Kant's views about the nature and value of enlightenment have been discussed very much since 1784, and without ever losing any of their relevance and importance. I will discuss a topic that has not been discussed quite that extensively: Kant's conception of enlightenment as it relates to the idea of perfection ("Vollkommenheit") in…

In this, the first chapter of "Interpreting Kant in Education," contrasting interpretations of some of Kant's central terms and insights are introduced. It is argued that some central assumptions about mind and world, rooted in traditional empiricist epistemology, have acted as obstacles in interpreting Kant. Discussion of John…

In previous chapters of "Interpreting Kant in Education," a particular set of assumptions about mind and world has been identified for their influence on the familiar 'Kantian' picture in education, a picture that receives widespread criticism. In this fourth chapter, various understandings of familiar concepts are again discussed for…

In the earlier chapters of "Interpreting Kant in Education," a reading of Kant was developed that contrasts sharply with the widespread 'Kantian' picture in education theory. Having discussed aspects of Kant's view in relation to empiricist and naturalist (mind-independent) epistemologies, I turn in this sixth chapter to contrast them…

This paper problematises the current conception and purview of environmental education (EE), seeing it as part and parcel of the modernist western worldview that normalises and valorises human domination and exploitation of nature in the name of progress. Using the COVID-19 pandemic as a lens through which to examine and expose the modernist…

This paper explores the concept of "Gelassenheit" as developed in the later thought of Martin Heidegger. It seeks to show the relevance of this to aspects of education, especially to the ways that teaching can be enhanced in order to do better justice both to the learners and to what is studied. Thinking in this way helps to overcome the…

This paper explores education as a context for facing what Susie Orbach has termed 'climate sorrow' and asks: what 'relations to the world' are we imagining might help youth stay with difficult feelings about the future by enabling them to develop a living relationship to the more-than-human world in the present? By way of response, the paper…

When reliability and validity were introduced as validation criteria for empirical research in the human sciences, quantitative research methods prevailed, and theory of science relied on neopositivism (Vienna Circle) or postpositivism (scientific realism). Within this worldview, notions of reliability and validity as criteria of scientific…

In this paper, I address a complex of challenges around religiously grounded ethical ideas in education, the public sphere and public institutions, focussing on the question of LGBTQ+ rights education and an exemplary conflict over this topic in Birmingham, England, in 2019. I argue that it is important, both theoretically and practically, to…

Since Plato, Western thought has framed knowing as a method within "some realm of what is" and a predetermined "sphere of objects". The roots and the consequences of this stance towards reason and truth were noted by Heidegger, who equates the history of Western thought with the history of metaphysics. Since Plato, truth has…

Drawing on Bernard Lonergan's "Method in Theology" (1972) I argue that theology can be taught because personal knowledge, of which it is an instance, is at the heart of academic inquiry; and it should be taught because critical engagement with basic ways of taking one's life as a whole (religion in a broad sense) furnishes a critique of the…

A popular justification of education for autonomy is that autonomy possession has intrinsic prudential value. Communitarians have argued, however, that although autonomy may be a core element of a well-lived life in liberal societies, it cannot claim such a prudential pedigree in traditional societies in which the conception of a good life is…

Cosmopolitan concern for the whole world is often treated as oppositional to particular collectivities, to corresponding sensibilities and to the obligations that follow from them. Tensions revolve around demands made upon the self (depending on the emphasis on the local or the global) and infuse educational discourse accordingly. Culturalism…

Until recently, little attention has been paid in the school classroom to creationism and almost none to intelligent design. However, creationism and possibly intelligent design appear to be on the increase and there are indications that there are more countries in which schools are becoming battle-grounds over them. I begin by examining whether…

This article explores, in the French context, an aspect of what Terence McLaughlin (1991) has described in an unpublished paper as the "dilemma of substantiality" faced by any school system endeavouring to promote neutrality. In France, in order that the public or common school be genuinely open to all students, not only is the wearing…