Abstract

In this paper I distinguish between education and its prerequisites and try to defend the ontological and epistemological priority of the latter. This distinction parallels Wittgenstein's distinctions between knowledge and its river-bed, justification and its grounds, explaining and showing, learning and acquisition. With respect to moral thinking and education, I argue that the fundamental moral principles occupy a position akin to that of the river-bed propositions; that these principles are embedded in ordinary human activities and forms of life and, therefore, ought to be taught by example and by practice and not by abstract moral thinking or contrived moral dilemmas, as some rationalist moral theorists sugges‡