Philosophy and Physical Education: Analysis,Epistemology and Axiology

Abstract

In this paper / offer both selective summary and critique of the recent philosophical contributions to this journal by Andrew Reid, David Carr and Jim Parry. In the first sections I offer some remarks about the nature of analytical philosophy and its impact on liberal educational writings that have had a significant impact on all British philosophers of physical education. I then offer a critique of the presuppositions of Carr's conceptualisation of education within a traditional liberal paradigm following Richard Peters' ground breaking work in the sixties and seventies. I also articulate difficulties with Reid's conception of physical education as merely that which physical educators professionally engage in. In sympathy with a conception of education that is not dominated by the cognitive imperialism implicit in Petersian education, I propose a broader account that entertains a range of cultural practices that can give significance and meaning to a persons life rather than merely those intellectual practices that inform the rational mind. In contrast to Reid's axiological account of physical education as essentially hedonistic, and to Parry's gestures toward an Olympic humanism, l point to the need for an explicitly normative social philosophical account of education which incorporates those sporting practices that comprise part of a rich, non-individualistic, communitarian inheritance.