Results of the Boston University Mellon Sawyer seminar 20162-019 (www.mellophilemerge.com) reveal that social and philosophical drives are increasingly central to our uses of technology, including AI. This raises critical challenges for democracy, especially in a hyper-connected world where social media shapes human conduct in ways we are only…

Luce Irigaray offers a powerful 'philosophy of teaching' that connects with the ancient paradigm. In this paper, I discuss the relationship between teaching and love as this is depicted in Plato, and I look at Irigaray's reading of the "Symposium." Then I show how Irigaray's own philosophy can help us to think about the ideal teaching…

Making liberal democratic values meaningful to study in schools is a more complex issue than being a question of turning values into explicit educational goals (Schleicher) or of curing a motivational deficit (Critchley). Since values seem to play an important role in the practices and commitments of people's everyday lives, values are calling for…

In the US and elsewhere, creationist groups have challenged the mandatory science curriculum because it introduces the theory of evolution as the true story of biodiversity. This paper disaggregates this challenge in two distinctive levels. On the substantive level, creationists claim that Darwinian evolution is not value-neutral, as most…

This article is concerned with the downsides of using the language of professionalism in educational discourse. It suggests that the language of professionalization can be a powerful rhetorical device for promoting welcome and necessary changes in the field of teaching but that, in doing so, it can unintentionally misrepresent the work that…

In this essay I intentionally employ Nietzsche's genealogical method as a means to critique the complex concept of 'good' teaching, and at the same time reconstitute 'good' teaching in a form that is radically different from contemporary accounts. In order to do this, I start out by undertaking a genealogical analysis to both reveal the…

Elizabeth Anscombe, Mary Midgley, Iris Murdoch and Philippa Foot all studied at Oxford University during the Second World War. One of their wartime tutors was Donald MacKinnon. This paper gives a broad overview of MacKinnon's philosophical outlook as it was developing at this time. Four talks from between 1938 and 1941--'And the Son of Man That…

Whilst Kant is one of the most influential figures in the history of philosophy and was also, in his own time, an important theorist of education, he is sometimes regarded with suspicion by contemporary educational theorists. His philosophy, it is often maintained, is fraught with problematic dualisms and other familiar confusions of the…

It is common in environmental education literature to read about 'transforming' mindsets; for example, moving from humanist to post-humanist viewpoints, or adopting Indigenous Knowledge perspectives. To illustrate how complicated such conceptual shifts are, both philosophically and pedagogically, the paper explores how we come to see and regard…

From the perspective of art education, the worst-case philosophical scenario is the hedonist-subjectivist account of art. If we measure art by the pleasure we gain from it, it may seem senseless to attempt teaching the reception of art. David Hume's "Of the Standard of Taste" provides an argument for the art-education enthusiast,…

The loss of friendship can be a frequent occurrence for children as they explore their social worlds and navigate their way through the demands of particular relationships. Given that friendship is a relationship of special regard, and associated with a particular partiality to our friends, the ending of friendship and the subsequent interactions…

How has philosophical reflection contributed to the ways that we think about teaching? In this paper I explore two forms of narrative reflection on teaching--genealogies and portraits. Genealogies tell a story about the origins of teaching; portraits find expression in myths and other narrative forms. I explore two genealogies of teaching--one…

This article has an overall aim as follows: to develop an alternative understanding to a narrow view of education, and in particular teacher training--preparatory and continuing--in terms of economy, as well as the competencies needed for the teaching profession. It takes the view that such an alternative is or could be found in the ideas put…

Prompted by the centenary of the founding of Summerhill, in my contribution to this JOPE Suite on Democratic Education, I briefly explore both the admiring reciprocity and the subsidiary but significant differences of praxis between A.S. Neill and Alex Bloom, two remarkable pioneers of education in and for participatory democracy as a way of life.…

Liberal theorists often link autonomy and identity together, since, these liberals argue, an education that bestows a particular identity on children undermines their autonomy. The charge of schools ought to be to teach children to be open to a variety of identities. Encounters with diversity and cosmopolitanism are good, since they encourage…