Much thinking in psychology and related forms of psychotherapy is in the grip of a conception of inner-outer relationships that distorts the reality of our lives and world. In his later work, and in the last years of his life especially, Wittgenstein battled against this. In the course of his criticism, he developed vivid images that challenge…

This paper begins with the 'ancient quarrel' between philosophy and literature, which, with the subsequent splitting of "logos" into word and reason, comes to mark philosophy's self-conception and much other thinking besides--compartmentalising, in the process, what is understood by 'literature'. Philosophy, thus separated becomes…

This paper examines sections of Wittgenstein's "Philosophical Investigations" with a view to exposing trail-effects of psychology in educational and social practice today. These are seen in understandings of the relations between mind and body, and language and thought, and their influence is identified in such contemporary preoccupations as…

The matter of crossing borders in the creation of democratic communities arises in ways that are pressing, both within the nation-state and on a global scale. Tensions between tendencies toward nationalism and the cosmopolitan call for global understanding touch the heart of ideas of democracy as beginning at home--at political, psychological, and…

The use of poststructuralist thought in educational research is constrained by a tension between, on the one hand, what is considered to be its emancipatory and empowering potential and, on the other, a reluctance to be distracted from practical concerns and, hence, a fear of alienating the practitioner by speaking in terms of the theoretical.…

J.M. Coetzee's "Elizabeth Costello" is an overtly philosophical novel, at the heart of which are questions concerning the relation of human beings to animals and the discussion of animal rights. The nature of its subject matter and the prominence it gives to dialogue, sometimes of an almost Platonic kind, make it a rich potential…

What is the place of philosophy in the study of education? What is its significance for policy and practice? This paper begins by considering the policy and institutional context of the philosophy of education in the UK and by tracing its recent history. It examines both the place of philosophy in Education (as a field of study) and the status and…

In his essay 'The Scandal of Skepticism', Stanley Cavell discusses aspects of the work of Emmanuel Levinas with a view to understanding how "philosophical and religious ambitions so apparently different" as his own and those of Levinas can have led to "phenomenological coincidences so precise." The present paper explores themes of scepticism and…

Identifies authenticity as the idea that there exists an innate and knowable self. Discusses this concept and how it relates to social, philosophical, and religious thought. Compares the Western concept of self, autonomous and individualistic, with the more interdependent and enigmatic Eastern ideal. (MJP)