Description

Title: The History of Educational Ideas and the Credibility of Philosophy of Education

By: James R. Muir

Date: 1998

Abstract: A number of educationists has recently advocated a return to the history of educational ideas, in part as a necessary component of educational philosophy. The prerequisite of a credible return to the history of educational ideas is some awareness of who and what constitute that history. The general intention of this paper is to argue that (to use John Darling’s apt phrase) ‘the marginalization of the historical’ has been so extreme within educational studies that even this minimal awareness is no longer available. The specific intention of this paper is to demonstrate how serious the marginalization of the history of educational philosophy has been, with reference to Isocrates.