Abstract
Philosophers have claimed that education aims at fostering disparate epistemic goals. In this paper we focus on an important segment of this debate involving conversation between Alvin Goldman and Harvey Siegel. Goldman claims that education is essentially aimed at producing true beliefs. Siegel contends that education is essentially aimed at fostering both true beliefs and, independently, critical thinking and rational belief. Although we find Siegel’s position intuitively more plausible than Goldman’s, we also find Siegel’s defence of it wanting. We suggest novel argumentative strategies that draw on Siegel’s own arguments but look to us more promising.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 492-506 |
| Number of pages | 15 |
| Journal | Journal of Philosophy of Education |
| Volume | 54 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| Early online date | 19 Jan 2020 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Jun 2020 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We are grateful to the audience of the Epistemology of Education Workshop at the University of Pavia in April 2018, audience of the Annual Philosophy of Education Conference of Great Britain (PESGB) at the University of Oxford in March 2019, and an anonymous referee of this Journal for comments on early versions of this article. Special thanks to Harvey Siegel for detailed comments and criticism on a draft of this paper.
Keywords
- epistemic aims of education
- epistemic aims
- epistemic rationality
- critical thinking testimony
- Alvin Goldman
- Harvey Siegel
- BELIEF
