This article reflects on different conceptions of educational philosophy, their strengths and weaknesses. Against the backdrop of major alternatives, and the received view, delineated by RS Peters, John White’s recent radically practical conception is critically assessed. Notwithstanding a pluralist answer to the question ‘What is, can or ought philosophy of education to be?’, the article advocates the asymmetrical dependence of all other conceptions upon the analytic conception of educational philosophy as the primus inter pares the first among equals.
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