Philosophy of Education and Educational Practice

Philosophy of Education and Educational Practice

Keith Thompson

The purpose of this paper is to challenge the prevailing view regarding the relationship between the philosophy of education and the practice of education. This view can be characterised in various ways. At its most severe it maintains that philosophers of education are engaged in an activity which has no practical consequences for education at all. Very broadly this view seems to derive from an argument, frequently implicit, of this nature: 1. Educational decisions are based upon a combination of

empirical evidence and value judgments. 2. It is not the concern of philosophers to provide empirical

evidence. 3. It is not the concern of philosophers to make value judgments. Therefore educational decisions cannot be affected by the activities of philosophers of education.

In reviewing Langford’s book‘ Gordon Reddiford writes “no one who expects the philosopher to provide practical directives, or theoretical supports, for the practice of education will have much time for Mr Langford’s book”. The former are more than philosophy “can reasonably furnish”.’

The position may perhaps be thought of as a fairly direct application of the view of philosophy expressed by Wittgenstein in the Investigations. Philosophy “leaves everything as it is”.’ Ergo philosophy of education leaves education as it is. “Philosophy simply puts everything before us”.‘ Ergo philosophy of education simply puts educational issues before us. “The work of the philosopher consists in assembling reminders for a particular p~rpose”.~ Ergo he is not fundamentally changing the situation; reminders presuppose prior understanding.

There could scarcely be a more important issue for philosophers of education to face than the relationship between the activity (activities?) in which they are engaged and the practice of education. Prima facie there s e e k to be something extremely odd about maintaining that the philosophy of education is of great importance and maintaining that it has no direct relationship with

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46 KEITH THOMPSON

the decisions which are taken in practice in education, decisions of politicians, administrators, teachers, parents. 1 am not quarrelling with the view that it is of value in itself to engage in the activity of philosophising. I trust that those who teach philosophy of education in Colleges and Departments of Education are not only engaged in helping with the professional preparation of teachers but helping them also to develop something which is of value in itself, which can enrich them as persons. But the phrase is not only. I believe also that they are helping them in their professional preparation, that they will decide and act differently in certain respects because of the understanding which they have gained. Moreover I trust that the same is true of those with philosophical interests and skills who are engaged in policy making and in admin- istration within Education.

Let us consider then the general formulation of the argument. As I expressed it at the outset there are several points to be taken up: 1. I wish to accept the truth of premise 2 and (with the proviso

‘qua philosophers’) of premise 3. 2. I wish to challenge the first premise as a complete statement.

There is no denying that both empirical evidence and value judgments may be involved in educational decisions. But it is naive to suppose that these decisions are based upon these alone. First the concept of being bused upon needs examination. Second the idea of a combination of empirical evidence and value judgments requires further scrutiny. Third one must ask whether there are not elements other than the empirical and the evaluative.

3. In the light of the criticisms of the first premise I shall argue that the conclusion is untrue.

A word first about my proviso to point 3, that I accept it as true as long as ‘qua philosophers’ is understood. The insertion of this phrase has been the main means by which the severity of the basic argument has been modified. There has been general agreement among the analytic school that the business of philosophy of education is broadly as I have outlined it. But, it has been added, philosophers are human beings just as anyone else. Therefore when they take off their philosophical hats they too can make value judgments. Whether these should be listened to with any particular regard has been disputed. It may be maintained that although it is not the concern of the philosopher qua philosopher to make value judgments he is at least as entitled to do this as any other person and that his understanding of the issues involved, gained through

PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION AND EDlJCATIONAl. PRACTICE 47

close analysis of them, gives him a particular right to be taken seriously. On the other hand Arnaud Reid supposes that the analyst might hold a contrary view: “Elaborate philosophical reflection on questions of value might lead the philosopher off the rails, so that his conclusions were more misleading and dangerous than the risks of practical common sense . . . or . . . philosophy may lead to scepticism, and so, indirectly, may paralyse the power of practical decision”.” Judgment here is complicated because the issue of the role that philosophers might play in this sense seems itself to be partly an empirical issue (what in fact and in general has resulted when they have taken upon themselves the right to advise?), partly an evaluative one (does their, presumed, greater clarity give them any greater right to evaluate?) and partly a technical one (can the philosopher and the man be so rigidly separated?). My own view would be broadly that the philosopher should be listened to particularly seriously when he evaluates but that he is quite correct himself in insisting that evaluation is not itself a ‘professional’ activity of a philosopher. However this is not the main point of my paper at all; I aim to show that he can also have a greater effect on practical decisions directly qua philosopher than he is normally prepared to allow.

Turning to premise 1, in what sense are decisions based upon evidence? Let us consider the evidence, for example, regarding the correlation between social class and educational achievement. If a decision is made upon the basis of this evidence it may well be to take some administrative action to improve the educational chances of those from a lower social class relative to those from a higher class. Clearly it may be maintained that it is only in the light of the evidence that the decision has been made, but it also involves a value judgment. What contribution could philosophy make here? Asking what contribution it could make would seem to prz- suppose that it has not made any contribution so far. But this is not so. To distinguish between empirical evidence and value judgment is itself to have made a philosophical point. It is no answer to this to say that it is only a very basic one. Basic and elementary points within a discipline are not to be equated with unimportant ones. Further a move from correlation to cause is implied and philosophical points are involved here. In this case it may be argued that the philosophical points are intrinsic to the social sciences concerned. But they are none the less philosophical for that. The philosopher must concern himself at times with empirical evidence; it does not cease to be empirical evidence for appearing in a philo-

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sophical context. So also vice versa. Archambault regards it as a main task of philosophy of education “to explore and explicate the philosophical premises underlying investigations in . . . other areas”.’ I return to this point towards the end of the paper.

The term based upon is still not clear however. Is it to be taken to mean derived from? If so then what is the nature of the derivation? It is a commonplace to argue that practical decisions cannot be deduced from philosophical arguments. OConnor, for example, claims that “it is not possible to deduce statements about the aims of education or its cumculum from any philosophical statements”.s But can they be deduced from the arguments of any one discipline? If they cannot then it is clear that in itself the fact, if it is a fact, that they cannot be deduced from philosophical arguments renders such arguments neither less nor more potent in their effect upon practice than those of other disciplines.

What could be meant by arguing that an educational decision should be deduced from empirical evidence? The implication would be that because the facts were such and such therefore a particular action should follow. But this is not a deduction from the evidence. It could only be a deduction if nothing else could possibly be decided in the light of the evidence (and this would involve also ‘doing nothing’ as one of the things to be considered.) In this case however there is no decision. A decision to take a particular action implies that the facts at the very least allow of the possibility of another action. Therefore no such action could be deduced as necessarily following from the facts alone.

Could then an educational decision be deduced from a value judgment alone? To do this would be to deduce that because a certain thing was thought to be right therefore it ought to be done. Now this might be interpreted as tautologous: ‘what is right to do should be done.’ But if this is so the decision that it is right to do would itself involve consideration of the circumstances of the case and thus would not be based solely on a value judgment. On the other hand if the right is based solely on a value judgment there can be no deduction of ‘ought to be done regardless of circum- stance.’ Even if one supposed a view that a particular type of action ought always to be taken if possible (the view that some ethical principle embodied therein is paramount) it would still be necessary to look at the facts to ensure possible application.

If based upon does not mean deduced from one might wish to substitute a phrase such as taken in the light of or aflected by. Archambault, for example, argues “that those analyses and clari-

PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL PRACliCE 49

fications that emerge from the philosophical investigation of central educational issues must necessarily affect and inform educational decisions” but, he alleges, “cannot make them”.’ This I take to be a weakening from deduction to some less rigorous relationship. But what is the nature of this relationship? One is unclear as to the way in which the decision is affected and informed by the philosophical investigation. Archambault has adopted a far from rigorous position in allowing an effect but has provided no account of the relationship.

At this point it may be argued that I should return to the point of decisions being based upon a combination of empirical evidence and value judgment. But what is it to combine these two elements? It is certainly not possible to deduce a decision from a combination of them because they do not combine in any coherent form. They are not elements which combine to form a compound which is different in kind from either element though formed by them. They ‘combine’ (if this is the word a t all) in a mixture retaining their individual characteristics. From the evidence, judgments may be made of those actions which are in fact likely to produce certain outcomes and value judgments have to be made to decide between these.

Professor Hirst has argued that “it is not at all clear what is meant by synthesising knowledge achieved by the use of logically quite different conceptual schemes” and that, in any case. “such a synthesis is in fact quite unnecessary for the formation of practical principles.’’io I would argue that, in this instance, the synthesis is not unnecessary it is impossible. It is not that it is not clear what is meant by synthesising the elements, it is that the elements do not synthesise. Hirst earlier argued that philosophical beliefs need to be “considered conjointly”” with other elements in formulating principles for practice. Clearly this is a more appropriate phrase, though again it says nothing of their relationship.

Professor Peters’ metaphor of “mesh” is interesting in this context also for it recognises the distinction yet inter-relationship of the parts. Yet, significantly, it really says nothing about the nature of that inter-relationship. If it is taken to imply, like a mesh of wire, a regular inter-weaving it would seem simply to be misleading. But perhaps the reference is not to a mesh of wire but to a meshing of cog wheels. Cog wheels, however, are fundamentally the same type of thing as one another (as indeed are strands of wire) so the metaphor is of limited assistance.

Langford’s argument is also of significance, He states that “the findings of educational psychology, educational sociology, philo-

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sophy of education, economics of education and so on need to be reconciled and synthesised.” Earlier however, while accepting that “teachers and educational administrators will certainly need to form some sort of synoptic view” he argues that “it is certainly not the job of the philosopher”” to provide this synopsis. The significance lies in the use of both the term synthesis and the term synopsis. If, as I have argued, a fully synthetic view is an impossibility then it cannot be the job of any one discipline to provide it. Nor is it the job of the philosopher to provide all the parts for the synopsis. But, contra Langford, I would argue that it is part of the job of the philosopher to explicate the nature of the parts and, by so doing, to make clearer to the teacher and to the administrator the elements in the synopsis which is being formed. Hirst’s “conjoint consideration”, Peters’ “mesh” and Langford’s “some sort of synopsis” are all concerned with the same broad area. And in considering the nature of the elements to be conjointly considered, the parts of the mesh, the constituents of the synopsis, the philosopher is profoundly affecting educational practice. For if a teacher or administrator misunderstands the nature of these parts his judgment will to this extent be distorted. A teacher who believes that certain actions should be taken because they are deducible from the nature of the child will never question these actions. If they are re-interpreted as involving, inter alia, his own value judgments, they may even be abandoned completely. If not, however, I think it likely that the changed view of the source of the judgments will affect the nature of the actions carried through as a result of them. If one holds that child development involves, necessarily, developing children as well as allowing children to develop, one acts differently.

1 should make a similar point, in a much more generalised way, regarding the criticisms levelled at the theoretical basis of the Plowden Report. In the Preface to “Perspectives on Plowden” Peters claims that the Report’s “general view of education” is “theoretically not satisfactory and is far from appropriate to the practical needs of our time”, yet that “we are not attacking the Recommendations of the Report.”” The claim not to be attacking the Recommendations may of course be a kind of psychological deflector. But if it means what it says one’s only conclusion must be that the Recommendations were disconnected from the theoretical view of education. This is a logical point. If the theory was unsatisfactory and led to inappropriate practice yet the Recommendations were satisfactory it follows that they could not have been closely connected with the theory.

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In a wholly different context I should like to give another reference to practical recommendations being made following an unsatisfactory theoretical analysis. This is the claim that “one of the most important things that scientists in Training Colleges have to do is to take over the education course.”14 Ever since I read this claim from Dr. Christopherson it has been one which has repeatedly recurred in my mind. His grounds for it were that science should be “the inevitable norm of all our thinking”. Every decision, he held, can be rationally justified in the light of the evidence. His clearest example came from outside education: capital punishment is a quantitative and not a qualitative issue; “the applicability of the scientific method is not in dispute.” Now if this theoretical view were in fact defensible certain practical results would clearly follow. But the theory is indefensible. I cannot here fully show why but basically of course there are no grounds for supposing that scientific arguments are paradigms for all rational arguments. Of course the practice could still be advocated without any reasons being given at all. But destroying the theory destroys the rational grounds for the practice. Thus if the practice is to be rationally justified new theoretical grounds for it must be educed.

So far I have aimed primarily to show that the argument that the philosopher has nothing directly to say which leads to practical decisions is faulty unless the relationship between the two is regarded as one of strict deduction. If it is regarded as the latter then, equally with the philosopher, the sociologist, the politician, the man in the street, the teacher, the administrator-all have nothing to say of a theoretical kind which in isolation leads automatically to particular decisions. If it is not so regarded then the work of the philosopher is as much an element in the building of a theory as a basis of practice as any other element. And in one sense it is primus inter pares, not in that it achieves a synthesis but in that it shows the relationship between the parts, even when that relationship is one of logical distinctness. As Hirst says of his own view of educational theory, “the analysis I have given . . . is certainly philosophical in character . . . Its validity rests on philosophical tests”.15

If my argument on this is accepted, then the mistake which philosophers have been making in repeatedly arguing for the distinctness of their activities from educational practice is in giving the impression that they are in a different category here from other specialists. I hope that I have shown that this is not so. Untroubled by tender semantic and logical consciences, most of the other experts plunge into the practical debate, frequently putting in their

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own value judgments a t the beginning of an argument as assumptions and producing them again a t the end disguised as empirical conclusions. At the very least philosophers have a negative role in preventing this kind of sleight of mind. As George Barnett puts it in the context of the U.S.A.: “it is not philosophers who whisper-or shout-into the ears of the mighty. At court they are nowhere to be seen, not even as jesters. Rather they are notable for their absence. On the other hand psychologists, political scientists, sociologists, anthropologists and other social and behavioural scientists, are engaged in making and carrying out social policy.””’ My argument is that there are no valid grounds for the exclusion of the philosopher.

The case is not concluded however by arguing that the philosopher is not alone in being unable of himself to guarantee prescrip- tions for practice or that he has a positive role in elaborating the nature of the parts of educational theory. My third objection to the first premise of my characterisation of the argument for the independence of the activities of the philosopher from practical consequences, was that there may be elements in an argument within educational theory which are neither empirical evidence nor value judgment. To take a fairly small scale example: suppose that it is shown that concept A is logically prior to concept B, that it is logically absurd to suppose that concept B could be developed without at least some understanding of concept A. This is not an empirical point nor is it an evaluation. It is to be shown to be true by philosophical argument. Yet it may serve as an element in a theoretical discussion of education designed to lead to practical consequences.

Or to take a much broader p i n t : the relationship between ethics and religion. Suppose that one accepts that ethical judgments are logically independent of religious beliefs. If one accepts this, it is as a result of philosophical arguments (that is if it is rational at all. One might I suppose just believe it intuitively.) Certainly it is neither an empirical point nor an evaluation. Yet such a view of logical independence, or equally a contrary view of logical dependence, might well serve as a premise in a theoretical argument designed to lead to practical consequences in education.

How do arguments such as these, arguments of a philosophical kind, function in an educational discussion? At an early point in my argument I accepted the position that the philosopher qua philosopher has no particular right to evaluate. I am satisfied with the broad view of a sharp is/ought distinction which resists the move to

PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL PRACT:CE 53

a prescriptive conclusion. But this point, which lies at the root of the philosopher’s refusal to prescribe, is apt to obscure the fact that very frequently, in an actual theoretical argument concerning educational practice, the evaluative premise which is required in order that a prescriptive conclusion may be arrived at is not as a matter of fact in question. Of course the prescription may be opposed through denying the evaluative premise; of course confusion may be caused by suppressing it. But neither of these points should obscure the possibility of the evaluative premise being in fact agreed upon by the parties to a dispute.

To return to my examples, why cannot one move from agreement that concept A is logically prior to concept B to the prescription that a teacher ought not to try to teach an understanding of concept B without paying attention to concept A? The reason would appear to be that one needs to insert a premise such as ‘provided that he really wishes to produce an understanding of concept B and not to waste the children’s time.’ But this is hardly likely to be disputed. In a sense it is straining the point to call it an evaluative premise at all.

In the case of the view that religion and ethics are logically independent, clearly there is no entailment of a conclusion that they should be taught in such a way as to be true to this, or, further, to make this clear to the pupils. There are doubtless those who would wish to produce arguments for the means justifying the end in favour of teaching dependence of morals upon religion. But suppose that ‘thou shalt not teach as though that which is independent were dependent’ is granted, as frequently it would be in practice. Then an argument can be built up with far-reaching practical conclusions for both moral and religious education.

I am suggesting that some philosophers have become so obsessed by their arguments against making substantive evaluation that they are frequently neglectful of the fact that in u particular dispute the evaluation element may not be in question. Nor indeed may the empirical evidence. And in this case the philosopher has a professional role to play in seeking to relate theory to practice. The view 1 am adopting here seems similar to that called by J. R. Burnett the “situational” view,” although he had in mind the relation of philosophies to practice.

Constantly to re-iterate that the philosopher cannot make evalua- tions seems to me analogous to constantly drawing attention to the small print in a contract. The small print is of vital importance; i t contains conditions under which the contract will become null and

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void. But one does not advertise one’s services by drawing attention to the small print. (This is precisely why it is smaZZ print). Of course the unscrupulous may hope to cash in on the gullible public by imposing impossible conditions. But one does not blame a travel agent, for example, for not stressing in his brochure points for which in the last analysis he will not accept responsibility. The philosopher should always bear in mind the evaluative assumptions in an argument, the ‘small print’, but he is under an obligation to enunciate them only when it is vital to the question in hand. It seems to me that in effect many philosophers are saying that because of the small print they will not be drawn into making any recommendations at all.

Abraham Edel in reviewing Professor Peters’ ‘Ethics and Educa- tion’ refers to the “genuflection to the revolution in philosophy” as having become “sheer ritual”. ‘‘The high level directives can be found if we look for them not in places of honor, but in asides, obvious presuppositions and practical applications”.’s The asides may be interpreted as the right of the philosopher to evaluate ‘qua man’; the presuppositions may perhaps be the largely undisputed value premises. If this is so then the practical applications become philosophically quite permissible.

At this point I will give two further examples. I have argued in detail elsewhere,’o that analysis of the concepts social and educational can demonstrate that the right wing argument that decisions on secondary school reorganisation should be made on educational rather than social grounds cannot be sustained. From this argument I would draw the practical conclusion that such decisions should, in a democratic society, be made at the political level and not by educational experts. In this case I am not concerned with arguing for a particular decision; in fact I use the islought distinction in arguing the case for the decision to be made at the political level. But it is nevertheless a practical recommendation as a result of a philosophical argument. I agree that there is still an evaluative assumption, that involved in the proviso ‘in a democratic society’, but this does nothing more than set the context of the debate-where the decision should be made in a democratic society is precisely what is being discussed.

As a second further example I shall argue a case briefly here. Clearly the case itself is of interest but, in this context, I am of course concerned with it as one with practical implications. The Humanities Curriculum Project, directed by Lawrence Stenhouse, is engaged in the preparation of packs of evidence for use in work on

PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL PRACT:CE 55

various broad themes such as the family, law and order, education, war and so on. This evidence is not a supportive extra; on the contrary it is the base of the learning process. Learning, in the view of those working on the project, must arise through enquiry into the materials. And in this the role of the teacher is to be one of neutrality: “the teacher should be a neutral and impartial Chairman”.”

This argument is particularly interesting in the present context because it is itself based on the importance of the fact/value distinction. It is because a value position cannot in the last resort be logically defended, Stenhouse argues, that the teacher must adopt this position. But Stenhouse is clear that neutrality is to be equated neither with indifference nor with irresponsibility: “In order to teach controversial matters well a teacher must believe them to be important, and this implies that he must have deep commitments of his own. He is not teaching neutrality so much as the nature of responsible commitment.”’l

Stenhouse is well aware of objections on empirical grounds. How many teachers can in fact manage to refrain from value judgments? If not made explicitly are they not made by gesture, intonation, facial expression?

But are the distinctions upon which the argument is based philosophically sound? They might perhaps be regarded as being closely allied to arguments for procedural principles in ethics in the form of transcendental deductions. Stenhouse could be regarded as saying that the principle of rational discussion in the light of the evidence has to be accepted if the enquiry based discussion is to get under way at all and that its acceptance is procedural rather than evaluative. If this is accepted then we have a situation in which a procedure is adopted on a basis of acceptance of rationality and then, within this procedure, neutrality must be maintained even if irrational arguments are being allowed to go unchalleged in the discussion. This might be countered by arguing that the irrational argument does not go unchallenged, for the chairman, within the terms of his own value-neutrality, can ask for reasons to be given for any view put forward. This however produces an odd situation, for the very reason €or his value-neutrality is the assumption that the reasons cannot be conclusive. There is thus a commitment to the giving of reasons together with a conviction that the reasons cannot clinch the argument. Is the chairman therefore in a position to challenge the validity of reasons? By definition these can only be more or less good. And what constitutes being a “better reason’?

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It is by no means clear what meaning can be put to this if no substantive position at all is adopted.

Furthermore does not the position of procedural neutrality itself involve a position which is properly described as substantive? It may be proper to listen to other people’s arguments in favour of their own substantive positions and to seek to give reasons for one’s own, but this does not entail an educational procedure such as that which Stenhouse advocates. His advocacy is not based on the view that education entails this but on his own judgment that it is desir- able. And this judgment, though backed by reasons, is no more conclusive than any other position for which ‘reasonable reasons’ can be given. He writes that “a democracy values a dialogue between responsibly held views rather than a consensus.”22 Such a position cannot be held to be one which would be common to any rational man. It is not a necessary condition of democracy. Many might doubt the likelihood of consensus, on empirical grounds, but to hold that dialogue is an alternative to consensus, and a superior one at that, rather than a means to it, is to value pluralism as an end in itself. And this, I submit, is a substantive position. ‘Toleration’ is an ambiguous concept also. In some contexts it appears a procedural principle, in some a prudential one, but in others a valued end in itself.

The position of valuing diversity is expressed particularly strongly by David Stenhouse: “the final goodness of a teacher may be con- stituted by his efficiency in contributing to human survival and continuing adaptiveness by nurturing a diversity of ‘goodnesses’ in the young person whom he teaches-the very diversity being itself a ‘go~dness’.”’~ This appears to me a combination of empirical predic- tion and personal evaluation but the writer sees it as involving “ ‘laws of nature’ (largely opaque to us at present) to which our notions of ‘goodness’ . . . must eventually approximate.””

I have dealt with this example at some fair length. If I am right in supposing that procedural neutrality cannot be sharply distin- guished from value neutrality then advocacy of a practice which relies on a sharp distinction must be amended. Again it is true that the practice may remain unaltered. But only if either other forms of justification are found for it or if the arguments against the existing rationale are rebutted. For my own thesis it is vital to add that, as with other examples, I do not have to show unquestionably the validity of my own argument within the example. It is sufficient to establish, hypothetically, that if an objection to a justificatory argument on philosophical grounds is held to be valid then the

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practice is affected. Again it is not necessary to show that it must be affected as practice, o r in practice, but rather that it is affected in practice if it is rationally grounded.

This example is of particular force because Lawrence Stenhouse appears to aim to show that his position is value-free and thus, in this case, there would be no general value premise to question. My argument consists of a claim on philosophical grounds that this is not so and therefore that the rationale of the practice must be changed by the very process of re-introducing a disputable substantive position.

I recognise that in my argument here I have been criticising an attempt to use philosophical arguments to establish practice and therefore that it may seem to run counter to my own case. But it is my intention to establish that they can lead directly to practical consequences not of course that they must. And it is also vital to realise that in establishing that a position is invalid there are consequences for practice, just as in establishing a position as valid. In the case of my criticism of the Humanities Project, the debate can continue for those who accept that there is value in pluralism.

Before concluding I shall add one further example of a somewhat different type. The keen eye of the philosopher must be directed towards the activities of his colleagues in other areas of educational theorising. For example what is one to make of the 'Aims of Primary Education Project' of the Teaching Research Unit of the School of Education at Birmingham University? In the Radio Times of May 22nd 1969 there appeared a questionnaire sponsored by this Unit. Parents were asked to say whether or not the purpose of progressive methods in Primary Education was clear to then; What purpose? Is there a purpose? What could be meant by being clear? How clear? Is there intrinsic clarity to find'?

They were then asked whether they agreed with progressive methods in Primary Education. With what would they be agreeing or disagreeing? Can one, conceptually, disagree with progress?

1 realise, of course, that one might be informed that those who designed the questionnaire were aware of these points but that, sociologically, the answers are significant; that they will show whether or not parents think that they are clear, think that they agree with progressive methods. But is this acceptable with no knowledge at all of the level of understanding behind the answers? Cou!d not the direct activity of a philosopher help to framc

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questions which could be answered directly by those who are themselves conceptually aware? And would this not be a direct practical result of theoretical activity?

Summary

1 I have attempted to demonstrate the following points: that although philosophy of education cannot of itself generate practical directives it is, in this respect, no different from any other discipline

2 that it has a particular function in characterising the nature of the constituent elements of a theoretical discussion in education and their inter-relationship

3 that it can itself provide arguments which function as elements in such a discussion

4 that, granted a general evaluative premise, the philosopher can construct arguments with practical conclusions for education

5 (albeit very briefly) that his critical function in analysing the activities of other disciplines is of fundamental practical importance.

I am fully aware that it may be argued that none of these points are at all new. Nevertheless the formulation of the argument that I made at the outset, while perhaps a caricature, emphasises the main features of a recognisable and fashionable position. The cumulative effect of my criticism is to suggest that the philosopher of education far from being impotent has a vital role in practice. In recent years philosophy of education has found a rigour and a vigour that it has lacked before. This is no accident. Yet it has been accompanied by the persistent denial of practical consequences; the Lockian under- labourer role suggests no function other than clearing the weeds of confusion. I have sought to suggest that the philosopher has a greater role to play that this, though he is neither the sole labourer nor the designer of the garden of practice. When Archambault says that “the philosophy of education should not, and must not, have as its aim the solution of immediate practical problems”,’s my response is to say ‘which aims?’ and ‘which problems?’ I hope to have shown that certain practical problems are philosophical in kind. Not all their elements are philosophical but that which constitutes the problem may be.

I am not blind to the fact that while philosophers of education have been limiting their claims to practical competence they have nevertheless often been accused of arrogance. Perhaps this is

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because the iron fist of practical confidence has been detected beneath the velvet glove of academic detachment. My suggestion is that it is high time that the glove was removed.

Philippa Fawcett College of Education

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1 2 3

4 5 6

7 8

9 10

11 12 13

14

15

16

17

18

19

Langford G. Philosophy and Education Macmillan, London, 1968. In Education for Teaching, Spring 1969, A.T.C.D.E., London. Wittgenstein L (trans Anscombe) Philosophical Investigation.r Blackwell, Oxford 1963 Paragraph 124. ibid Paragraph 126. ibid Paragraph 127. In Archambault (Ed.) Philosophical Analysis and Education Rout- ledge and Kegan Paul, London 1965 p 18. ibid p 2. O’Connor D. J . An introduction t o the Philosophy o j Educution Routledge and Kegan Paul, London 1957 p 106 footnote. op cit pp 8-9. In Tibble 3. W. (Ed) The Study of Education Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1966 p 54. ibid p 33. op cit p 14. Peters R. S . (Ed) Perspectives on Plowden Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1969 p ix . Christopherson D. G. “The Education of Britain’s Scientists who are Teachers” in Education f o r Teaching Nov. 1964 A.T.C.D.E., London. Hirst P. H. in Studies in Philo.snphy and Education VI 1, Illinois, Winter 1969 p 67. Barnett G. Philosophy and Educational Develapnzent Harrap, London, 1967 p xii. Burnett J. R. “Some Observations on the Logical Implications 2f Philosophic Theory for Educational Theory and Practice”, 1958, reprinted in Pai and Myers, Philosophic Problems and Education, Lippincott, Philadelphia and New York, 1967, p 29. Edel A. in Studies in Philosophy and Education VI 1 , Illinois, Winter 1968 pp 24-5. Thompson K . B. “A Critique of the Distinction between ‘Social’ and ‘Educational’ Issues as a Basis for Judgments Concerning Secondary School Re-organi.vation” Unpublished M.Ed. disser- tation, University of Bristol, 1968. (N.B. A paper based upon this

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is expected to be published in the British Journal of Educational Studies in February 1970). Stenhouse L. “Open-Minded Teaching” New Society No. 356, 24 July 1969, London.

20

21 ibid. 22 ibid. 23 Stenhouse D. “Good Persons, Good Teachers and Language

Games” in Ediicational Phiiosophy and Theory Vol 1 No. 1 May 1969, University of New South Wales, Pergamon Press.

24 ibid. 25 op cit p 9.

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Philosophy of Education and Educational Practice