1st Edition
The Eclipse of Reason: Reclaiming Western Education for Today
1. Introduction: Understanding Education
2. The Birth of Reason and the Origins of Education
3. Antiquity: The Formation of the Western Educational Tradition
4. Christianity: The Decline and Revival of the Western Educational Tradition
5. The Enlightenment and the Emergence of Progressive Education
6. Education and State Schooling
7. Democracy and Education
8. Education Today: The Demise of the Western Educational Tradition
Conclusion: Reclaiming Education for Today
Biography
Wilfred Carr is Emeritus Professor of Education, University of Sheffield, UK.
"This beautifully written book provides a compelling account of why the main aim of western education is to cultivate the capacity to reason, and how the meaning and educational importance of this aim has changed over time in response to changing historical conditions. Wilfred Carr makes a strong case for the need to revive and reclaim this educational aim in the social and political climate that exists today.”
Fazal Rizvi, Emeritus Professor, University of Melbourne Australia
"This book explains how cultivating our ability to reason became the unique purpose of Western education and how this purpose has been eroded by the recent establishment of mass schooling and the pervasive character of neoliberalism. Carr concisely outlines the history of this conception of education and draws on a range of historically important educational philosophies to argue that there is the urgent need for educators to reclaim it for today."
Professor Eleanore Hargreaves, Faculty of Education and Society, University College London, UK
