The paper notes the decline in philosophy of education in educational studies from its heyday in the 1970s and 1980s. The explanation is manifold, but includes the more utilitarian and managerial concerns which find less room for the questioning of assumptions distinctive of philosophical enquiry. The paper then uses the Nuffield Review of 14-19 Education and Training to demonstrate the central importance of philosophical thinking if one is to pass from the "disguised nonsense" to the "patent nonsense" in much educational research, policy and practice. The paper first starts with a nostalgic look back to the time when philosophy was flourishing in university departments like the one in Birmingham), not because it was a "golden age" to which we should return, but because it was a time when philosophy was seen to have a central place in deliberations about the content and conduct of education and in the research which should inform those deliberations. Second, the paper then points to a subsequent decline in the importance attached to the philosophy of education. Third, the author introduces the context of his argument--the Nuffield Review. Fourth, his thesis is illustrated with concrete examples of where failures of a philosophical kind affect that which is being reviewed--that "working through examples" being, as Socrates showed, a way to think philosophically. Fifth, the author reflects upon the notion of evidence, which, though permeating these examples and crucial to the research reviewed, rarely receives critical attention. Finally, sixth, the author pulls together what has been implicit, namely, what he believes it is to do philosophy and why it is so important at every level of educational thinking.