Philosophy and the Metaphysical Achievements of Education: Language and Reason

Description

Tracing the deep connections between philosophy and education, Ryan McInerney argues that we must use philosophy to reflect on the significance of educational practice to all human endeavour. He uses a broad approach which takes in the relationships governing philosophy, education, and language, to reveal education's fundamental achievements and metaphysical significance. The realization of educational ideals and policies are read alongside growing skepticism regarding the theoretical and practical significance of philosophical thinking, and the emphasis on resource efficiency and measurable outcomes which characterise schooling today. It is from this context that McInerney defends the value inherent to the philosophy of education. Drawing upon contemporary continental and analytic thinkers including Nietzsche, Gadamer, and Wittgenstein, McInerney charts the role of education in shaping the child's metaphysical transformation through language acquisition. Connecting early years and primary school education, McInerney pinpoints rationality as the crucial factor which produces critical, thinking beings. He presents the pursuit of philosophically minded education as a rational pursuit which enables us to philosophise and educate others in turn, dispensing with the epistemological and conceptual foundationalisms of the past.

Ryan McInerney is Sessional Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, Canada.

This is a consistently provocative and absorbing book. McInerney argues, clearly and convincingly, that reality is the home of thinking, that philosophy orients us to reality, and that education works to help that orientation take place. The importance of philosophy of education could hardly be set out better. * Richard Smith, Professor of Education, University of Durham, UK * This book is a tour de force. Ryan McInerney sets out to reveal the metaphysical significance of education as a defining component of the human condition. To this end, he explores education's role in the cultivation of the conceptual powers that enable us to engage with reality as an object of theoretical understanding, and as a source of mystery and wonder. McInerney treats with great sensitivity philosophy's propensity to assert the limits of what can be thought and represents education at its best as awakening in students the desire to explore, and sometimes to transcend, conceptual boundaries. In this way, education must aspire to two ends that stand in an uneasy relation with one another: to make students "at home in the world" and to disclose the Unheimlichkeit (uncanniness) of being. Notwithstanding these grand themes, McInerney never forgets the real life of educational practice and he provides a thoughtful analysis of philosophy of education's attempt to respond to the instrumentalism and managerialism that infects so much contemporary educational policy and practice. McInerney shows great respect for language, both in his treatment of language as a vehicle of reason, and in the manner of his writing, which combines clarity and rigor with an engaging lyricism. * David Bakhurst, George Whalley Distinguished University Professor, Queen's University, Canada *