Eamonn Callan; McLaughlin on Parental Rights, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 19, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 111–118, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467.

Rodger Beehler; The Schools and Indoctrination, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 19, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 261–272, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.14.

Open-mindedness enjoys widespread recognition as an intellectual virtue. This is evident, among other ways, in its appearance on nearly every list of intellectual virtues in the virtue epistemology literature.1 Despite its popularity, however, it is far from clear what exactly open-mindedness amounts to: that is, what sort of intellectual orientation or activity is essential to it. In fact, there are ways of thinking about open-mindedness that cast serious doubt on its status as an intellectual virtue. Consider the following description, from (...) Robert Roberts and Jay Wood (2007), of a ‘bright college freshman, taking an introductory course in philosophy.’ Given this student’s ‘taste for ideas,’ she .. (shrink)

First published in 1966, this book was written to serve as an introductory textbook in the philosophy of education, focusing on ethics and social philosophy. It presents a distinctive point of view both about education and ethical theory and arrived at a time when education was a matter of great public concern. It looks at questions such as ‘What do we actually mean by education?’ and provides a proper ethical foundation for education in a democratic society. The book will appeal (...) to both teachers and students of philosophy as well as education. (shrink)

In ‘Religious Upbringing Reconsidered’ Michael Hand revisits the debate on the right of parents to give their children a religious upbringing in a liberal context. According to him, the logical difficulty lies in the fact that parents cannot both impart religious beliefs and avoid indoctrination. While Peter Gardner and Jim Mackenzie have responded to Hand's paper and raised a number of pertinent issues, what is missing is a fuller treatment of indoctrination and belief inculcation for children. In this paper, I (...) argue that Hand's fallacy lies in his flawed understanding of indoctrination and belief inculcation: the inculcation of non-rational beliefs, far from being indoctrinatory, is in fact necessary for children in the process of growing up. (shrink)

Introduction 'Indoctrination' belongs to a family of concepts which includes ' teaching', 'education', 'instruction', and 'learning'. ...

There is, on the face of it, a logical difficulty as well as a practical one about ascribing to parents both a right to give their children a religious upbringing and a duty to avoid indoctrinating them. Curiously, this logical difficulty was largely overlooked in the debate on religious upbringing and parental rights between Terence McLaughlin, Eamonn Callan and Peter Gardner in the 1980s. In this paper I set out the terms of the logical problem and propose a solution to (...) it. (shrink)

Michael Hand's recent paper, ‘Religious Upbringing Reconsidered', re-opens a debate that was flourishing over a decade ago in this journal and, long before that, in the works of others. In this response I examine Hand's claims that earlier contributions to the debate passed over the central problem and that he can solve that problem. I endeavour to show that several of Hand's arguments, such as those dealing with indoctrination, as well as his claims may be flawed, that the relevance of (...) his inquiries is open to question, but that his hidden and, apparently, unacknowledged agenda should not remain hidden or passed over. (shrink)

In this book I offer a critical, comparative and empirically-informed defense of Islamic schools in the West. To do so I elaborate an idealized philosophy of Islamic education, against which I evaluate the situation in three different Western countries. I examine in detail notions of cultural coherence, the scope of parental authority v. a child's interests, as well as the state's role in regulating religious schools. Further, using Catholic schools as an analogous case, I speculate on the likely future of (...) Western Islamic schools. (shrink)

This book rests on the conviction that critical thought is of the first importance in the conception and organization of educational activities. ...

This book is the first systematic treatment of 'responsibilist' or character-based virtue epistemology, an approach to epistemology that focuses on intellectual ...

Almost all theories of knowledge and justified belief employ moral concepts and forms of argument borrowed from moral theories, but none of them pay attention to the current renaissance in virtue ethics. This remarkable book is the first attempt to establish a theory of knowledge based on the model of virtue theory in ethics. The book develops the concept of an intellectual virtue, and then shows how the concept can be used to give an account of the major concepts in (...) epistemology, including the concept of knowledge. This highly original work of philosophy for professionals will also provide students with an excellent introduction to epistemology, virtue theory, and the relationship between ethics and epistemology. (shrink)