Philosophy of education is a study both of the aims of education and the most appropriate means of achieving those aims. This volume contains substantial selections from those works widely regarded as central to the development of the field. These are the "essential texts" that lay the foundation for further study. The text is historically organized, moving from classical thought (Plato, Aristotle), through the medieval period (Augustine), to modern perspectives (Locke, Rousseau, Wollstonecraft), and twentieth-century thinkers (Whitehead, Dewey). Each selection is followed by an extended interpretative essay in which a noted authority of our time highlights essential points from the readings and places them in a wider context.
Exhibiting both breadth and depth, this text is ideal as a reader for courses in philosophy of education, foundations of education, and the history of ideas.
Preface
1. Plato
Meno (complete)
Republic
Afterword, Robert S. Brumbaugh
2. Aristotle
Nicomachean Ethics
Politics
Afterword, Randall Curren
3. Augustine
On the Teacher
Afterword, Philip L. Quinn
4. John Locke
Some Thoughts Concerning Education
Afterword, Peter Gay
5. Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Emile
Afterword, William Boyd
6. Immanuel Kant
Lectures on Pedagogy
Afterword, Robert B. Louden
7. Mary Wollstonecraft
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
Afterword, Jane Roland Martin
8. John Stuart Mill
Inaugural Address at St. Andrews (complete)
Afterword, Elizabeth Anderson
9. Alfred North Whitehead
The Aims of Education
Afterword, Nathaniel M. Lawrence
10. John Dewey
Democracy and Education
Afterword, Sidney Hook
Biography
Steven M. Cahn is Professor of Philosophy at The City University of New York Graduate Center. Among the nine books he has authored are The Eclipse of Excellence, Education and the Democratic Ideal, Saints and Scamps: Ethics in Academia, revised edition, and From Student to Scholar: A Candid Guide to Becoming a Professor. He is also the editor of more than thirty volumes, including Morality, Responsibility and the University: Studies in Academic Ethics, The Affirmative Action Debate (Routledge), now in its second edition, and Classics of Western Philosophy, now in its seventh edition.
