Abstract

The editors of this book of readings have packed in a wealth of material in a way which evinces an imaginative conception of, as well as an ambitious program for a course in the philosophy of education. There are forty-three selections of varying completeness from thirty-six different authors; among the philosophers included are Kierkegaard, Schlick, Kant, Ayer, Blanshard, Scheffler, Stace, Moore, Feigl, Russell, Lewis, Dewey, James, Royce, and Peirce. Plato is the only pre-Kantian philosopher to make an appearance. Half of the selections do not concern education or the philosophy of education directly. Rather, they consider one or more of the four main problem areas of philosophy which the editors have decided gear into problems in the philosophy of education most directly. These areas are the nature of philosophy, metaphysics or the nature of reality, the nature of knowledge, and the nature of value. The section on metaphysics is epistemologically slanted, as might be expected where the concern is for the relation of teaching and learning to the nature of reality. The statements of the philosophers on the general philosophical problems are given at the beginning of each of the sections and then followed by applications of the philosophical position by philosophers, once again, and educational theorists to the field of education. Since too often the philosophy of education is taught in the education rather than the philosophy department, the liberal dose of straight philosophy should prove extremely helpful to the student of education who is accustomed to receiving the philosophy appropriate to the philosophy of education in a highly diluted form.—E. A. R.