My article “Liberal Education and Its Postmodern Critics,” published in the scholarly journal Academic Questions, is now available here.
From the opening:
It is a truism to say that education is politicized. Yet my goal here is to show that politicized battles over education are mostly not about politics but about philosophy. Policy battles are heated not only because the practical stakes are high, but because they affirm or deny entire philosophies of life. What is education’s mission? As teachers our goal is to develop within the child the knowledge, character, and skills necessary for successful living as an adult. That takes us directly into philosophy. If education is about knowledge, then what counts as knowledge, instead of merely having an opinion or a hypothesis? How is it acquired—by observation? reasoning? mysticism? faith?
Or is knowledge impossible? Epistemology is essential to education. If education is about character and preparation for successful living, then what is good character and what is successful living? …
“Liberal Education and Its Postmodern Critics,” Academic Questions, available here.
Unfortunately the link does not provide the article; it only says that “Springerlink is currently unavailable”. It claims that it is a technical problem, but I wonder…
I would love to read the article, because it is very relevant to the atmosphere at universities.
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Thank you for letting me know. The journal link (now gated) has been moved here: https://www.nas.org/academic-questions/32/3.
At my site is a PDF version, if that’s useful: https://www.stephenhicks.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/AQ_LiberalEducationAndItsPostmode.pdf.
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