Paul H. Hirst – författare

The papers in this volume provide a coherent philosophical study of a group of important and pressing educational issues such as the selection of objectives for less able children, the fundamental characteristics of teaching and the integration of the curriculum. A thesis on the necessary differentiation of knowledge into logically distinct forms is outlined, and is defended against recent philosophical criticisms. Its implications for curriculum planning are examined, with particular reference to the urgent problems of adeqately characterizing liberal education and those forms of moral and religious education that are appropriate in maintained schools.

This volume critically and constructively discusses philosophical questions which have particular bearing on the formulation of educational aims. The book is divided into three major parts: the first deals with the nature of education, and discusses the various general aims, such as 'mental health', 'socialization' and 'creativity' which have been thought to characterize it; the second section is concerned with the nature of reason and its relationship to feeling, will and action; finally the development of different aspects of reason in an educational context is considered.

This volume critically and constructively discusses philosophical questions which have particular bearing on the formulation of educational aims. The book is divided into three major parts: the first deals with the nature of education, and discusses the various general aims, such as 'mental health', 'socialization' and 'creativity' which have been thought to characterize it; the second section is concerned with the nature of reason and its relationship to feeling, will and action; finally the development of different aspects of reason in an educational context is considered.

The papers in this volume provide a coherent philosophical study of a group of important and pressing educational issues such as the selection of objectives for less able children, the fundamental characteristics of teaching and the integration of the curriculum. A thesis on the necessary differentiation of knowledge into logically distinct forms is outlined, and is defended against recent philosophical criticisms. Its implications for curriculum planning are examined, with particular reference to the urgent problems of adeqately characterizing liberal education and those forms of moral and religious education that are appropriate in maintained schools.

At the time this book was first published the disciplines of philosophy of education, educational psychology, sociology of education and the history of education had developed rapidly. The papers in this volume outline the developments that took place. The first paper analyses the nature of a theory concerned with determining practice and the place of academic disciplines within that. What emerges is the crucial role of these disciplines, but also the need to develop much more adequately a domain of practical principles, assessed and critically reformulated in the light of those disciplines. The following papers are concerned with the contributions four of those disciplines are now making.