Since their inception in 1993 OFSTED inspections have generated considerable controversy amongst teachers and educationists generally, Much of the criticism to date has centred on the effects which such inspections have had on schools and their staffs. In contrast little sustained concern has been shown about the underlying assumptions of the OFSTED inspection process. This article identifies as the central feature of that process a particular but tacit conception of judgement. This conception is examined from an essentially Wittgensteinian perspective and (...) is shown to rely on an imprecise understanding of the nature of criteria. It is argued that the OFSTED approach implicitly represents what are in fact conventional criteria, having no guarantee of broad agreement, as if they were criteria having such agreement. As a result severe doubts are raised about the validity of the judgements made and hence of the inspection process generally. (shrink)

This article was first published in 1982 in Educational Analysis (4, 75–91) and republished in 1998 (Hirst, P. H., & White, P. (Eds.), Philosophy of education: Major themes in the analytic tradition, Vol. 1, Philosophy and education, Part 1, pp. 61–78. London: Routledge). I was then a lecturer in philosophy of education at Sheffield University teaching the subject to Master’s students on both full- and part-time programmes. My first degree was in philosophy, read under D. W. Hamlyn and David Cooper (...) and, given their interests, inevitably emphasized the philosophy of language, in particular the work of Wittgenstein in this field. When I subsequently turned my attention to the philosophy of education it seemed obvious to me that there were serious problems with Professor Peters’ approach to language, and I had particular difficulties with his approach to criteria, meaning theory and what seemed an odd interpretation of a transcendental argument. This article thus set out to show that the then dominant form of philosophy of education seemed not to take account of developments in the philosophy of language that preceded Professor Peters’ early work by at least a decade and which cast serious doubt on the enterprise as it was then understood. As the articles in the 1998 collection indicate, I was not alone in thinking there was something amiss, although at the time I seemed to be ploughing a somewhat lonely furrow. In revisiting this early article some 30 years after it was first published I have found to my surprise that there is little I would now change, although I have been forcibly reminded of the very lively discussions Professor Peters and I had over these issues. The fact that there is little I would now add to, or subtract from, my critique is in itself a telling comment on the enduring and influential legacy of the approach to the philosophy of education that Professor Peters championed so powerfully. (shrink)