PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION TODAY

A bstract .  In this review essay J.J. Chambliss assesses the current state of the field of philosophy of education through analysis of four recent edited compilations: Randall Curren's A Companion to Philosophy of Education ; Nigel Blake, Paul Smeyers, Richard Smith, and Paul Standish's The Blackwell Guide to Philosophy of Education ; Wilfred Carr's The RoutledgeFalmer Reader in Philosophy of Education ; and Randall Curren's Philosophy of Education: An Anthology . He considers how these books address the question of what constitutes philosophy of education, with specific reference to the approach each takes to two topics: feminism and practical reason. Then, taking as a starting point Carr's insight that a revised history of the philosophy of education could help us better understand the discipline, Chambliss traces the evolution of philosophy of education in the United States from the discipline's origins, dominated by a tension between Empiricism and Idealism; to the "schools of philosophy" approach — that is, applying a set of beliefs derived from a particular philosophical school to education — that prevailed through the mid-twentieth century; to the wide-ranging contemporary work in the field that draws from newer methodologies and philosophical research programs.