The intention of this paper is to suggest that the educational philosophy of Allan Bloom merits renewed consideration, and that such consideration reveals major failings in contemporary educational philosophy. A prerequisite of such consideration is an examination of the ways in which his ideas have been misinterpreted. In particular, Bloom is neither a political conservative nor an educational traditionalist, nor an advocate of the Great Books programme. Bloom's recovery of the Socratic or classical political rationalist approach to education both reveals (...) enormous shortcomings in the dominant conceptions of the nature of philosophy of education, and revitalises an alternative conception already widely accepted among classicists and political philosophers. (shrink)

(2004). Is There a History of Educational Philosophy? John White vs the historical evidence. Educational Philosophy and Theory: Vol. 36, No. 1, pp. 35-56.

There is still some confusion over the literary evidence for the methods by which children and others learnt to write in the ancient world. There are four main sources: the analogy between the methods of thegrammatistesand the function of the laws in Plato,Protagoras326c–d, three passages in Quintilian, a passage from one of Seneca's letters and a short analogy in Maximus of Tyre.

This excellent book concludes Garver’s trilogy of interpretations of Aristotle’s practical philosophy. The unifying intention of the trilogy is captured by the word ‘confronting’ in the title of the second volume: to provide an interpretation of Aristotle’s practical philosophy, but also to argue that Aristotle offers compelling practical solutions to contemporary moral and political problems.The trilogy articulates the structure of ethical and political philosophy, and the relation between them. Garver argues that moral philosophy is concerned with how an individual lives (...) the best human life. Moral philosophy answers this question with a deductive structure of normative reasoning: (1) the ethical philosopher .. (shrink)

Western political philosophy may be more diverse than its supporters or critics have allowed in recent scholarship. This paper argues that political philosophy is the centre of Derrida's philosophical thought as a whole, and suggests that similarities between Isocrates and Derrida help us to better understand both the political thought of these thinkers and the historical diversity of Western political philosophy.