a…