Johan Dahlbeck, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Education at Malmö University, Sweden. He has published several monographs and articles in different areas of philosophy of education, including Education and Free Will (Routledge, 2018) and Spinoza: Fiction and Manipulation in Civic Education (Springer, 2021).

• AcknowledgmentsAbbreviations and Note on Editions UsedAbstractKeywordsSECTION 1: BEGINNINGSIntroduction: A Truth Concealed Beneath a Beautiful Lie1 Emotional Manipulation and Affective Influence: A Philosophical Account2 Hans Vaihinger’s ‘As If’ and the Promotion of Educational Fictions3 Taking a Cue from Spinoza’s ExemplarsConclusion: The End of the BeginningSECTION 2: EXAMPLESIntroduction: Three Examples, Three Lessons (in Educational Fictionalism)4 Learning from Satan’s Mistake: Epistemological Restrictions and Imaginative Openings5 Recollecting Mr. Möller’s Transformative Gesture: Looking Back to Move Ahead6 Popular Images of Teachers: Control Freaks or Lovers of the Unknown?Conclusion: These Examples Are Nothing but FictionsSECTION 3: ENDINGSIntroduction: The Beginning of the End7 Educational Fictionalism and the Teaching of Truth Disguised as LiesConclusion: Acting ‘As If’ We Knew Where We Were GoingBibliography

Johan Dahlbeck, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Education at Malmö University, Sweden. He has published several monographs and articles in different areas of philosophy of education, including Education and Free Will (Routledge, 2018) and Spinoza: Fiction and Manipulation in Civic Education (Springer, 2021).

• AcknowledgmentsAbbreviations and Note on Editions UsedAbstractKeywordsSECTION 1: BEGINNINGSIntroduction: A Truth Concealed Beneath a Beautiful Lie1 Emotional Manipulation and Affective Influence: A Philosophical Account2 Hans Vaihinger’s ‘As If’ and the Promotion of Educational Fictions3 Taking a Cue from Spinoza’s ExemplarsConclusion: The End of the BeginningSECTION 2: EXAMPLESIntroduction: Three Examples, Three Lessons (in Educational Fictionalism)4 Learning from Satan’s Mistake: Epistemological Restrictions and Imaginative Openings5 Recollecting Mr. Möller’s Transformative Gesture: Looking Back to Move Ahead6 Popular Images of Teachers: Control Freaks or Lovers of the Unknown?Conclusion: These Examples Are Nothing but FictionsSECTION 3: ENDINGSIntroduction: The Beginning of the End7 Educational Fictionalism and the Teaching of Truth Disguised as LiesConclusion: Acting ‘As If’ We Knew Where We Were GoingBibliography

Johan Dahlbeck, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Education at Malmö University, Sweden. He has published several monographs and articles in different areas of philosophy of education, including Education and Free Will (Routledge, 2018) and Spinoza: Fiction and Manipulation in Civic Education (Springer, 2021).

• AcknowledgmentsAbbreviations and Note on Editions UsedAbstractKeywordsSECTION 1: BEGINNINGSIntroduction: A Truth Concealed Beneath a Beautiful Lie1 Emotional Manipulation and Affective Influence: A Philosophical Account2 Hans Vaihinger’s ‘As If’ and the Promotion of Educational Fictions3 Taking a Cue from Spinoza’s ExemplarsConclusion: The End of the BeginningSECTION 2: EXAMPLESIntroduction: Three Examples, Three Lessons (in Educational Fictionalism)4 Learning from Satan’s Mistake: Epistemological Restrictions and Imaginative Openings5 Recollecting Mr. Möller’s Transformative Gesture: Looking Back to Move Ahead6 Popular Images of Teachers: Control Freaks or Lovers of the Unknown?Conclusion: These Examples Are Nothing but FictionsSECTION 3: ENDINGSIntroduction: The Beginning of the End7 Educational Fictionalism and the Teaching of Truth Disguised as LiesConclusion: Acting ‘As If’ We Knew Where We Were GoingBibliography