In "EPAT", vol. 36, no. 1, 2004, James Muir takes the author and fellow philosophers of education to task for their ignorance of the history of philosophy of education. "[T]oo many currently influential educationists, Professor White in particular, are literally unaware that educational philosophy has a history more than three hundred years in duration" (p. 35). He also believes that the history of philosophy of education "has no contemporary intellectual value for philosophers of education", and that in turning their back on this history in favour of attachment to currently fashionable theories in general philosophy, the latter have taken a wrong turning. They fail to recognise the intellectual autonomy of educational philosophy. This article presents the author's reply to James Muir and focuses on the nature of philosophy of education. Muir's main point against the author is that he is wrong in thinking that a continuous history of philosophy of education begins around 1750: there is in fact an unbroken chain of such thinking going right back to Socrates. But their positions are not necessarily incompatible.