Education's Epistemology Rationality, Diversity, and Critical Thinking

Education's Epistemology extends and further defends Harvey Siegel's "reasons conception" of critical thinking. It analyzes and emphasizes both the epistemic quality, and the dispositions and character traits that constitute the "critical spirit," that are central to a proper account of critical thinking; argues that that epistemic quality must be understood ultimately in terms of epistemic rationality; defends a conception of rationality that involves both rules and judgment; and argues that critical thinking has normative value over and above its instrumental tie to truth. Siegel also argues, contrary to currently popular multiculturalist thought, for both transcultural and universal philosophical ideals, including those of multiculturalism and critical thinking themselves.

Harvey Siegel is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Miami, Coral Gables FL. He is the author of five books, most recently Teaching Evolution in a Creation Nation and Teaching Thinking Skills. In addition, he has edited two books, including the Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Education. He works mainly in epistemology, philosophy of science, and philosophy of education.

Table of Contents
Preface and Acknowledgements
Introduction

Part I. Recent Statements and Developments of the Theory

1. Cultivating Reason
2. Education As Initiation into the Space of Reasons
3. Neither Humean Nor (Fully) Kantian Be

Part II. Dispositions, Virtues, and Indoctrination

4. What (Good) Are Thinking Dispositions?
5. 'You Take the Wheel, I'm Tired of Driving; Jesus, Show Me the Way': Doctrines, Indoctrination, and the Suppression of Critical Dispositions
6. The Role of Reasons in Moral Education
7. Critical Thinking and the Intellectual Virtues
8. Open-Mindedness, Critical Thinking, and Indoctrination

Part III. Values, Rationality, and the Value of Rationality

9. Is 'Education' a Thick Epistemic Concept?
10. Truth, Thinking, Testimony and Trust: Alvin Goldman on Epistemology and
Education
11. Rationality and Judgment
12. Too Much Epistemology? A Response to a Heideggerian Reconceptualizing of Critical Thinking

Part IV. Rationality and Cultural Diversity

13. Multiculturalism and the Possibility of Transcultural Educational and Philosophical Ideals
14. Argument Quality and Cultural Difference
15. Multiculturalism and Rationality
16. Epistemological Diversity and Educational Research: Much Ado about Nothing Much?
17. How Should We Educate Students Whose Cultures Frown upon Rational Disputation?: Cultural Difference and the Role of Reason in Multicultural Democratic Education