Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemR.S. Peters, education and value( 1984)R. S. Peters is recognized as the founder of the recent and more respectable approach to philosophizing about education known as "the philosophy of education". Following his appointment to the Chair of Philosophy of Education at the University of London Institute of Education in 1962, the influence of his work and his approach to the philosophical treatment of educational problems grew enormously. Since the mid 1960's he has been pro�eminent as the champion of the study, with no rival who has threatened seriously to eclipse his importance or displace his fundamental approach with a more effective one. Philosophizing about education is still done largely in conscious appreciation of the relation it bears to Peters' work, whether it be "pro", "anti" or connected by some other tangent to Peters. Even those who have decided more recently to "start afresh" without him and his approach, and conduct their philosophical business elsewhere, are arguably part of a post�Peters phenomenon. There may be some sound reasons at the moment for seeking new philosophical pastures, or asking very seriously "Where do we go from here ?", but those who choose to forsake rather than to refute continue to testify to the imposing dominance of Peters' work. There is a sense in which Peters' very pre�eminence tends to attract anyone who wishes to make their own mark in philosophizing about education: whether it is merely to make it clear where they stand in relation to him, or to add to or subtract from aspects of his position and work. That is one motive for engaging with what he has written. The present thesis was conceived from the viewpoint of having been initially very impressed with Peters' singular and distinctive contribution to educational philosophy, but of having come over a period of time � through teaching it and working through its implications � to believe that, while it encompasses much that is important and worthwhile, it lacks something fundamental in the area of values and value connections. As is often the case, convictions like these are formed before one is able to specify what, if anything, is wrong. So, the work on the thesis itself provided the means of testing the conviction, by investigating seriously and at some length the relation between 'education' and 'value' in Peters' work. The work of examining the adequacy of Peters' value claims in relation to education � which occupies the larger portion of the thesis� may seem initially to be more negative than positive in import, but is an indication of the depth to which it was necessary to go to unravel the complex and often elusive threads of his value assumptions. A large number of criticisms of Peters, including many made or implied initially by other writers, are noted and incorporated into a sustained treatment, which is independently structured and given as much coherence as it seemed possible to achieve with Peters' work in this area. On the positive side, a case is made during the course of the critical review in the first three chapters for a single non valuative necessary condition for "education". An original suggestion about how value is related to education is proposed towards the end of the fourth chapter, where an alternative way of understanding the higher valuation Peters calls "intrinsic" is recommended to overcome the various problems that beset his case. The fifth chapter is devoted to explaining this new notion � that value is intrinsic to educated individuals rather than to education itself � and there is an assessment of its significance in the conclusion. It provides a viable alternative to Peters' account of value, and is the major positive contribution of the thesis.