Paul Hirst’s philosophical ‘conversion’ from forms of knowledge to forms of social practices was largely prompted by his radical reappraisal of the philosophical underpinnings that had validated his classic conception of liberal education. The primary motivation for Hirst’s later works was to remedy his own neglect of practical reason, whose sharp distinction from theoretical reason he acknowledged he had failed to appreciate. There is much to commend in his ‘practical’ turn. The main challenge that remains, however, is that the social (...) practices view is something of a ‘foundationalist’ two-part picture, where overwhelming priority is given to practical reason. I appreciate the importance of the two issues Hirst puts on the table, in his debate with Wilfred Carr particularly and in his later works more generally: the issues of cultivating phronesis and of making sense of the practical character of critical-reflective activities. But I argue that addressing these issues fully requires us to recognize that neither theoretical nor practical rationality can be intelligible apart from the other. To press the point home, I review the analogous debate between Hubert Dreyfus and John McDowell over whether to accept, and how to understand, the view that rational conceptuality in a relevant sense pervades not only deliberation and propositional thinking but also perception and embodied coping skills. I conclude by briefly considering the prospect that the legacy of Hirst and recent discussions around human nature, practical rationality, and the formation of reason will interactively enrich our philosophical-educational scholarship. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

This paper is a critical notice of Andrea Kern's bookSources of Knowledge. In the first part, I outline some criteria of adequacy I believe any credible philosophical account of knowledge should meet. In the second, I consider how Kern's book measures up to those criteria. Finally, I offer a sympathetic and constructive discussion of a number of key elements of Kern's approach, including the relation of her position to the philosophy of John McDowell, from which Kern draws inspiration; her defence (...) of disjunctivism; her concept of a rational capacity for knowledge and its acquisition; and her understanding of scepticism. (shrink)

ABSTRACT At the heart of our current environmental predicament lies the issue of our relationship with nature. Michael Bonnett’s educational rehabilitation of nature, which might be called a ‘metaphysical’ turn in nature-related issues, brings us back to the core question of educational-philosophical thinking: how we are to understand ourselves and our relation to the world. In this paper, by confronting his environmental philosophy of education with what John McDowell, in his debate with Hubert Dreyfus, terms the ‘pervasiveness thesis’ – that (...) conceptual rationality in a relevant sense pervades human lives – I try to offer an analytical supplement to the notion Bonnett entertains: that a phenomenological project to ‘retrieve’ nature and ‘ecologise’ education can have massive implications for the character of philosophy of education and the whole enterprise of education. I also argue a confluence of their nature-related ideas adds an educational nuance to the traditional picture of human beings as rational animals. (shrink)

David Bakhurst's 2011 book ‘The Formation of Reason’ explores the philosophy of John McDowell in general and the Aristotelian notion of second nature more specifically, topics to which philosophers of education have not yet given adequate attention. The book's widespread appeal led to the symposium ‘Second Nature, Bildung and McDowell: David Bakhurst's The Formation of Reason’, which appeared in the first issue of the 50th anniversary volume of the Journal of Philosophy of Education in 2016. Despite its obvious educational relevance, (...) whether and how Bakhurst's McDowellian line of philosophical argument shapes the domain of educational enquiry or discourse remains up for debate. The rich contributions of Sebastian Rödl, Paul Standish and Jan Derry help us confront this issue. Proceeding with an analysis that is partly explanatory and partly critical of the central aspects of their respective views, I try to show that the basic attraction of the McDowellian/Bakhurstian line of argument concerning educational thinking is that it enables us to address education in the proper context of the natural and the social. In other words, their depiction of a human being as a natural animal in a normative world allows us not to be perturbed either by the natural-scientific conception of the natural or by the social constructivist thinking of the social, both of which have occasionally distorted how education is addressed and therefore impoverished our understanding of education itself. I conclude with a brief word on the significance of continuing and advancing the conversation initiated by the symposium by noting two viable examples of future work. (shrink)