PL305 Philosophy of Education

In this course we will survey the central problem areas of philosophy of education through classic and contemporary authors from the Western tradition. The main questions we will be considering are: Where does knowledge come from? What constitutes an educational authority? What is the value of learning? How should the school be structured? How should the teacher relate to the student? What should an educated person know? Our goal will be two-fold: first, to learn how our authors thought through such questions; second, to think them through for ourselves. Our method will be to study the art of argumentation. By the end of the course you should be able to identify arguments, analyze them, and construct arguments of your own.