Ryan N. S. Topping – författare

This title offers a coherent account of St Augustine's educational thought, including coverage of the reception and influence of his work and its relevance today. St Augustine is indisputably a major thinker in education. Ryan Topping's volume offers the most coherent account of St Augustine's educational thought. This work is divided into: intellectual biography; critical exposition of St Augustine's work; the reception and influence of St Augustine's work; and, the relevance of the work today. This title comes from a major international reference series providing comprehensive accounts of the work of seminal educational thinkers from a variety of periods, disciplines and traditions. It is the most ambitious and prestigious such project ever published - a definitive resource for at least a generation. The thinkers include: Aquinas, Aristotle, Bourdieu, Bruner, Dewey, Foucault, Freire, Holt, Kant, Locke, Montessori, Neill, Newman, Owen, Peters, Piaget, Plato, Rousseau, Steiner, Vygotsky, West and Wollstonecraft.

After setting Augustine’s thought firmly within the context of his life and times, Ryan Topping examines in turn the causes of education (the purposes, pedagogy, curriculum, and limits of learning) as Augustine understood them. Augustine’s towering influence over Medieval and Renaissance theorists – from Hugh of St Victor, to Aquinas, to Erasmus – is traced. The book concludes by drawing Augustine into dialogue with contemporary philosophers, exploring the influence of his meditations on higher education and suggesting how his ideas can reinvigorate for our generation the project of liberal learning.