The SAGE Handbook of the Philosophy of Education is designed primarily to be useful to students studying the philosophy of education in the context of the study of educational foundations or theory. It is also designed to be of use to practising teachers who wish to gain easy access to current philosophical thinking on particular contemporary educational issues, and to educationalists of all types who want a guide to questions relating to the nature, the history, and the current state of the art of philosophy of education.

We have sought to balance the handbook in three particular ways. First, we have sought to give fair weight to different styles of philosophy or modes of philosophizing about education. Secondly, we have tried to give due recognition to both past and present educational philosophizing. Thirdly, we have endeavoured to give even-handed attention both to the general ‘perennial’ issues in educational philosophy and to a set of more narrowly focused issues of contemporary educational concern.

To this end, we have dedicated Section 1 specifically to addressing different conceptions of philosophy of education, and to exploring its appropriate concerns and methodologies. This section also examines the vexed relationship of educational philosophy to other fields of educational theory, and to the problems and circumstances of educational practice.

Section 2 is devoted to certain thinkers who, in our judgement, are either especially significant in the development of the discipline and its concerns, such as Plato, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and John Dewey, or are influential in current philosophical discussions, such as the phenomenologists and the post-structuralists. Here, we have also gathered matter pertaining more generally to the history of the philosophy of education. It hardly needs saying that the problem of selection is great. There are many different criteria we might have adopted and differences of opinion as to who most obviously satisfies them. We have not attempted to come up with a list simply of those whom we think most worthy of study. Instead, we have focused on those figures who may most obviously be said to have produced, through something recognizable as philosophical reasoning, a coherent overall view of education and its practices. In the various chapters we have focused either on an individual or on a cluster of individuals (sometimes over a span of time) who can clearly be identified as representing some kind of school of thought. In each case, in order to highlight continuities and to help the reader to see connections, developments and patterns and to find their way through the [Page xix]literature, the text refers to ongoing influences and relationships. At the end of this section, there is a concise biographical dictionary of educational thinkers that provides brief reference to a group of individuals, not otherwise treated in this volume, who have nonetheless made some important or significant contribution to educational thought, indicating their focus and where to locate it in their works.

Section 3 is dedicated to contemporary philosophical thought on education; this body of thought provides the basis and reference point for a philosophical treatment of certain particular contemporary problems. Here we have attempted to address a common criticism of earlier handbooks (and textbooks) on philosophy of education, namely that they have given insufficient attention to the needs and interests of non-philosophical colleagues. We believe it is vitally important to include discussions of topics that, though not exclusively, nor even primarily, philosophical, nonetheless do raise philosophical issues. It will become apparent that numerous discussions of educational concerns have a philosophical character. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine any educational issue that is not related to assumptions about knowledge or values, or which would not benefit from critical consideration of key concepts. This final section seeks to explore the contribution that philosophy can make to educational practice; it seeks to show that parents, teachers and policy-makers, just as much as academics, can benefit from the philosophy of education. Thus our aim is, on the one hand, to accommodate the desire for a handbook inclusive enough to bring together both contemporary and traditional reflections on the nature of education, and to draw on the relevant work of both philosophers and educational theorists. We have tried, on the other hand, to fulfil the hope that this broad coverage will go beyond a superficial survey of the field, and that it will offer insightful and relatively detailed examinations of certain central subjects. For convenience, the chapters in this section are arranged into four groups: ‘Teaching and general education’; ‘Knowledge, learning and curriculum’; ‘Social principles in education’; and ‘Aspects of education’.

Our hope is that the reader of this handbook will realize, through philosophically informed discussion of a range of educational thinkers and topics, the relevance of philosophical enquiry for all of those studying education. Indeed, if the key question for sound educational policy making and practice is, as has often been supposed, ‘What kind of a curriculum would ensure a better future and quality of life in moral and spiritual as well as material and economic terms for generations to come?’, we urgently need to bring to our deliberations a philosophical clarity, as well as a depth of thought and argument, that is too often missing from educational debate. However, we would be disappointed if the reader put down this handbook with the impression that philosophy was only, or even mainly, handmaiden to other disciplines or sciences associated with educational thinking and practice. Philosophy (from the Greek for the love of knowledge or wisdom) requires thinkers to think for themselves. This is why Immanuel Kant asserted that it is not possible to learn [Page xx]philosophy; it is only possible to learnhow to philosophize. This does not mean that the philosopher ought to live a life of solitary contemplation, but it does mean that the philosopher is compelled to think for him or herself. This is perhaps why philosophical conversations often seem characterized by ambiguity and perplexity. Important questions are rarely resolved with simple answers unless, of course, we choose to borrow uncritically the dogmas and doctrines of others. For Bertrand Russell, the person who does decide to live so uncritically ‘goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age or his nation, and from convictions which have grown up in his mind without the cooperation or consent of his deliberate reason’. So, we suggest, philosophy is fundamental. The perennial debates of philosophers who have written about education have an intrinsic interest and value, but they also have considerable utility.