The Oxford Companion to Philosophy Part 26. The book is alphabetized by the whole headings of entries, as distinct from the first word of a heading. Hence, for example, abandonment comes before a priori and a posteriori. It is wise to look elsewhere if something seems to be missing. At the end of the book there is also a useful appendix on Logical Symbols as well as the appendices A Chronological Table of Philosophy and Maps of Philosophy. | 230 education history of the philosophy of somewhat immune. Rousseau s work can also be seen as the start of a pervasive interest in the details of child development in educational thought even if the details of the work of such as Piaget and Kohlberg owe more to the category-based philosophical psychology of Kant than to Rousseau himself. Despite differing radically on the beneficence of an unreformed nature Plato and Rousseau were at one in seeing education as part of an overarching political and social project. So indeed did Dewey whose philosophy of education combines Rousseauian child-centredness and hostility to traditional learning with a pragmatic socialism. Throughout his long and active life Dewey was involved with experimental schools and educational reform. He linked meaningful education with the child s own attempts to solve problems arising from its own fundamentally social experience. The full meaning of studies is secured only when they become integral parts of the child s conduct and character . . . as organic parts of his present needs and aims which in turn are social . Traditional education produces only barren symbols and flat residues of real knowledge. In addition it reinforces and perpetuates elitism and social divisions. The classroom should be a social enterprise in which all individuals have an opportunity to contribute in which all are engaged in communal projects a sort of democracy in miniature in which the teacher himself is not an external boss or dictator imposing curricular standards alien to the pupils lives and experiences but rather the leader of group activities who gives the group not cast-iron results but rather starting-points to be developed through the contributions of all involved. Dewey hopes that children will discover everything which it is useful for them to know by working on projects suggested by objects and materials from their everyday life. If this means that they never get round to studying the history and .
