If this superstitious fear of spirits were taken away, and with it, prognostics from dreams, false prophecies, and many other things depending thereon, by which crafty ambitious persons abuse the simple people, men would be much more fitted than they are for civil obedience. And this ought to be the work of the schools [Thomas HObbes1]
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References
1.
Leviathan, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1946, Part I, Chapter II.
2.
Collected Works, Lawrence & Wishart, London, 1967, vol. 33, p. 75.
3.
‘Political education’, an inaugural lecture delivered at the London School of Economics and Political Science on 6 March 1951 and printed in Philosophy, Politics and Society, ed. Peter Laslett, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1967, and in Relationalism and Politics, Metheun, London, 1962.
4.
The Politics, Penguin Books, 1967, p. 299.
5.
The Nichomachean Ethics, Oxford University Press, London, 1959, Book X, chapter 9.
6.
Op. cit., p. 102.
7.
Representative Government, Everyman's Library, Dent, London, 1954, p. 280.
8.
It is instructive to compare Mill's overall position with that of the Newsom report: ‘A man who is ignorant of the society in which he lives, who knows nothing of its place in the world and who has not thought about his place in it, is not a free man even though he has a vote.’Half Our Future (the Newsom report), HMSO, London, 1963, quoted in HeaterDerek, ‘Political education in schools—the official attitude’,Teaching Politics, vol. 1, No. 1, May 1972.
9.
Selected Works, Lawrence & Wishart, London1970, p. 50.
10.
In ‘Political education’ (see note 3) Oakeshott argues that it is a mistake to try to derive the character of political education from a definition of politics because such a procedure makes political knowledge and political education ‘mere appendages’ of the activity of politics. Instead, he suggests, we need an understanding of the activity of politics, an understanding which, Oakeshott assures us, will include a recognition of the sort of education it involves. The nuances here are important to Oakeshott but the fact remains that in order to characterise political education he must first have his understanding (definition) of politics as ‘attending to the arrangements of a society’. His account of politics is therefore logically prior to his picture of political education, and his later Rylean account of the analogy between politics and cookery again involves the logical priority of his concept of politics to his concept of politics to his concept of political education.
11.
The indoctrination argument must be distinguished from the view discussed in Section I that belief in the importance of political education is the prerogative of any one political doctrine. That belief can be caricatured as ‘only nasty totalitarian countries practice political education’ or as ‘Only cunning bourgeois countries practise political education’. The indoctrination argument, however, can be caricatured as ‘Any country whatever that practises political education is nasty and cunning’.
12.
See, for example, EntwistleHarold: ‘Educational theory and the teaching of politics’, in The Teaching of Politics, ed. HeaterP. B., Methuen Education, Lond, 1969. Entwistle takes the work of Piaget and Bruner as the starting point for devising stratagems for the introduction of theoretical material to young children. In this connection it is interesting that the emphasis on the susceptibility of young children does not always leave the way open for the political education of adults. Colleagues of mine in extra-mural work have suggested that although adults are quite able to sort fact and propaganda political education must nevertheless be avoided. The reason given for this was that adult students are in a weak position vis-à -vis the lecturer and that they may be so in awe of them that they dare not dissent from what the lecturer proposes. I find this amazing.
13.
One thing these arguments have in common but which is hardly of philosophical interest is that they have, to my knowledge, been used informally by staff at a college of education to justify a ban on political societies on the campus. The argument culminated in a rhetorical question: if a student teacher or a lecturer holds political views and opinions, might he not abuse his position of authority—in school or college—by allowing his teaching of political matters to provide a basis for campaigning, perhaps even on matters of interest to his local education authority?—no encouragement must be given to this potential abuse.
14.
Language, Truth and Logic, Gollancz, London, 1962.
15.
Lecture on Ethics, Philosophical Review, vol. LXXIV, January 1965, p. 6.
16.
See, for example, RussellBertrandEducation and the Social Order, Unwin Books, London, 1967, chapter XV, ‘Propaganda in education’, p. 134.
17.
See, for example, Fifteen to Eighteen (the Crowther report), HMSO, London1959, No. 168-73; Bernard Crick, ‘On bias’, Teaching Politics, vol. 1, No. 1, May 1972; and several articles in D. B. Heater (ed.) (see note 12).
18.
‘The problem of bias’, in D. B. Heater (ed.) (see note 12), p. 172.
19.
‘Discussion of political socialization in the schools’,Harvard Educational Review, vol. 38, 1968, No. 3, p. 538.
20.
‘The introducing of politics’, in HeaterD. B. (ed.) (see note 12), p. 5.
21.
In current philosophy of education the best known exponent of this type of position is Paul H. Hirst. His main concern is not with political education but with religious education and the prior problem of religious knowledge. See, for example, his article ‘Forms of knowledge: a reply to Elizabeth Hindess’,Proceedings of the Philosopy of Education Society of Great Britian, Vol. VII, No. 2, July 1973.
22.
W. D. Hudson introducesThe Is-Ought Question (Controversies in Philosophy), Macmillan London1969, with the remark ‘The central problem in moral philosophy is that commonly known as the is-ought problem. How is what is the case related to what ought to be the case—statements of fact to moral judgements?’ (Editor's introduction, p. 11.) The persistence of what is thought to be Hume's problem is testimony to the dominance of the empiricist conception of knowledge in modern philosophy.
For alternative concepts of politics see, for example, MacphersonC. B., Democratic Theory: Essays in Retrieval, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1973, and Nicos Poulantzas, Fascism and Dictatorship, NLB, 1974. For non-positivist concepts of knowledge see, for example, Gaston Bachelard, The Philosophy of No: a Philosopy of the New Scientific Mind, Orion Press, New York, 1968, and M. Foucault, The Order of Things, Tavistock Publications, London, 1970, and The Archaeology of Knowledge, Tavistock Publications, 1972. There is now an excellent introduction to the works of Bachelard, Georges Canguilhem and Foucault by Dominique Lecourt: Marxism and Epistemology: Bachelard, Canguilem, Foucault, NLB, 1975. The alternatives to positivist thought remain mysterious without a clear definition of positivism; Leszek Kolakowski, Positivist Philosophy, Penguin Books, 1972, provides a good discussion of the meaning of positivism.
