Education After Dewey
    
      Contents


      Introduction: An Enigmatic Transition

      PART ONE: THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS
      1. Beyond Progressivism and Conservatism
      2. Dewey's Copernican Revolution
      3. What Is Called Thinking?
      PART TWO: EDUCATION IN THE HUMAN SCIENCES
      4. Teaching Philosophy: The Scholastic and the Thinker
      5. Teaching Religion: Spiritual Training or Indoctrination?
      6. Teaching Ethics: From Moralism to Experimentalism
      7. Teaching Politics: Training for Democratic Citizenship
      8. Teaching History: The Past and the Present
      9. Teaching Literature: Life and Narrative

 

 

Publisher's Description

This study re-examines John Dewey's philosophy of education, and asks how well it stands up today in view of developments in continental European philosophy. Do Martin Heidegger's statements on the nature of thinking compel a re-examination of Dewey's view? Does Hans-Georg Gadamer's philosophy of experience advance beyond Dewey's experimental model? How does a Deweyan view of moral or political education look in light of Hannah Arendt's theory of judgment, or Paulo Freire's theory of dialogical education?

Part One of this study looks at Dewey's conceptions of experience and thinking in connection with two of the most important figures in twentieth-century phenomenology and hermeneutics: Heidegger and Gadamer. It also returns to an old distinction in the philosophy of education between progressivism and conservatism, in order to situate and clarify Dewey's position and to frame the argument of this book.

Part Two applies this principled framework to the teaching of several disciplines of the human sciences: philosophy, religion, ethics, politics, history, and literature. These are discussed with reference to the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche, John Caputo, Hannah Arendt, Paulo Freire, Michel Foucault, and Paul Ricoeur.

"Fairfield offers a veritable feast of fresh insights into the relations between Dewey's educational philosophy and the work of the major figures of the continental tradition, and his chapters on the hot-button issues of ethics, religion, and politics in the classroom provide much needed guidance to teachers at every academic level."
--- Professor Larry A. Hickman, Director of the Center for Dewey Studies and Professor of Philosophy at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, USA

"This book takes up the message of the real Dewey in going 'beyond progressivism and conservatism.' In so doing, it takes up some of the main themes of Dewey's philosophy and, in similar vein, transcends the dualism which stills bedevils educational thinking and policy. It is a most important contribution to the growing interest in what Dewey really argued."
--- Professor Richard Pring, Department of Education, University of Oxford, UK