Education and Conversation

David Bakhurst is Charlton Professor of Philosophy, Queen’s University, Canada, and a Visiting Professor at IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society, University College London, UK. He is the author, among other works, of The Formation of Reason, and editor of The Social Self (with C. Sypnowich), Jerome Bruner (with S. Shanker) and Thinking about Reasons (with B. Hooker and M. O. Little).Paul Fairfield is Professor of Philosophy, Queen’s University, Canada. He is the author of, among other works, Philosophical Hermeneutics Reinterpreted, Education After Dewey, and editor of Education, Dialogue and Hermeneutics and John Dewey and Continental Philosophy.

• Table of Contents:Introduction, David Bakhurst and Paul Fairfield1. Education and Conversation, David Bakhurst (Queen's University, Canada)2. Experience in Experience and Its Modes, Barry Allen (McMaster University, Canada)3. Oakeshottian Pragmatism – Conversation or Inquiry?, Cheryl Misak (University of Toronto, Canada)4. Bildung, Post-Kantian Idealism and the Conversation of Mankind, James Scott Johnston (Memorial University, Canada)5. Conservatism, Perfectionism and Equality, Christine Sypnowich (Queen’s University, Canada)6. Oakeshott, Bonnett, Derrida and the Possibilities of Thought, Emma Williams (University of Warwick, UK)7. A Turn in the Conversation, Paul Standish (Institute of Education, University College London, UK)8. A Phenomenology of Listening, Paul Fairfield (Queen's University, Canada)9. Conversation and Processes of Recognition, Shaun Gallagher (University of Memphis, USA)10. Old Directions for New Minds, Nancy Salay (Queen’s University, Canada)11. Education and Autonomy, Sebastian Rödl (University of Leipzig, Germany)12. Getting to Hogwarts - Michael Oakeshott, Ivan Illich and J. K. Rowling on 'School', Babette Babich (Fordham University, USA)Index

Drawing together leading figures from philosophy and education, Bakhurst and Fairfield’s Education and Conversation positions Oakeshott’s work within a contemporary context, offering not only an important contribution to the understanding of Oakeshott’s own thinking, but also showing why his work remains relevant today. The conversational vision that Oakeshott enunciates, and upon which Bakhurst and Fairfield’s contributors elaborate, provides a compelling alternative to the unthinking instrumentalism and reductionism that seems currently to hold sway in business, governmental, and even in many educational circles. This is a valuable book on an important theme.