Abstract

Education is a fertile ground for neuroscientific applications. However, at the scholarly level this has predominantly been addressed by cognitive psychology and the emerging field of neuroeducation. Although in its very early stages, there is also now a nascent interest by philosophers of education with respect to the intersections of neuroscience, education, and research. The chapter uses neuroscience to provide phenomena for philosophy of education to think and ask questions about, while remaining philosophical and educational. The chapter begins with a survey of the various ways of critical philosophical engagement with neuroscience’s and neuroeducation’s empirical literature, including suggested improvements on the concepts and ideas that frame the neuroscience-education intersection. This includes neuromyths, commercialization, neuroimaging, scientific reductionism, and technological enhancements. It then surveys the opposite direction, where engagement with neuroscience unsettles familiar philosophical concepts, resulting in new lines of philosophical thinking within the discipline. This includes cultural differences, plasticity, and open dynamic systems. It ends with a call for further philosophical inquiry in this emerging intersection.